Posted by Ishmael on November 10, 19100 at 08:28:27:
Dear Friend,
The following is a tribute to The Shadow, our Calypso Monarch for the year 2000, written by Kamalo Deen and lodged permanently in our website WWW.PEMPALEH.COM
Visit us and don't hesitate to comment. We aim to project positive role models for our people.
We're pleased that our suggestion (made more than a year ago), of a visit by Ellie Manette to T&T fell on fertile ground. His successful official visit during the past few weeks will most certainly heal old wounds and give him his rightful place as a beloved son of our nation.
Please foward this email to anyone who you think may be interested. Thanks Ishmael
______________________________________________________________________ ME AND THE SHADOW
"I was planning to forget calypso and go and plant peas in Tobago, but I am afraid ah cyah make the grade. For every time I lie down in mih bed ah hearing a bassman in mih head....Poom poom pi loom poom... poom poom. Poom poom pi loom poom... poom poom.... I don’t know how dis ting get inside me, but every morning he driving me crazy. Like he taking mih head for a panyard, morning and evening like the fella gone mad...And if ah don’t want to sing he does have me in a spin, I don’t want to but I have to sing....And if ah don’t want to dance he does have me in a trance, I don’t want to but I have to prance...." The Shadow........ 1974
For me, no other T&T artist until that time had so vividly captured the inner conflicts and the eventual surrender to his art as had Shadow in these opening lines of "The Bassman", the calypso which brought him to prominence and won him the Road March title for Carnival 1974. When I first heard that song, I remember I broke out in a cold sweat. A private and deeply personal area of my soul was touched. The song expressed the exact sentiments I’d felt for a long time but lacked the ability and the courage to vent for myself.
Sure, I’d been affected by other works of art before. Goethe’s "Sorrows of Young Werther", Herman Hesse’s "Siddhartha", Hemingway’s "Old Man and the sea", Thomas Hardy’s "The Mayor of Casterbridge", Alan Paton’s "Cry the Beloved Country", Naipaul’s "Miguel Street", Selvon’s "Lonely Londoners", Zane Grey’s "Riders of the Purple Sage", Somerset Maugham’s "The Moon and Sixpence" were among those that impacted heavily on my young mind. The poetry of Wordsworth and Tagore and Whitman and Ginsberg; songs like "Stardust" and "La Golondrina" and "Desolation Row" and "Slave" and "Sohani Raat"; movies like "Devi" and "Black Orpheus" and "Wuthering Heights" and "Shane"; the genius of the great sculptors and designers and painters; the sentiments of Robert Burns and Edith Piaf and Robert Johnson and Leadbelly and Makeeba and Woody and Dylan and Lata and Mukesh and Rafi; the rhythms of Olatunji and Hugo Blanco and Gene Krupa and Ravi Shanker... all these and so many more had taught me to appreciate the universality of personal creative expression, the common bond of artistic experience.
I was however, also a Trini, with a deep passion for my culture and my heritage. I grew up loving our music, our festivals, our nuances, our customs, our diversity; I was exposed to all and like a sponge I soaked it all in. Much to our pride and delight, many of our artists were distinguishing themselves by their brilliant creations. Like other Trinis I too danced and sang along to "Trouble in Arima" and "Jean and Dinah", marveled at the innovative genius of Ellie Mannette and Rudolph Charles and Bertie Marshall, stayed up nights discussing Selvon and Naipaul, admired the paintings of Cazabon, the sculptures of Andrew Beddoe, the piano wizardry of Winifred Atwell, the designs of Wayne Barkley, the dances of Beryl MacBurnie, the theatrical exploits of Edric Connor and Errol John, the tassa and dholak drumming of Toon and Hydar Ali, and the haunting voices Yankaran and the blind Vidoor... But I still felt unfulfilled.
Despite our floods of creativity we were yet to produce a work which, in my mind, was unquestionably ours. One which projected our true Trini feelings in a true Trini format using true Trini images and expressions that could touch us in a truly Trini area of our souls and still be able to convey with utmost clarity, that universal artistic hunger which appears on rare occasions among all peoples and cultures.
Because of the far-reaching racial, religious, social and historical tentacles of our Trini society, the cultures and customs of almost every region on Earth is represented and integrated into the T&T psyche. I believe that our creative works until then, essentially reflected the styles and formats developed by the great artists of other cultures, because our senses had been educated and conditioned to view foreignness as the norm.... a not unusual phenomenon in a colonial society.
