Kei­th "Cul­ture Man" An­der­son

Pop­u­lar­ly called the "Sa­van­nah Par­ty", hun­dreds of pan lovers will come down "the Bar­ber Breen" at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, to­day as Pan Trin­ba­go stages its 55th Na­tion­al Panora­ma semi­fi­nals com­pe­ti­tion to­day.

This well trav­elled piece of earth, al­so called the Car­los John High­way, has ac­com­mo­dat­ed many pan­men who are now de­ceased, and bands now de­funct.

Many bands, some of them great bands, now lie in pan grave­yards. Re­search has shown that there are 45 bands that are now de­funct. Giv­en the strin­gent eco­nom­ic times, more could be on the way.

The bands in­clude: Am­boys, Dem For­tu­nates, Sun­land, Star­land, Dix­ieland, Prodi­gals, Fas­ci­na­tors, City Syn­co­pa­tors, South Sym­pho­ny, Won­der­land Sym­pho­ny, Bel­mont Sym­pho­ny, Hill­side Sym­pho­ny, Sun Val­ley, Savoys, Sil­ver­tones, Tripoli, Kin­tups, Sun­down­ers, Cross­wind, Cav­a­liers, Cas­bah, An­til­lean All Stars, Stereo­phon­ics, Sat­is­fiers, Melodisc, Ris­ing Sun, Cross­fire, Bar 20, Sym­phonettes, Kairo, Sun­jets, Boys­town, Third World, Pan knights, Ken­tuck­ians, Po­lice Steel band, Hill 60, Girl Pat, Chica­go, Alexan­der Rag­time, Ebonites, Olympians and Gay Flamin­goes.

The great band Pan Am North Stars crashed and old mem­bers came up with a ver­sion called North Stars. Hy­lan­ders as well as Sil­ver Stars and City Kids were in moth­balls, but have since been re­ju­ve­nat­ed.

Why have bands gone to pan's grave­yards? There are sev­er­al fac­tors that have im­pact­ed steel bands.

Pan play­ers blamed bad gov­er­nance, "smart­men" cap­tains, mi­gra­tion of pan­men over­seas, mi­gra­tion of pan­men to oth­er bands, land is­sues, splits, lack of spon­sor­ship and fund­ing.

It is re­gret­table that great bands of the South­land have hit the skids. There was a time in the 60s when South bands came with more pans than their coun­ter­parts in the North.

Guin­ness Cav­a­liers, led by the leg­endary Lennnox "Bob­by" Mo­hammed, aced the 1965 and 1967 Na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions.

Steve Achi­ba and the Hat­ters turned back the North bands in 1975. Since then, South bands have suf­fered a long drought in terms of vic­to­ries.

In 1990 Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore al­most caught bp Rene­gades on the fin­ish line with NL­CB Fon­claire.

The Rene­gades vic­to­ry is still one of the talk­ing points in the pan fra­ter­ni­ty.

Since then, it has been an up­hill grind for South bands and South pan lovers.

Could 2018 be the year a South band breaks the 42-year-old jinx?

(Sto­ry writ­ten with as­sis­tance from Den­nis "Smithy" Smith, Lennox "Bob­by" Mo­hammed and Pan Trin­ba­go's An­gela Fox)

Pan­man play­ing mu­sic for God

Speak­ing to the leader, arranger and com­pos­er of Guin­ness Cav­a­liers at his Mon Re­pos, San Fer­nan­do home on Fri­day, Lennox “Bob­by” Mo­hammed said he now plays mu­sic for God.

He said he had been play­ing gospel mu­sic for a long time, play­ing the key­boards in the Full Gospel church on Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do, for sev­en years and more reg­u­lar every Sun­day.

Mo­hammed said if mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion asked for the pan, he can play it but no­body re­al­ly asked for it in church. He, how­ev­er, plays at oth­er venues.

When asked what it would take for a South band or any band to cop the Panora­ma ti­tle now, he said that was some­thing a per­son can­not pre­dict. Mo­hammed said any­thing can hap­pen when a band hits the stage and how it played.

He said when Guin­ness Cav­a­liers broke that bar­ri­er in the 60s, they felt they just came with a new type of pre­sen­ta­tion, how they arranged the mu­sic and the cut off of the iron and those oth­er sub­tle dif­fer­ences had an im­pact on the crowd.

—Charles Kong Soo