DAVID CUFFY

Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, Min­is­ter of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, stunned the large au­di­ence with his com­pe­tence as a per­form­ing artiste at a Fa­ther's Day cel­e­bra­tion com­mem­o­rat­ing the life and mu­si­cal ca­reer of the late ca­lyp­so Icon Lord Blakie (Carl­ton Joseph) held at PCS Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra's pan the­atre on Tra­garete Road, New­town, last Sun­day evening.Not list­ed on the pro­gramme as a mem­ber of the cast, the Min­is­ter, who showed up at the venue short­ly af­ter 7 pm with his drum, was al­lowed to mount the stage from where, ac­com­pa­ny­ing him­self on the in­stru­ment, he de­liv­ered, in ad­mirable style, two po­ems he com­posed that earned a wide­spread stamp of ap­proval from pa­trons.

Pop­u­lar rap­so artiste and pres­i­dent of Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Broth­er Re­sis­tance (Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba) was among those show­er­ing praise on Dr Dou­glas' per­for­mance. "I know him to be a good drum­mer and po­et long be­fore he en­tered pol­i­tics and be­came a Min­is­ter," he said. "It is nice to see him per­form­ing again, es­pe­cial­ly at this cel­e­bra­tion of the late war­lord's (Blakie) long mu­si­cal ca­reer. Peo­ple will now see him in a new light."Dr Dou­glas, the elect­ed Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Lopinot/Bon Air West, holds a Doc­tor­ate in Adult Ed­u­ca­tion from North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty with spe­cial em­pha­sis in Com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, cul­tur­al and po­lit­i­cal stud­ies. He has a Mas­ter of Arts (MA) de­gree in Arts En­ter­tain­ment and Me­dia Man­age­ment from Co­lum­bia Col­lege in Chica­go and Bach­e­lor of Arts de­grees in Chris­t­ian Ed­u­ca­tion and Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tion from Wheaton Col­lege, Wheaton Illi­nois, and an Ad­vance Lead­er­ship Cer­tifi­cate from Hag­gai In­sti­tute, Sin­ga­pore.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, how­ev­er, Dou­glas did not have the dis­tinc­tionof be­ing the on­ly gov­ern­ment min­is­ter to climb the stage on the oc­ca­sion, as Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, and his pre­de­ces­sor at the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­istry, Win­ston Pe­ters, as­sumed his oth­er per­son­na as ca­lyp­son­ian Gyp­sy to al­so win au­di­ence ap­proval for his out­stand­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tion of­Blakie's Steel­band Clash, be­fore send­ing pa­trons in­to a fren­zy with the per­for­mance and sub­se­quent ex­tem­po vers­es of his 1972 com­po­si­tion Gone For Cane.Al­so con­tribut­ing to au­di­ence jol­li­fi­ca­tion was three-time ca­lyp­so monarch Cro Cro (We­st­on Rawl­ings) who gave his slant, in song, on "for cane," and a verse and cho­rus of the con­tro­ver­sial ver­sion he has as­cribed to Gyp­sy's Sink­ing Ship, be­fore show­cas­ing Blakie's Trib­ute To San Fer­nan­do.

Lone fe­male on the cast, Mar­vel­lous Mar­va (Mar­va Joseph) won plau­dits for a com­mand­ing per­for­mance of the war­lord's Send Them Back, and her com­po­si­tion Trin­ba­go Cul­ture.Oth­er artistes ap­pear­ing on the play­bill, and their Blakie choic­es, in­clud­ed: R'Kar­do St'Von � Ara­bi­an Fes­ti­val, Lu­ta (Morel Pe­ters) � Valdez, Du­ane O'Con­nor � Hold De Pussy, Trinidad Rio (Daniel Brown) - Blakie Nev­er Lie, and Zig­gy Rankin (Khori Fran­cis) � Maria. Mu­si­cal con­tri­bu­tions were made, al­so, by pan icon Earl Rod­ney, and the Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra.Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment was pro­vid­ed by the Kel­ly Green Or­ches­tra, and show host du­ties shared by Er­rol Fa­bi­en and Dami­an Melville.