Part 4 of 4

Nass­er Khan

This fi­nal in­stal­ment is tinged with great joy and great sor­row. Joy in the cel­e­bra­tion of Olatun­ji Year­wood’s suc­cess in the wide­ly ac­claimed TV shows The X Fac­tor in tak­ing ca­lyp­so and so­ca to the world and sad be­cause of the death of one of our great­est ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, The Mighty Shad­ow.

Ca­lyp­son­ian ge­nius and leg­end, for­mer Road March (1974, Bass­man, and 2001, Stranger); Ca­lyp­so Monarch (2000, Scratch Mih Back, What’s Wrong With Me); and So­ca Monarch (2001, Stranger) win­ner Win­ston Bai­ley, Dr The Mighty Shad­ow, was con­ferred with an hon­orary doc­tor­ate by UWI over the past three days, posthu­mous­ly. Sad­ly, he suc­cumbed to his ill­ness and died at the age of 77 on Tues­day morn­ing (Oc­to­ber 23, 2018) pri­or to re­ceiv­ing the ho­n­our.

Shad­ow has left us with a body of works that few have par­al­leled and few­er have sur­passed. His unique stage styling, jump­ing to the tem­po of his mu­sic in skip­ping-rope style, would for­ev­er be re­mem­bered and em­u­lat­ed. No one else has cap­tured all three cov­et­ed ti­tles which are quite an amaz­ing achieve­ment.

Many of his lyrics were sheer ge­nius, philo­soph­i­cal and soul-search­ing. For ex­am­ple, One Love (1982): I like to see, A world of uni­ty; Peace, equal­i­ty through­out hu­man­i­ty; Peace­ful­ness, hap­pi­ness, and to­geth­er­ness; I would like to see the day when love would come to stay.

There was Pover­ty is Hell (1994): Pover­ty is hell, Pover­ty is hell; Wake up in the morn­ing and the ba­by cry, The sug­ar pan emp­ty, the milk bot­tle dry.

Even the high­ly po­lit­i­cal Snakes in the Bal­isi­er (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AxYZS8SQU.

He al­so gave us clas­sics like Every­body is a Some­body (‘No­body is no­body’); I Come out to Play; Ten­sion; The Gar­den want Wa­ter; What is Life; Feel­ing de Feel­ing; My Be­lief; Yuh Look­ing for Horn; Pay de Dev­il; and Din­go­lay.

In this the 4th and fi­nal in the se­ries ‘By Ca­lyp­so our Sto­ries are Told’, Oc­to­ber be­ing Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month, we look at some oth­er mem­o­rable ca­lyp­soes that have been record­ed in song, sig­nif­i­cant events in our na­tion’s his­to­ry in a way on­ly our ca­lyp­so art form can...that unique sto­ry-telling blend of po­et­ic and of­ten prophet­ic lyrics, melody and rhythms.

Lord Blakie: Steel band Clash, Road March 1954:

It was ah bac­cha­nal, 1950 Car­ni­val, Fight fuh so, With In­vaders and Tokyo…In­vaders beat­ing sweet, Com­ing up Park Street, Tokyo com­ing dong beat­ing very slow, And friends when the two bands clash, Ma­mayo if yuh see cut­lass, Nev­er me again, To jump in ah steel band in Port-of-Spain…

Lord Bryn­ner: Ri­ot in the Oval, 1960:

Don't doubt me, don't doubt me, Be­cause ah say­ing what ah see, At the Test match in the Queen's Park Oval, Right af­ter the tea in­ter­val, From the time Char­ran Singh get run out, Ah don't know where all those bot­tles come...

Lord Kitch­en­er, One to Hang, 1973:

The saga that sur­round­ed Ab­dul Ma­lik (Michael de Fre­itas, Michael X), Stan­ley Ab­bott, Adol­phus Parme­sar, and Ed­ward Chadee, in the mur­der/slay­in­gs of Gale Anne Ben­son and Joseph Sker­ritt in 1972,

Trou­ble in the back of Ari­ma, so the pa­pers say, Four tesses in­volved in a mur­der just the oth­er day, One fel­la view the sit­u­a­tion like thing get­ting brown, He de­cid­ed to throw in the sponge and turn wit­ness for the crown. Parme­sar, they say you too con­gosa…

Roar­ing Li­on, Vis­it of His Ho­li­ness Pope John II, 1985:

The vis­it of His Ho­li­ness will ever be, In­deli­bly writ­ten in our mem­o­ry, For His vis­it will most cer­tain­ly, Her­ald a new epoch in our his­to­ry. So flash the news around, by telegram and ra­dio, He has vis­it­ed, the "Land of Ca­lyp­so", Let it be known, we're proud and glad, To wel­come Pope John to Trinidad…

This se­ries is cour­tesy First Cit­i­zens.

Nass­er Khan, au­thor of “He­roes, Pi­o­neers & Role Mod­els of Trinidad & To­ba­go” (free down­load at www.sa­faripub­li­ca­tions.com/firstc­i­t­i­zen­stt/he­roe­spro­filestt/)...fea­tures pi­o­neer­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in the chap­ter Cul­ture and the Art. Al­so “His­to­ry of West In­dies Crick­et through Ca­lyp­soes”…lyrics of over 200 crick­et-themed ca­lyp­soes from 1926 on­wards, and many news­pa­per and mag­a­zine ar­ti­cles on ca­lyp­so, mas, steel­pan, and crick­et. Email: nkhantt@gmail.com