I clearly remember my own efforts to find a Trini vehicle to express the feelings that stirred deep inside me. But although an idealistic young Trini at the time, I had lacked the courage to delve too far into the unknown. I suspect that we all did.... until Shadow and "The Bassman".
This was no structured calypso! This was the soul of the artist crying out in desperation, sensing only that he was a victim trapped within the clutches of a force so great that all he could do is surrender to it. It’s the same helplessness and desperation expressed by so many artists in so many cultures since the beginning of time. Shadow had found what we were all searching for.... The ability to use a totally Trini vehicle to convey the artist’s surrender to his calling. With "The Bassman" he had succeeded in using calypso to convey a feeling of the same emotional conflicts and convictions represented in Van Gogh’s paintings or Oscar Wilde’s writings or Charlie Parker‘s sax improvs. And this was not a fluke. He would repeat it several times thereafter in other songs, but most particularly in "Dingolay". "Dingolay"....... What a song! ... What a creation!!
I love calypso with all my heart.... All calypso. I’ve never heard a calypso that I didn’t feel an affinity to. So many of our calypsonians have given us so many absolutely wonderful and brilliant compositions. We’ve had calypsoes to make us laugh or cry or feel proud or sit quietly and reflect; calypsoes to dance to, to listen to, to sing along to; calypsoes for every occasion and on every subject imaginable.... And I love them all. But my personal favourite is "Dingolay". So simple; so direct; yet so effective in its glorification of the Creator and the power of music.... "Music sweet, music sweet..... The one who invented music has got to be terrific.... That will be the one who created the sun and the trees, rivers and seas.....Music fills the world with happiness, plenty sweetness and togetherness.... Music have no friends nor enemies..... Everybody could dingolay!.......... If your clothes tear up or your shoes burst up, you could still jump-up when music play...Old lady, young baby, everybody could dingolay!"
Besides the lyrics and the music (one of the sweetest melodies in all of calypso), Shadow sings this song as if smothered in the ecstasy of his music..... no theatrics; no trying to convince the listener of anything; no attempt to communicate anything to anyone; just the artist immersing himself completely in his creation. And it’s infectious.... The listener can’t help but become enraptured in that same feeling of ecstasy. The brilliance of The Shadow’s lyrics lie in their simplicity and their honesty to Trini vernacular, attitude and expression. There is no forced classroom-type English nor embarrassingly false Trini dialect that afflicts much of our local writing. He sings like we talk. He vocalizes the ordinary things we know and say and think about. A truly striking quality of his work is his ability to almost always deal with universal themes in a local context. He uses his soca and calypso imagery to convey attitudes, emotions and experiences common to all cultures..... check out any of his songs, whether it’s "Bad Boy Peter" or "Poverty is Hell" or his latest "Scratch meh Back" and "What’s wrong", which won him the 2000 Calypso Monarch crown.
I’ve had the good fortune of knowing and working closely with The Shadow. My dear friend Randolph Hilaire aka Count Robin, is also one of Shadow’s closest friends. During 1978 while I was in preparation for our movie "Bacchanal Time", Robin brought Shadow and another friend B.... (I’m deliberately withholding his full name) to meet me in Gasparillo. We bonded immediately and spent a long time talking. We came away from that meeting with me casting Shadow to play the part of Bossman Willie in "Bacchanal Time", and he agreeing to write and perform the title song for the movie.
During the next few months we spent much time together, at his calypso tent, at our various film locations, at his home in Mt. Hope or in the countryside in Wallerfield or Valencia where he did much of his writing at that time. Talking to Shadow you notice two things right away. First that there’s a childlike innocence and aura surrounding him, and secondly that he’s a Nature person. He seems to be in constant awe of the power and presence of Nature. He refers to it constantly and seems to draw his inspiration from it.
Working with him was for me a rewarding experience. He has a sound work ethic. He threw himself completely into the project. His song "Bacchanal Time" was, and still is a gem and his acting was superb.
Shadow is one of the calypsonians who’s expected to release an album every year. This he does without fail. As a writer/composer he’s prolific. As a singer and arranger he’s absolutely unique. His voice and his style set him apart from all others. His imagery is bold yet simple to the point of being ordinary.
He’s not the type of singer to be disregarded. Some people dislike his music. Others are fanatical in their love for him and his music. Everyone agrees however, that he’s one of the bedrocks of the art of calypso and a positive inspiration and model for our young calypsonians and artists.
It is no wonder therefore, that when he took to the stage at Dimache Gras 2000 he was the peoples favourite. Although instructed that there’ll be no encores at the monarch competition, the audience kept calling for him to return to the stage. The judges knew that their job was done. The audience had done the judging for them. The Shadow was crowned the first calypso monarch of the new millennium.
