Ca­lyp­son­ian Re­la­tor (Willard Court­ney Har­ris) re­turns on Sat­ur­day, Oc­to­ber 12, from 7 pm, to the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop (TTW), at 6 New­bold Street, St Clair, for an­oth­er in­ti­mate per­for­mance in the vein of his pre­vi­ous per­for­mance at the that venue ear­li­er this year. The­atre pa­trons and vis­i­tors, mu­sic lovers and friends of the TTW can “sip and chat” with this world class per­former and mas­ter of ex­tem­po. Any­thing can hap­pen that night.

By any name, The Re­al Mas­ter, is the mas­ter show­man and ca­lyp­so trou­ba­dour, one of the last of the Greats of Ca­lyp­so’s Mod­ern Era from the 1960s. Drinks and food plates will be served from 7 pm with the per­for­mance from the man who sang the clas­sic ca­lyp­soes Food Prices, Chi­na Syn­drome, Take a Rest, and of course, Gavaskar. This globe-trot­ting trou­ba­dour, now 71, is a ca­lyp­so am­bas­sador in his own right. Mu­si­cian, per­former, ca­lyp­son­ian, writer and, above all, en­ter­tain­er, Re­la­tor is tru­ly a man for all sea­sons.

Steel­pan record­ing artist, Andy Narell says of Re­la­tor: “Be­sides be­ing a fine com­pos­er, Re­la­tor is a walk­ing en­cy­clo­pe­dia of clas­sic ca­lyp­sos. I would ven­ture to say that he knows more of them than any­one alive to­day.” That state­ment is the truth that makes this evening of ca­lyp­so per­for­mance a must do.

Re­la­tor is al­so an ac­com­plished gui­tarist and, with this ac­com­pa­ni­ment, he will serve up a fine reper­toire of clas­sics and orig­i­nals. This in­ti­mate per­for­mance se­ries co­in­cides with the 60th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions hap­pen­ing this year.

De­spite lo­cal ra­dio sta­tions rarely air­ing Re­la­tor’s ca­lyp­so gems, the past Aun­tie Kay ra­dio pro­gramme win­ner, for­mer Lo­cal Ca­lyp­so King and 1980 Ca­lyp­so King is quite busy per­form­ing at pre­mier events and venues. There was stand­ing room on­ly on Thurs­day, Au­gust 22, at Kaiso Blues Cafe 2.0, Port-of-Spain, when Re­la­tor and David Rud­der teamed up to present one of the best ac­claimed shows at this venue for 2019.

The Fri­day be­fore In­de­pen­dence Day, Au­gust 30, he starred at the Pavil­ion of the Queen’s Park Oval, and on In­de­pen­dence Day, cer­tain­ly won even more fans when he brought the house down at MHTL Star­lift Steel Or­ches­tra’s In­de­pen­dence Day Brunch, shar­ing the spot­light with Baron, Re­la­tor, Os­car B, Er­rol Fa­bi­en, Brim­blers, Star­lift Ju­nior, Star­lift and a cast of ac­com­plished artistes.

A week af­ter his Oc­to­ber 12 Lord Re­la­tor Live @ Din­ner, on Oc­to­ber 19, an­oth­er spec­tac­u­lar per­for­mance can be ex­pect­ed from Re­la­tor when he head­lines The Awe­some Four­some. To be held at Kaiso Blues Cafe 2.0, oth­er head­lin­ers on this show are Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Dou­glas “Dougie” Re­don and Ed­wards.

TTW con­tin­ues to soar

In ad­di­tion to its con­tin­u­ing out­reach to the com­mu­ni­ty—the TTW is pro­vid­ing sup­port to the Liv­ing Wa­ter/UNICEF project of pro­vid­ing ed­u­ca­tion to refugee chil­dren in Eng­lish by host­ing the class­es at the premis­es—the TTW host­ed a mas­ter­class con­ver­sa­tion at the re­cent­ly held Car­ifes­ta Jour­ney Round My­self sym­posia fea­tur­ing vet­er­an ac­tor Al­bert La Veau. The sus­tained ef­forts at pro­vid­ing a space for the­atre and live en­ter­tain­ment is on­go­ing. Sup­port for the arts and ed­u­ca­tion en­hances the TTW’s mis­sion to fos­ter ex­pres­sion of Caribbean re­al­i­ties through the­atre.

Lim­it­ed se­cured park­ing on the com­pound and street park­ing is avail­able with­in one to two min­utes walk­ing dis­tance from the venue.