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Saturday, July 12, 2025

Calypso legend Explainer dies weeks before 75th birthday

by

Joel Julien
1008 days ago
20221007

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

A con­cert was sched­uled to be held next month to cel­e­brate the 75th birth­day of ca­lyp­so icon Ex­plain­er (Win­ston Hen­ry).

“It was sup­posed to be his di­a­mond ju­bilee. Would you be­lieve I al­ready print­ed tick­ets, and paid for the place every­thing but he just did not make it through,” Ex­plain­er’s daugh­ter and man­ag­er Stageann Ma­son said yes­ter­day.

Around 1.38 pm on Fri­day, Ma­son re­ceived a call say­ing that Ex­plain­er, who was born on No­vem­ber 13, 1947, had died at the Port-of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. He was un­re­spon­sive af­ter a CT scan.

Ex­plain­er had been at the hos­pi­tal since Wednes­day af­ter he went in­to a di­a­bet­ic co­ma.

Ma­son said she is now con­sid­er­ing chang­ing the con­cert to a memo­r­i­al for her fa­ther.

“Some­body told me maybe I should still have it and call it ‘In mem­o­ry Of’ be­cause he was very big on that. He was al­ready re­hears­ing,” Ma­son said.

Ma­son said Ex­plain­er has a col­lab­o­ra­tion com­ing out.

“I will leave the sur­prise for you all when it comes out. He did every­thing he had to do for 2023 al­ready,” she said.

Ma­son de­scribed Ex­plain­er as the “best dad, num­ber one.”

“He was a very joc­u­lar per­son. He liked a lot of youth; he was big on try­ing his best to bring the art­form back to how it was. What he did was he be­lieved in the fab­ric of so­ci­ety, which are the younger ones,” Ma­son said.

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) yes­ter­day is­sued a state­ment ho­n­our­ing Ex­plain­er.

“Ex­plain­er start­ed singing ca­lyp­so in the year 1969, which gave him a life­long ca­reer of 43 years, and shot to fame when he joined an Ace Pro­duc­er Rawl­ston Charles, who pro­duced mem­o­rable tunes like Ras Mass and the im­mor­tal Lor­raine, just to name a few. Lor­raine, that high­ly in­fec­tious song, was in­deed a hit with lo­cals and fans abroad. In fact, Lor­raine made it to the British charts at po­si­tion num­ber 35,” it stat­ed.

In 2018, Ex­plain­er was the re­cip­i­ent of the Hum­ming­bird Medal-Gold for his con­tri­bu­tion to the cul­tur­al art­form.

Ex­plain­er was last at­tached to Kaiso House Ca­lyp­so Tent and was a mem­ber of the TU­CO ca­lyp­so monarch ad­ju­di­ca­tion com­mit­tee.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Crazy (Ed­win Ay­oung), who was card­ed to per­form at the event next month, ti­tled “Eu­pho­ria Ex­plain­er’s Di­a­mond Ju­bilee,” post­ed a trib­ute to Ex­plain­er.

“We were se­lect­ed by Mr Sylvester (Syl) Tay­lor, the man­ag­er of the Spar­row’s Orig­i­nal Young Brigade Ca­lyp­so Tent on Wright­son Road, Port- of-Spain, af­ter au­di­tion­ing among many ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in 1972 and got a chance to be on the same cast with the Mighty Spar­row - Ca­lyp­so Rose - Lord Shorty - Lord Melody - Cypher - Prince Valiant - Bill Trot­man - To­ba­go Cru­soe - Lord Pre­tender - Mighty Ter­ror - Saga and many oth­ers.. He will be sure­ly missed not on­ly by me but lots of ca­lyp­so lovers,” he stat­ed.

In Ju­ly, Guardian Me­dia’s Carisa Lee in­ter­viewed Ex­plain­er af­ter his hit song Lor­raine was again thrown in­to the glob­al spot­light four decades af­ter its orig­i­nal re­lease.

That was his last in­ter­view with this me­dia house.

And yes, Lor­raine (not her re­al name) is based on a true sto­ry. Ex­plain­er said ex­act­ly how the song de­scribed it was how it played out in his life at that time. His favourite lyrics are “Ba­by, my mind is made up Air­port Kennedy will be my next stop. Doh cry and try to con­vince me. Be­cause meh suit­case done pack al­ready.”

“When I was about to come back home for Car­ni­val when I told her I go­ing home she start to cry. In most cas­es, you find peo­ple get to­geth­er and they have to sep­a­rate be­cause of their sit­u­a­tion,” he rem­i­nisced then.


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