Leah So­rias

Roland Gor­don's wish be­fore he died was for his youngest son Rod­er­ick, bet­ter known as Chucky, to be tak­en care of.

And that was ex­act­ly what those in the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty pledged to do yes­ter­day, en­sure the so­ca artiste con­tin­ues along his mu­si­cal path. Their as­sur­ances came dur­ing the memo­r­i­al ser­vice for the 57-year-old Gor­don who suc­cumbed to a stroke last Fri­day. "If I have to take you and car­ry you to the tents my­self and to be there at every per­for­mance, I will do it," said Singing San­dra. She told Rod­er­ick his fa­ther would have want­ed him to con­tin­ue singing through­out this Car­ni­val sea­son. "If you don't want licks you would do it," she joked. Ca­lyp­son­ian Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters said about two weeks ago Gor­don asked him to "look af­ter Chucky for me." Pe­ters said: "I found it strange but he knew why he told me that." Rod­er­ick vowed to keep his fa­ther's lega­cy alive. He said he was ad­vised by many oth­ers to fin­ish singing for the Car­ni­val sea­son and he de­cid­ed he would do so

Rod­er­ick is one of the fi­nal­ists in this year's So­ca Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion. "This is what Dad­dy will want and it will be self­ish of me not to pass on what I have learnt," he said. A teary-eyed Rod­er­ick said he was asked by some­one what he felt about his fa­ther's death and the first word to come to mind was "in­ex­plain­able."

"Be­tween yes­ter­day and to­day I thought about it again and I came up with word fear," he said. "My fear is how will I be able to go on with­out dad­dy... he was my di­rec­tor, pro­duc­er, friend, teacher, every­thing," Rod­er­ick said. Against the back­drop of a life-sized por­trait of the mu­si­cal di­rec­tor, arranger, chief So­ca Monarch judge and promi­nent ca­lyp­so ad­ju­di­ca­tor, trib­utes poured in. Queen's Hall was packed to ca­pac­i­ty with stal­warts of the mu­sic in­dus­try, Gor­don's past stu­dents, fam­i­ly and child­hood friends. These in­clud­ed Tu­co's in­ter­im pres­i­dent Er­ic Tay­lor (Pink Pan­ther); pres­i­dent of the Parang As­so­ci­a­tion Neil Mar­cano; cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, Nor­van Fuller­ton and pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go Kei­th Di­az. Per­for­mances were ren­dered by Christo­pher "Tam­bu" Her­bert, Black­ie, Max­imus Dan, Zig­gy Rankin, Iw­er George, Ti­gress, Su­perblue, Kare­ga Man­dela and Megan Wal­dron. Mem­bers of the parang group Los Amantes de Par­ran­da and the Mal­ick Folk Per­form­ers cried open­ly through­out their per­for­mances. Gor­don was mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of both groups. Most re­mem­bered Gor­don as some­one whose vo­cab­u­lary did not in­clude the word no.

Guardian fea­tures ed­i­tor Pe­ter Ray Blood, Gor­don's child­hood friend, said Gor­don ate and slept mu­sic. He said grow­ing up in Laven­tille Gor­don and oth­er chil­dren were sur­round­ed by mu­sic and the arts. "So it was no sur­prise that Roland ex­celled in the arts and emerged to be an ex­em­plar and men­tor to many of to­day's young stars, es­pe­cial­ly his son, Chucky, Blood said. A pub­lic view­ing of Gor­don's body was held at the Boy's Scout As­so­ci­a­tion, St Ann's. A pri­vate in­tern­ment fol­lowed. Gor­don leaves to mourn his sev­en oth­er chil­dren Man­disa, Ju­lia, Rod­ney, Mariel­la, Row­ell, Ayan­na and Chris­t­ian. He is sur­vived by his fa­ther, Den­nis, 96; wife, Glen­da, and four sib­lings.