Deb­bie Ja­cob

The lights blinked off in the Sa­van­nah stage and the crowd roared when a pic­ture of the late, great pan­man Rudolph Charles beamed on­to the gi­ant screen. When the lights flashed back on,David Rud­der raised his arm, clenched his foot and de­liv­ered The Ham­mer. And still there was one more weapon in that 1986 Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals: the Bahia Gyul com­ing to life through Rud­der's Bap­tist chant. Ear­ly Di­manche Gras morn­ing, Rud­der walked away from Car­ni­val 1986 as the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch. He would be­come Road March King. He was al­ready the Young King. Ca­lyp­so con­nois­seurs knew they had wit­nessed a defin­ing point in ca­lyp­so his­to­ry.Look­ing back on those achieve­ments of 1986, Rud­der re­alis­es the strong re­ac­tions it evoked that Car­ni­val.

"Peo­ple were pulled all over the place...I re­mem­ber the morn­ing of the show, my moth­er went to a shop and the shop­keep­er was telling some­one there was a Bel­mont boy in the show. That guy in the shop said, 'Rud­der will come last.' That was mag­ic for me. Gen­er­al­ly, I don't feel pres­sure, but com­ments like that meant I felt even more re­laxed," says Rud­der. "Be­cause there were no ex­pec­ta­tions. No one thought I could win. I went to the Sa­van­nah that night, and I felt no pres­sure."Rud­der was ac­cus­tomed to work­ing the stage. As the co-lead singer of Char­lie's Roots (along with Christo­pher "Tam­bu" Her­bert), he was tread­ing on new ter­ri­to­ry in the Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals.

"The stage was like sec­ond na­ture to me. That's why I didn't put any girl or prop on stage. I want­ed to stand there and make peo­ple feel that Bahia gyul in their minds. I re­mem­ber when Gary Dore (who or­gan­ised the stage pre­sen­ta­tion in the Sa­van­nah) had said to me the on­ly per­son to have ever con­trolled that stage was Shad­ow. He just walked in a cir­cle. I want­ed that kind of pow­er. All I re­mem­ber is cut­ting the gig and try­ing in The Ham­mer to cov­er every inch of the stage," says Rud­der.

Spar­row named him King David

With the crowd roar­ing at his back as he danced off stage, Rud­der re­alised some­thing spe­cial had hap­pened. He re­mem­bers, al­most like a dream, the re­sults be­ing called. "I can't re­mem­ber any­thing af­ter that ex­cept for a ras­ta­man watch­ing with a big smile. Spar­row shook my hand and said, 'I'm go­ing to name you now: King David.'"Rud­der ex­ist­ed in a dream-like state for a month. "It nev­er sank in," he says. "I didn't un­der­stand the pow­er of the mo­ment."That feel­ing didn't di­min­ish the fol­low­ing year, when Rud­der placed sec­ond to Stal­in, who won with Bun Dem.

"It was al­most as pow­er­ful as the year I won: 1986 was the trig­ger and 1987 with the af­ter­shock."If '86 seemed to be open­ing up a whole new di­rec­tion in so­ca where the mu­sic and mu­si­cians pop­u­lar in the fetes could find a place on the tra­di­tion­al ca­lyp­so stage, the steps were yanked out from un­der the new­com­ers in 1987 when ca­lyp­so re­vert­ed to its ul­tra-con­ser­v­a­tive roots.

Look­ing back, Rud­der says his de­fend­ing so­ca for 1987, Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic, turned out to be the song that had the most mean­ing for him in his ca­reer."Peo­ple kept say­ing I wasn't a ca­lyp­son­ian and that talk drew that song out of me. That ini­tial re­ac­tion, the back­lash from peo­ple, is what caused Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic. In a sense I un­der­stood where it was com­ing from, and I felt I had to re­act–sub­con­scious­ly at least."He says Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic just flowed from him."It wasn't that I was go­ing to write some­thing to show crit­ics every­thing about ca­lyp­so. It was just like, 'This is how I feel.' It was pur­er than just con­scious­ly con­struct­ing or craft­ing some­thing. All the emo­tions and be­ing pulled all over the place re­sult­ed in that song."

Rud­der's ca­reer­most­ly filled with joy

Now, at 60, look­ing back, Rud­der says his ca­reer has most­ly been filled with joy."Lots of ups, but even the downs were good lessons. I can't com­plain. The con­nec­tion to peo­ple through mu­sic and peo­ple talk­ing about songs that nev­er even saw the light of day like In­to the Night, made it all worth­while."Some­times you write a song on an al­bum and think no one is go­ing to take that on and peo­ple write and say how it touched them.If a song touch­es a sin­gle per­son in a mean­ing­ful way, Rud­der counts it as a suc­cess.The suc­cess of Hosay, the song he wrote about the 1990 coup at­tempt, has turned out to be the biggest sur­prise of his ca­reer both for its pop­u­lar­i­ty and for it be­ing dis­cussed in aca­d­e­m­ic cir­cles by peo­ple like ca­lyp­so ex­perts and re­tired pro­fes­sor of lit­er­a­ture Dr Gor­don Rohlehr.

