A final year student at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus has set himself the task of helping to gather and preserve untold and indepth stories pivotal to the origins of T&T's soca music.Musician Elliot Francois, a Theatre major and Cultural Studies minor, is the culture lover eager to streamline the events that led to the birth of this genre and salute the movers and shakers from the musical era that influenced the art form.He's not out to disprove the late Shorty I's (Garfield Blackman) status as the godfather of soca.Francois just believed there had to be more happening at that time and wanted to flesh out the facts.At a symposium interestingly titled Boogie Dong, held at the National Library and Information Service (Nalis), Port-of-Spain on Friday, he unveiled his findings having reached so close to the music's core.The purpose of the symposium was to discuss and further highlight the development of soca as a music in T&T.
Musicians Ed Watson of Brass Circle fame, Pelham Goddard (Charlie's Roots), Edward Quarles and Richard Quarles, Carl "Beaver" Henderson and Brother Resistance (Lutalo Masimba) were but a few of the stalwarts Francois interviewed for the project.The Entertainment Company of T&T facilitated this aspect of Francois' effort.Francois said local music veterans helped him understand not just the genesis of soca music, but its period of transition and development.On sharing their knowledge, these unsung music-makers heightened Francois' curiosity.
"I've always thought that the people who made the music-who were instrumental–were never highlighted. You always hear about the frontline people. But those people couldn't make their music without guys who were competent enough to give them a groove, give them a sound."I think these people need to be highlighted in order for us to have a proper sense of our cultural heritage," said Francois.Francois, 40, a drummer with 3 Canal's Cut and Clear Crew analysed the happenings in soca music between the 70s and 80s and was delighted by the acute understanding he had developed.It's a period with which he's intimately familiar, citing he was honing his skills as a musician.
Not only was he moving to connect the dots between calypso and soca music. He wanted to show the relationship disco, soul, R&B, as well as East Indian music had to soca music too.He wanted to link how technology was being utilised by trademark music bands such as Fire Flight and Kalyan and Sound Revolution, be it their lighting design or use of pyrotechnics and compare what an international group like Earth, Wind and Fire was doing at the time.Francois said: "Our musicians started standing up during performances rather than sit down. They started doing dance routines. "They performed with all these bands when the music was coming about. They performed on the track Indrani which was one of the pivotal songs in the soca genesis."
He added: "The project was necessary for us as a nation because of the little that was known in relation to the genesis of the music."Who were the arrangers and band members who assisted in this sound becoming what it is?"They have tonnes of stories that involve the players in the game at that time, be it musicians, managers or roadies...the places where they recorded. The Black Power Movement influenced the direction of the music, too."Francois won't be hoarding the information and hoped to make his research effort ongoing.He called on state agencies such as the Ministries of Education and Arts and Multiculturalism to partner with him on this exercise for posterity.