I’d missed the Savannah that night. In fact, I’d missed all the carnival events that weekend. My wife was in bed with the flu and being the devoted Trini husband (Chhhheups!) I had to content myself with watching it all on TV. This was a very special night for Shadow and his fans and I still feel cheated that I wasn’t there to join in celebrating that special moment in history.
Later that week I went to his home in Mt. Hope to offer my congratulations. When I drove up he was in the front yard waiting to take his teenage daughter to school. I hadn’t met him in a few years. He looked good. And despite his successes he still was a humble man who spoke with a childlike gentleness in his voice.
"I wanted to come up and congratulate you myself." I said "You were very good, man." "The judges made a good choice." he smiled, obviously delighting in his victory. " The people made sure about that." I said. " They were waiting a long time. It was way overdue."
"Yeah."
" Crazy shoulda place higher though. I think he shoulda place second. Right behind you."
" Yeah. They place him too low. He say that we shoulda tie for first and share the crown." Shadow said with a smile. " Buh I tell him I didn’t want to tie with nobody. If I win, I must win outright. I alone. Next year he could win. Is awright."
" All the folks from Bacchanal Time doing real good," I said.
"Yeah." he replied. " Rose still going strong. Crazy always up there among the best. He say he living in California now." "San Francisco I believe." " He just tell me California. I eh know which part for sure." "Rio still eh get a proper break yet." I said. "I think he’s our most underrated calypsonian." "Plenty people start tuning in to him. His time will come." " And GB. He writing some real good songs." "He’s a good man," Shadow replied. "I try to keep him close to me. He showed me his notebook and I tell him he had some very good songs. Then he tell me he was planning to leave his job in Pointe A Pierre and concentrate only on calypso. I ask him if that is what he really wanted to do. He had a very good job, Public Relations or something. He said yes. I tell him it go be hard, but he really love the thing, man. Is a few years now and he’s one of the best composers in the country. Couple years ago he win Young Kings, and when Mystic Prowler win the monarch in 98, is two GB songs he sing. Besides that he does write for some of the big names in the business."
Shadow paused for a moment, then said, "Is only Robin I does worry about. The man tell me he going to finish the house in Gasparillo den he’ll come back and put some real effort behind the calypso. But I hear that he tie up himself with a next house up there."
"Yeah." I replied.
"If you want the music you have to fight for it, man. It won’t come easy. I tired tell him that. You have to make it the center of your life."
"He’s a good man, with plenty talent." I said of our friend. "People didn’t always treat him right."
"True... True." he said almost to himself. "I hear Wanderer working with you." "Yes." I replied. "He had a part in my new film The Panman, and I hired him on the crew. He‘s been working hard raising his kids. Nice kids. Two girls and a boy. The girls in high school. The boy just started working." "You know B... passed away."
" I know. Robin told me."
" Big, strong B...he get so weak in the end...so sad. I was surprised when I see him. He look like a different person." Then he whispered almost apologetically, " I gave him a good burial. I ask Funny to make all the arrangements and I take care of everything."
" Robin told me." I said. " You were always a good friend."
" Life have so many surprises. You never know about tomorrow."
We continued talking about various things; Champs in Concert, his many foreign fans, his popularity among the youths, the fact that so many of the country’s young artistes hold him in high respect. "Daughter!" (not her real name. I‘m not sure he‘d appreciate me using her real name) he called out like any father. "Yes daddy!" replied a girl’s voice from inside. "What happen girl, like you eh going to school or what?!" "Ah coming daddy!"
"School start one o’clock. Is done five past one!" Then he said to me as he pointed to the door handle on his car. "After I drop her I have to pass by the body shop. The door handle break and the fella say he go fix it for me today....Daughter!!"
"Coming daddy." A pretty young lady, about sixteen and neatly dressed in her school uniform, emerged from behind the curtains and hurried towards the car.
"Hurry up! Hurry up!" He opened the door for her then climbed in behind the wheel. As he drove off he said to me, "Call me tonight. I’ll be home about seven." "Okay." I said. "Make sure and call mih." he said. "We have plenty to talk about." I stood there watching as the car sped off.
The Shadow.... artist, calypsonian, monarch, father and a truly decent human being.... Obviously a man on a mission. I consider myself fortunate to have worked with him and to have him as a friend.
Kamalo Deen
PEMPALEH INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTIONS www.pempaleh.com