Robert Alon­zo

Ed­i­tor

His re­al name is Rossan­no Chaits­ingh.

But he is known in the en­ter­tain­ment and ra­dio an­nounc­ing fra­ter­ni­ty as “The Mu­si­cal Sur­geon” and “The Ladies DJ.”

Oth­ers sim­ply call him “Dr Ross.”

He has been a ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty/an­nounc­er on Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Net­work (TBC) since 2006. On the net­work he is at­tached to Vibe CT 105FM (the na­tion’s sta­tion) whose par­ent com­pa­ny is Guardian Me­dia Ltd (GML).

The oth­er ra­dio fre­quen­cies of GML are SLAM 100.5FM...Pro­gres­sive Ur­ban, 95.1FM The Best Mix; Aakash Vani 106.5 FM; Sangeet 106.1FM; and 730 AM In­spi­ra­tional Ra­dio.

GML’s flag­ship in­cludes T&T Guardian news­pa­per and Ca­ble News Chan­nel 3 (CNC3).

Hav­ing been one of the most pop­u­lar and suc­cess­ful Disc Jock­eys on the ra­dio fre­quen­cy for so many years, Ross has now added parang so­ca to his pas­sion– and al­ready he has been heat­ing up the air-waves this Christ­mas sea­son with his lat­est hit ti­tled ‘Fam­i­ly Busi­ness’ which he re­leased in Oc­to­ber 2021.

His oth­er so­ca parang se­lec­tions are Wood­man, Christ­mas on the Road and Drink­ing Hard.

All four songs have been on the top chart, even on com­pet­i­tive ra­dio sta­tions.

His début in­to parang so­ca be­gan with the Wood­man which was re­leased in Sep­tem­ber 2008. Christ­mas on the Road, which was his sec­ond hit, was re­leased in No­vem­ber 2010 while Drink­ing Hard made its way on the air­waves the fol­low­ing year.

In an in­ter­view at Guardian Me­dia, Ross not­ed that the “en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor, and by ex­ten­sion artistes, my fel­low DJs, and pro­mot­ers, have been in­cred­i­bly sup­port­ive of my mu­sic.”

Asked to elab­o­rate on his four songs, the for­mer ma­rine tech­ni­cian, who used to re­pair radars and com­mu­ni­ca­tion equip­ment on ships lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for 15 years, said My­ron Bruce (pop­u­lar­ly known as In­cred­i­ble My­ron B) and him­self wrote Wood­man, Christ­mas On The Road and Fam­i­ly Busi­ness while Ka­tri­ka Clarke, Bruce and him­self penned Drink­ing Hard.

Giv­ing an in­sight on the con­cept of each song, the high­ly ac­claimed ra­dio an­nounc­er ex­plained that the idea be­hind Wood­man is that he (the Wood­man) is a handy­man who goes about the neigh­bour­hood help­ing women in need with their house­hold chores for Christ­mas.

He said Christ­mas On The Road is a con­cept that in­volves in­di­vid­u­als com­ing to­geth­er and cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas by par­ents un­til the next day.

“The idea be­hind Drink­ing Hard is to raise aware­ness about drink­ing and hav­ing fun dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, but with­out caus­ing harm to oth­ers, as there is an in­crease in traf­fic fa­tal­i­ties around this time of year,” he said

The sto­ry of Fam­i­ly Busi­ness– a song which is high­ly rat­ed as one of the best so­ca parang hits for 2021, “is that I met up with my friend Crazy D and we were shar­ing sim­i­lar sto­ries that hap­pened to us dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son vis­it­ing our fam­i­ly mem­bers and their hus­band wasn’t aware that we were fam­i­ly so we had to ex­plain to them that we are fam­i­ly. Which bring about the phrase “me and your gyal is fam­i­ly.”

Christ­mas On The Road and Drink­ing Hard fea­tured (Tin­man) and Fam­i­ly Busi­ness fea­tured Crazy D.

Asked whether he had an­tic­i­pate such a great re­sponse to the songs he said, “It was for fun when I ini­tial­ly start­ed singing. This year 2021, I de­cid­ed to put more ef­fort in­to pro­mot­ing and cre­at­ing mu­sic, and on the house- to- house Rid­dim, I re­leased my new song Fam­i­ly Busi­ness ft Crazy D.”

Ross has paid glow­ing trib­ute to My­ron Bruce whom he said in­spired him.

The In­cred­i­ble My­ron B is my mo­ti­va­tion for singing so­ca parang. He has been not on­ly an in­spi­ra­tion, but al­so a couch and a good friend to me for many years,” Ross said

He added, “Fans and col­leagues in the en­ter­tain­ment sec­tor have al­ways re­act­ed pos­i­tive­ly to my songs. It al­ways makes me hap­py when fans call and sing my song to me on the ra­dio. On the day I re­leased my song, I re­ceived a call from a fan who al­ready knew the lyrics.”

