Pe­ter Ray Blood

Der­ron "Ghost­man868" El­lies, 32, hails from Man­zanil­la, and pos­sess­es a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­po­sure as a pan mu­si­cian that be­lies his age.

El­lies, who be­gan play­ing steel­pan in 1993, at ten, proud­ly said this week: "By the time I was 12, I could play all the in­stru­ments in the Man­zanil­la Po­lice Youth Club's steel or­ches­tra.

"In 1995 I passed Com­mon En­trance for Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC), where I spent the next sev­en years hon­ing my skills and knowl­edge un­der the guid­ance of mu­sic teach­ers John Ra­jah and Ker­ry Roe­buck, as well as lead­ers of the QRC Scout Band and Mag­num Bands."

When El­lies left QRC, mu­sic was among the three dis­tinc­tions of nine CXC pass­es that he re­ceived. He added: "I went on to the then Cen­tre for Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts in UWI, St Au­gus­tine in 2003, and ob­tained my cer­tifi­cate in mu­sic two years lat­er. This is where my pas­sion for per­form­ing mu­sic took full flight, and I put all that I could in­to mak­ing this my ca­reer choice."

Mu­sic is El­lies' first love, a love he is pas­sion­ate about; but he does have hob­bies. He ex­plained: "When I am not play­ing mu­sic, I en­joy dri­ving around the coun­try with my girl­friend. I can al­so be found with my fam­i­ly in Man­zanil­la and al­so en­joy go­ing to the beach and movies."

A well-round­ed and con­sum­mate mu­si­cian if there ever was one, El­lies said: "Through­out my 22 years of ac­tive mu­sic in­volve­ment, I have per­formed for pres­i­dents, diplo­mats, sport­ing stars and am­bas­sadors both lo­cal­ly and abroad. I have played with many lo­cal artistes such as the Mighty Spar­row, Roger Booth­man, Nigel Ro­jas, David Rud­der, De­stra Gar­cia and Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller; bands like Los To­cadores, Blue Cul­ture, De No Name Band (led by Ken Cor­bie), Rhap­sody Next Gen­er­a­tion and Or­ange Sky.

"I have al­so done many lo­cal and glob­al col­lab­o­ra­tions, and opened for many won­der­ful­ly gift­ed per­form­ers on many stages, such as the in­au­gur­al Live At The Hy­att–Rhythm Na­tion se­ries along­side Nigel Ro­jas in 2014; an in­ti­mate per­for­mance with Pan­dit Bha­jan So­pori at the T&T High Com­mis­sion­er's res­i­dence in Del­hi, In­dia, in 2011; and opened for Tar­rus Ri­ley, Co­coa Tea and Beres Ham­mond in Reg­gae On The Bay 2013 along­side Verse Ital and Buz­zrock."

El­lies' bur­geon­ing bio al­so con­tains per­for­mances at the New Or­leans Jazz Na­tion­al Park and Dos Je­fes Cig­ar Bar along­side Bruce "Sun­pie" Barnes and Matt "Dog­meat" Hampsey of the Louisiana Sunspots in 2014; the Morn­ing Call Cafe with the Morn­ing Call En­sem­ble in 2014; the New Or­leans Jazz Mar­ket in 2015 along­side The Roamin' Jas­mine and The New Cre­ative Col­lec­tive; and do­ing over five years of var­i­ous en­er­getic per­for­mances with Rhap­sody Next Gen­er­a­tion.

Apart from work­ing with Rhap­sody NG out of Mal­abar, El­lies works with Un­tied Na­tion, led by Marge Black­man and Os­ei Jack­son in Arou­ca and has just re­ceived his Artiste Reg­istry cer­tifi­cate from the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism.

El­lies did two songs on Michael Lewis' new al­bum–Wild Life Refugee–in New Or­leans in March. They were Christ­mas Song and the ti­tle track; the al­bum was re­leased in May.

Cur­rent­ly do­ing the Men­tor­ing by the Mas­ters course at Brown Cot­ton Out­reach in Wood­brook, El­lies is prepar­ing for the AMM­B­con Show­case to be held at UTT, NA­PA, Port-of-Spain on Au­gust 19-21.

More in­fo

Bands Der­ron El­lies has played with:

Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra

Blue Cul­ture

Or­ange Sky (Acoustic Project Band)

Los To­cadores Parang Group

St James Tripo­lians Steel Or­ches­tra

San­gre Grande Cordettes Steel Or­ches­tra

All Aces Steel Or­ches­tra

Pan Stere­onetts Steel Or­ches­tra

PHI Band

QRC Scout Band

QRC Mag­num

San­gre Grande Po­lice Youth Club Steel Or­ches­tra

Man­zanil­la Po­lice Youth Club Steel Or­ches­tra

Rhap­sody Next Gen­er­a­tion (cur­rent­ly Mu­si­cal Di­rec­tor)

Kaskadoux

Morn­ing Call En­sem­ble

Sun­pie and the Louisiana Sunspots

The Roamin' Jas­mine