Melis­sa Doughty

At the mere men­tion of his so­bri­quet it ap­peared that move­ment be­came in­vol­un­tary. Arms, hands, feet ap­peared to take on a life unique­ly its own. In uni­son, hun­dreds, some may even ar­gue thou­sands of peo­ple moved as African rhythms seam­less­ly in­ter­mixed with rhythms at­trib­uted to soul. Dust sheet­ed the hun­dreds of pa­trons gath­ered in Skin­ner's Park, San Fer­nan­do as Austin Lyons (Su­perBlue) de­liv­ered an­oth­er time­less per­for­mance.

But for many years the flip of the mi­cro­phone, the Bap­tist rhythms, the trade­mark blue fell silent. How­ev­er, 2013 has been her­ald­ed as his re­turn to the ca­lyp­so king­dom. Lyons' 2013 song Fan­tas­tic Fri­day has pushed him in­to the pub­lic's spot­light once again but many ask if this is tru­ly his tri­umphant re­turn. His name car­ries with it many firsts–the first So­ca Monarch, first ca­lyp­son­ian to ap­pear on Sesame Street, the first ca­lyp­son­ian to per­form at Wem­b­ley Con­ven­tion Cen­tre in Lon­don, Unit­ed King­dom.

The eight-time Road March King and five-time So­ca Monarch was born on May 25, 1956, and raised in Point Fortin, south Trinidad and for years dom­i­nat­ed the so­ca space with songs such as Sig­nal to Lara, So­ca Bap­tist, Flag Par­ty, Re­bec­ca, Ethel and many more. Per­son­al prob­lems–known and un­known–kept him from the art form for which he is cred­it­ed with its mod­ern in­car­na­tion.

'Glad to see him back'

Ron­nie McIn­tosh, the first ca­lyp­son­ian to de­throne Lyons at the 1995 So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion with his song On the Road, said in a tele­phone in­ter­view, "It is good to have him back." McIn­tosh, who worked close­ly with Lyons when his band Chan­de­lier backed him dur­ing the ear­ly '90s, said he felt like a mem­ber of his band was re­turn­ing.

Su­perBlue, he said, was sched­uled to per­form along­side him­self and David Rud­der dur­ing this year's com­pe­ti­tion in the seg­ment A Trib­ute to the Clas­sics but be­cause of the pop­u­lar­i­ty of his song he was re­placed.

McIn­tosh re­called dur­ing Lyons' per­for­mance of his 1994 hit Flag Par­ty at Skin­ner's Park, Lyons climbed on­to the scaf­fold­ing where he, af­ter the first verse, ex­pe­ri­enced dif­fi­cul­ty in hear­ing the band (Chan­de­lier) so McIn­tosh sang parts of the song to guide him.

He said by him guid­ing Lyons the re­la­tion­ship ex­tend­ed and so in 1995, he as­sist­ed McIn­tosh by writ­ing On the Road, which gained McIn­tosh the So­ca Monarch in 1995. With a chuck­le he said, "I won. Pt Fortin came down and pelt the car. Pt Fortin wasn't too hap­py and Su­perBlue wasn't too hap­py ei­ther." But McIn­tosh ex­pressed joy at see­ing Lyons "back."

Josanne Leonard: He nev­er left the par­ty

But for Josanne Leonard, com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist and me­dia con­sul­tant and "lover of T&T'S cul­ture", her Face­Book page flood­ed with com­ments when she wrote: "I was hap­py and sad to be in the Mur­ray Street yard tonight (3Canal's Back­yard Jam)...hap­py to be up close and per­son­al with mu­si­cal ge­nius...and sad be­cause we dis­card­ed him so eas­i­ly.

I could not wait un­til to­mor­row morn­ing...I went look­ing for the two of my favourite CDs–Su­perBlue Bac­cha­nal Time and Su­perBlue Flag Par­ty and up­loaded to my iPod. I urge you to go out and buy his CDs (not pi­rate)...read his lyrics and lis­ten to his mu­sic. And yes, Car­ni­val 95 with Sig­nal to Lara.

Ex­pe­ri­ence his mu­sic with so many of our ac­com­plished and tal­ent­ed mu­si­cians on these al­bums–in­clud­ing Roy Cape and the Kaiso All Stars, Pel­ham God­dard, Al­bert Bushe, Tony Voisin, Roger Ja­gasar, Ger­ald Ram­per­sad and back-up singers like Mar­i­lyn Williams, Pat­sy Hold­er. I know that the pre­view tonight is a teas­er for a great come-back per­for­mance from Su­perBlue. Big re­spect to 3 Canal and their pro­duc­tion team. It's a great col­lab­o­ra­tion for Fan­tas­tic Fri­day!"

But none of the 34 com­ments ex­pressed any­thing neg­a­tive about the leg­endary per­former. If Leonard had her way, Lyons would not have to com­pete at So­ca Monarch. In­stead he would be a guest per­former at the event, paid hand­some­ly for his con­tri­bu­tions to the mu­sic's de­vel­op­ment.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian Leonard said the ques­tion to be posed should not be whether Lyons still "had it," be­cause his im­pact on ca­lyp­so's de­vel­op­ment has been im­mea­sur­able. "The im­pact he has–the whole genre of mu­sic, the '80s and '90s–re­mained rel­e­vant as an artiste."

She said he was nev­er ir­rel­e­vant since his im­pact was felt in every­thing put out in the '90s and be­yond. Com­pared to Michael Jack­son, Paul Mc­Cart­ney and leg­endary mu­sic pro­duc­er Quin­cy Jones, she said, Lyons is a leg­end and should not sim­ply be as­sessed for one song he pro­duced. "Blue in the Car­ni­val is some­thing to be cel­e­brat­ed even if he does not have a song that knocks it out the park.

"Su­perBlue nev­er left the par­ty be­cause every­one who came af­ter him hasn't stopped do­ing what he is do­ing," she said.

Leonard said while Fan­tas­tic Fri­day may not be a great cre­ative gem, it con­tained clever hooks and metaphors, ex­am­ple "A voice out of the blue." Many of the sym­bols of Car­ni­val, such as big flags and rags, she said, orig­i­nat­ed from Lyons' mu­sic. She said many old­er artistes keep en­ter­ing com­pe­ti­tions since no space has been suc­cess­ful­ly cre­at­ed for the artiste to tran­si­tion in­to.

"Spaces are not pro­vid­ed for the artistes to move in­to that are ap­pro­pri­ate for their time," she said. When asked if this was a come­back for Lyons, Leonard sim­ply smiled and said, "He nev­er left."