"Yes, there are peo­ple who men­tion many dif­fer­ent songs as their favourite, but Hosay sur­prised me be­cause there were a lot of peo­ple from dif­fer­ent class­es who said Hosay was their favourite song. That coup at­tempt was some­thing we all ex­pe­ri­enced to­geth­er, and it was a Car­ni­val song that wasn't just about Car­ni­val and jump­ing up," says Rud­der.Shake­down Time be­came an­oth­er sur­prise suc­cess so he counts it as one of his favourite songs. "Up to to­day peo­ple talk about Shake­down Time. Young peo­ple and old­er peo­ple talk about it and it nev­er got played on the ra­dio. To me, that shows peo­ple are lis­ten­ing."The mem­o­ry that stands out the most in his ca­reer is a per­for­mance in Trinci­ty Mall, just af­ter he made ca­lyp­so his­to­ry in 1986.

"While per­form­ing, we promised an al­bum to some­one who could sing Bahia Gyul. A lit­tle girl came up and start­ed mum­bling her way through the lyrics. Peo­ple start­ed to laugh. I said, 'Give her a round of ap­plause. She did a good job.' Af­ter­wards, her par­ent said she knew the song, but she was al­most deaf so she couldn't re­al­ly speak. I have nev­er for­got­ten that."

It is still the most touch­ing mo­ment he has ex­pe­ri­enced in a ca­reer filled with ac­co­lades and great per­for­mances on a world­wide stage. While Rud­der is based in Toron­to, Cana­da now, he says it re­al­ly doesn't af­fect his close­ness to T&T."I'm in Trinidad vir­tu­al­ly every month. I have all the news­pa­pers and every ra­dio sta­tion on my com­put­er. It's all like fol­low­ing a soap opera. You could leave a soap opera and come back six months lat­er and know what's go­ing on."It's the same with Trinidad. When you're in Trinidad you're up against the wall. When you're away, you can step back from it all. And when you come back in you see the wall; feel the vibe and see the mur­al."David Rud­der, an artist as well as a mu­si­cian, has made a ca­reer of see­ing and singing about the whole pic­ture.Over the years, there has been a glim­mer of hope that so­ca mu­sic would break through in a big way in the world mar­ket. "I al­ways thought I would have more suc­cess in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, but I feel my mu­sic could match up to any­one," says Rud­der. "I opened for a lot of ma­jor acts over my life­time, and when Char­lie's Roots were done on stage, it couldn't hap­pen for those acts we opened for be­cause their mu­sic didn't have the en­er­gy and pow­er that ours has."

Rud­der says T&T doesn't un­der­stand its own en­er­gy and pow­er so we tend to throw it away. Com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion is an­oth­er prob­lem."The dis­ap­point­ment for me is when you get to a cer­tain point, you could be Beethoven, but if clas­si­cal mu­sic isn't the mu­sic of the time, it doesn't mat­ter how good you are. It's not like sports. Bri­an Lara could say, 'I'm bet­ter than every­one' and that's the bril­liance of sports. You can stand up to any­one next to you, and you have a chance to beat him."Not so in mu­sic. You could feel your mu­sic is amaz­ing and peo­ple could tell you it's amaz­ing and if it's not "in"–es­pe­cial­ly as the world gets more and more com­mer­cial–then it doesn't mat­ter how good the mu­sic is."Rud­der says so­ca mu­sic on­ly has a chance to get to the next lev­el if peo­ple start to en­vi­sion suc­cess."It's al­most as though we don't en­vi­sion the next step. I feel un­com­fort­able when peo­ple say things like 'If the So­ca War­riors reach Ger­many I good.' I think, why wouldn't you want us to bring the World Cup back? We have to aim for more."

Rud­der says we fail to re­alise how the rest of the Caribbean view us."Up the is­lands, they look at us like a leader and some­how we don't un­der­stand that. We just look at all the fool­ish­ness eat­ing up the place. We don't look at our true po­ten­tial."If the mu­sic seems lost, Rud­der says it is be­cause it re­flects so­ci­ety."You might want to hear horns and con­gas like in those days, but those times were a dif­fer­ent time. If peo­ple com­plain the mu­sic isn't grow­ing, you have to watch the so­ci­ety. If the song has no val­ue, ask your­self where is the val­ue in so­ci­ety?"Still, Rud­der sees hope."There are al­ways good and bad things hap­pen­ing in mu­sic, and what­ev­er hap­pens will cre­ate a new sound. The fu­ture of our mu­sic de­pends on the na­tion. "I think some­thing is com­ing to a head in so­ci­ety and that will man­i­fest in what the mu­sic will give out. I just hope it will be a good sound. If it keeps go­ing there will be a fire and hope­ful­ly out of that fire will come a good song."The fu­ture, he be­lieves, al­ways holds some­thing good.

Rud­der 6.0 con­cert

David Rud­der is com­ing back to T&T to cel­e­brate his 60th birth­day with fans and friends at his first ma­jor con­cert in ten years–Rud­der 6.0.Rud­der 6.0 will take place on June 29 at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-od-Spain.Tick­ets: $250 (ear­ly bird price)Out­lets: Cros­by's (St James), Pep­per Ad­ver­tis­ing (Cor­ner Warn­er and Wood­ford streets), Wack Ra­dio (South), Food Mas­ters (Tu­na­puna).