Ross said he en­joys his job at Guardian Me­dia/Vibe CT105 FM and in­ter­act­ing with the hun­dreds of callers to the ra­dio sta­tion.

He fell in love with mu­sic when he was 15 years old.

At that age he used to lis­ten to his grand­moth­er’s records on her gramo­phone and fell in love with the rhythm of mu­sic.

“Gart Nedd, a lo­cal DJ, came to my birth­day par­ty and played mu­sic. I be­came ex­treme­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed and asked if I could prac­tice on his DJ equip­ment, which he agreed to, as­sist­ing me in hon­ing my skills. S we form a DJ sound sys­tem called Ice Men in the ear­ly 90’s. We used to go home by a DJ known as Sig­nal to Noise and he would let us use his equip­ment to learn. Lat­er on, as I grew in my skill I start­ed to move and play with the mas­sive Dr Hyde and was ex­pose to ra­dio on 98.9FM and the rest is his­to­ry,” he said

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, Sig­nal to Noise, whose re­al name is Joel Mor­ris, is pro­gramme di­rec­tor of Vibe CT105FM

Ross says he’s a very spir­i­tu­al per­son and this is ev­i­dent on his ra­dio pro­grammes as many times he quick­ly quote the Bible quite well if ques­tioned on a Bib­li­cal is­sue by a caller. “I be­lieve in a Cre­ator and I know for a fact that there is a sis­ter hood of spir­its among us,” he said.

On this mile­stone achieve­ment he said, “I’m ec­sta­t­ic with the re­sponse I’ve re­ceived thus far.”

Ross’ in­spi­ra­tion to pur­sue a ca­reer in ra­dio an­nounc­ing came when he was asked to join the TBC Net­work by then pro­gramme di­rec­tor Christo­pher “Chris” Boynes. Boynes pro­ceed­ed to pre-re­tire­ment leave from Guardian Me­dia in Sep­tem­ber this year af­ter be­ing em­ployed with the com­pa­ny for more than 43 years.

On Jan­u­ary 6, 2006, Ross start­ed his first shift on VIBE CT 105FM as Dr Ross On Week­ends

“I’ve been a ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty for al­most 16 years, and my time on the air has brought me joy,” Ross said

At present on VibeCT105FM he com­mands the 12 noon to 4 pm shift Mon­day to Fri­day.

He has giv­en each day a theme and in the spir­it of ra­dio friend­li­ness mem­bers of the pub­lic, call­ing in­to the pro­gramme to send out birth­day/an­niver­sary or what­ev­er greet­ings to fam­i­ly mem­bers, friends and loved ones, are re­quired re­peat the day’s theme–all in the spir­it of fun

Mon­day is ti­tled Ma­jes­tic Mon­day– R&B, groove and reg­gae mu­sic is played

Tues­day is named—One the Road with Dr Ross in which callers are al­lowed to chit chat about press­ing mat­ters in their com­mu­ni­ty and road traf­fic is­sues they face on the na­tion’s roads. For this the Christ­mas sea­son Tues­day is ti­tled Christ­mas On The Road With Dr Ross.

Wednes­day is brand­ed– Its That Kind of Wednes­day with Dr Ross where any top­ic can be dis­cussed.

The theme for Thurs­day is Light­ning and Thun­der—most­ly retro/old school/love mu­sic played. Al­so, the biggest reg­gae se­lec­tions are aired. It is dubbed Tunes from the Moun­tains.

Fri­day’s ses­sion is Fire Truck and Flames in which a mix of par­ty/fete and oth­er se­lect­ed songs com­mand the fre­quen­cy.

“The mood is as though your are in a par­ty lis­ten­ing to Vibe CT105FM on Fri­days,” Ross said.

On his Mon­day to Fri­day shift is large­ly fol­lowed by mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices , house­wives, of­fice staff, maxi and taxi dri­vers, bars, builders and re­tail stores na­tion­wide among the many.

So what’s next for Ross in 2022 and what can his fans look for­ward to?

“In 2022, I will launch Dr Ross Stu­dios, a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny that will spe­cialise in mu­sic videos, graph­ic de­sign, and au­dio pro­duc­tion for gen­res such as so­ca, parang so­ca, so­ca parang, dance hall, and reg­gae.

Ross can be found on Face­book and In­sta­gram @dj­dr­ross and his web­site is wwwd­j­dr­ross.com or google his name dj­dr­ross.