Car­ol Quash

Years be­fore the term “pow­er cou­ple” be­came a thing, Carl and Car­ol Ja­cobs were al­ready a de­f­i­n­i­tion of the id­iom. The two have rid­den the mu­sic ex­press for over half a cen­tu­ry as a cou­ple, from do­ing back­ground vo­cals to lead vo­cals on lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stages, with each be­ing able to hold their own in the spot­light.

On Sep­tem­ber 11, the lega­cy they have built to­geth­er over the past 57 years will un­fold at Kafe Blue in Port-of-Spain—a cul­tur­al space they cre­at­ed to pro­mote live en­ter­tain­ment for lo­cal mu­sic, arts, and com­mu­ni­ty events.

“A Jour­ney Through a Lega­cy is our life sto­ry in mu­sic. Be­cause for all the years we’ve been to­geth­er, per­form­ing to­geth­er, all the years I’ve been writ­ing mu­sic and com­pos­ing, all of my mu­sic is a true sto­ry. It re­lates di­rect­ly to that place and time and the sit­u­a­tion that we were go­ing through at that point in time. So it’s a re­al event; has al­ways been,” Carl Ja­cobs told WE.

The duo first met while still at school; she, a 16-year-old Prov­i­dence Girls Catholic Sec­ondary School stu­dent and he, a 17-year-old St Mary’s Col­lege stu­dent. The high school sweet­hearts got mar­ried and spent the rest of their lives rais­ing a fam­i­ly and mak­ing mu­sic. To­geth­er, they have amassed over 90 songs and six al­bums.

“I’ve been singing since I was 14 years old, and Car­ol is a mu­si­cian, so our lega­cy can­not be any­thing else but mu­si­cal,” he mused.

“We’ve done quite a lot of mu­sic, which most peo­ple seem to have en­joyed and are still en­joy­ing,” among them Sav­age, We Wan­na Live, Bend Down and Rock, From Now On, Pres­sure and Luv Up.

“We al­so have songs that were nev­er re­leased in Trinidad, but were re­leased in the US,” where the cou­ple lived for 27 years be­fore re­turn­ing home to T&T to set­tle and give back to an in­dus­try that they built their lives around.

“Liv­ing abroad was very good for us in more than one way,” Carl re­called.

“We had a great ex­pe­ri­ence and we learned a lot. We did good busi­ness and we had a re­al good ap­pre­ci­a­tion. So we stayed for a while.”

But the Tri­ni to the Bone singer said he al­ways knew he would re­turn home even­tu­al­ly.

“Out there is not Tri­ni. I like home. I like Tri­ni food, Tri­ni peo­ple, Tri­ni at­mos­phere.”

The mat­ter of when they would re­turn was de­cid­ed for them when a throat can­cer di­ag­no­sis threat­ened the very thing that sus­tained him away from home.

“That was when I de­cid­ed it was time to come back home. Car­ol ac­tu­al­ly came back be­fore me. I think it could be about 14 years now since I have re­turned.”

He went through the treat­ment wringer and has been in re­mis­sion for 12 years. But al­though he is no longer able to sing, that didn’t pre­vent them from in­vest­ing in the cre­ation of a plat­form where Car­ol and oth­ers in the mu­sic in­dus­try could.

“Af­ter the treat­ment, they told me that I wouldn’t speak again. They want­ed to re­move my voice box and put in one of those elec­tron­ic things, but I re­fused. I can’t sing, and my voice is not the same; it’s a lit­tle husky. But some women say it’s a lit­tle sexy,” he said with a chuck­le.

And his in­abil­i­ty to sing cer­tain­ly will not ham­per the flow of the Ja­cobs’ mu­si­cal sto­ry at Lega­cy, as he will have vo­cal­ists fill­ing in for him.

“I chose three male vo­cal­ists that I thought would do my songs jus­tice. John G (John­son Greenidge), who is a fan­tas­tic vo­cal­ist with a sim­i­lar tone as mine. And then Kevon Carter, who’s the orig­i­nal bal­ladeer. And then we have a young up­com­ing artiste, Samuel (Thomas Jr).”

Vo­cal­ists Glen­da Col­lens and Noelle Archer will add some va­ri­ety to the show.

He and Car­ol have se­lect­ed about 16 of their most pop­u­lar songs to per­form at the event, which he de­scribed as a pre­view of some­thing big­ger to come.

“We are plan­ning a full or­ches­tral lega­cy con­cert some­time next year. There’s a lot of work to be done, es­pe­cial­ly in terms of arrange­ments, the score, things like that… It will be a lega­cy con­cert that will be record­ed and filmed, and dis­trib­uted in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

Ja­cobs said mar­riages like theirs are quite rare, and if he could have one wish right now, it would be to be giv­en an­oth­er 57 years with his wife.

“You know, I don’t know how come peo­ple get so much prob­lems stay­ing to­geth­er; we nev­er had a prob­lem with that. The se­cret, I think, is to­tal un­der­stand­ing, re­spect, and not try­ing to change each oth­er,” he ex­plained.

“We sim­ply help each oth­er through what­ev­er we’re go­ing through. I might not like what she likes, but I will as­sist and sup­port every time. And she will do the same. So the com­pro­mise is big and great, with plen­ty of love and much re­spect all the time.”

He said the show will fea­ture sto­ries of their shared ex­pe­ri­ences—songs of vic­to­ry, songs of love, songs of protest, among oth­ers.

“But the thing about it is that the mu­sic is 45, 46 years old and still rel­e­vant to­day be­cause noth­ing much has changed in our so­ci­ety. And Car­ol and I still fight and quar­rel, and make up, and make love and fall out again. The sto­ries will all be there in the mu­sic.”