Pepe Fran­cis is an ex­tra­or­di­nary pan­man. He's been through the mill. He's been there, done that.

Now he's mak­ing a name for him­self in steel­band ad­min­is­tra­tion way over in fog­gy Lon­don, Eng­land.

From the Mor­vant Ebonites, Pepe has climbed the top rung. He is now chair­man of the British As­so­ci­a­tion of Steel­bands (BAS). This is an or­gan­i­sa­tion he has led for 30 years. Wow! Pepe is like cooked food, he's darn good. Some 52 bands, come un­der his con­trol. Un­der his stew­ard­ship, the BAS has over­seen a num­ber of projects, pan ex­plo­sion, a show­cas­ing of youth tal­ent and de­vel­op­ment in com­pos­ing and ar­rang­ing. This has been go­ing on for 12 years.

A feath­er in his cap is the ho­n­our­ing of vet­er­an pan com­pos­er/arranger Earl "Bar­ney" Rod­ney of So­lo Har­monites fame. Pepe is al­so cred­it­ed with in­tro­duc­ing J'Ou­vert in­to Noth­inghill Car­ni­val. There was ap­pre­hen­sion by the se­cu­ri­ty au­thor­i­ties, but their fears soon gave way to good vibes. Pepe, who is as­so­ci­at­ed with Ebony Steel, is con­tem­plat­ing giv­ing up the chair­man­ship of the British As­so­ci­a­tion of Steel­bands. "I want to move on," he said, "I want a suc­ces­sor but no one is tak­ing up the chal­lenge. Thir­ty years is a long time." The en­er­getic Pepe is al­so on the ad­vi­so­ry board of the Noth­inghill Car­ni­val, which gen­er­ates 97 mil­lion pounds an­nu­al­ly. How­ev­er, the Lon­don Panora­ma has been strug­gling for fund­ing over the years, and this year it is in doubt.

"It might, as well as it might not, take place. It's al­ways a bat­tle with the au­thor­i­ties to stage Panora­ma," Pepe said. For his 30 years of ser­vice Pepe was ho­n­oured by the as­so­ci­a­tion in a glit­ter­ing cer­e­mo­ny last De­cem­ber. He is deeply thrilled that his per­for­mance has been recog­nised.

Pepe's mes­sage to tuners...

Look to Eu­rope for pans

"Scrap the G Pan!" This is the feel­ing of Pepe Fran­cis, chair­man of the British As­so­ci­a­tion of Steel­bands (BAS). The Gen­e­sis pan, which is the brain­child of Pro­fes­sor Brain Copeland and his team, was launched a few years ago. The con­cept be­hind the pan, in­sti­gat­ed by for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, was to brand T&T as the "home of the steel­pan" when du­bi­ous claims were made. The pan, launched in 2008 with much fan­fare at Queen's Hall, Port-of-Spain, was played by the Na­tion­al Steel Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra (NSSO). So far not much has been heard about the G-Pan, al­though some steel­bands, Phase Two Pan Groove and Skif­fle Bunch, have them.

Pan tuners find the met­al is too hard, and the pan to dif­fi­cult to car­ry. Pepe thinks it's too "bulky."

"It's not prac­ti­cal," he said. About pan tuners gripe that pans are dif­fi­cult to ob­tain and the qual­i­ty is not good, Pepe said: "Pans are avail­able in Eu­rope. Van leer sells the best drums. If you want drums, you can make them to or­der." He said bands in Eu­rope get their drums from Hol­land and Den­mark. There are drums avail­able. There's a place in Coven­try that makes drums to or­der." Pepe will be ex­treme­ly hap­py when the pan head­quar­ters at Or­ange Groove, Trinci­ty, is built. One of his goals in the re-es­tab­lish­ment of Steel Pan Eu­ro­pean (now de­funct) to guide the for­tunes of steel­bands in Eu­rope. He al­so hopes to serve at the ex­ec­u­tive lev­el of Pan Trin­ba­go.

Who is Earl Rod­ney?

The British As­so­ci­a­tion of Steel­bands (BAS), led by Pepe Fran­cis, recog­nised the con­tri­bu­tion to pan of Earl "Bar­ney" Rod­ney in 2007. Rod­ney, a Point Fortin son-of-the-soil, blazed a trail in the sev­en­ties with So­lo Har­monites. An ac­com­plished arranger mu­si­cian, pan­nist and com­pos­er, long be­fore Len "Boogsie" Sharpe and Ray Homan, Rod­ney led the So­lo Har­monites to four wins: The Wreck­er (1968); Queen of the Band (1971); St Thomas Girl (1972); and Jeri­cho (1974). He has al­so dis­tin­guished him­self as a mu­si­cian of note, ar­rang­ing mu­sic for sev­er­al ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, among them Ar­row, Spar­row, Kitch­en­er, Melody and Short Shirt of An­tigua.

A defin­ing mo­ment in Rod­ney's ca­reer, was the for­ma­tion of the band Friends and Coun­try­men.

The band com­prised stel­lar mu­si­cians in all de­part­ments, the likes of which Trin­ba­go has not seen since the ear­ly 1970s. Rod­ney's skill as a pan­nist is al­so phe­nom­e­nal. This mu­si­cal trou­ba­dour has en­riched the lives of his friends and coun­try­men. In 2007, Pan Trin­ba­go ded­i­cat­ed the Na­tion­al Panora­ma to this bril­liant Trin­bag­on­ian.