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LORD KITCHENER
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EDDY GRANT'S
EULOGY FOR LORD KITCHENER
February 14, 2000 - Ladies
and Gentlemen of the Caribbean,
today and henceforth, there
will be many words spoken
in recall of the man fondly
known as the Grandmaster
of Calypso. It has been
for me an education in dealing
with one so brilliant, one
so unassuming, correct and
yet so non-judgmental as
this man who our region
should mourn in perpetuity.
His greatness as a musician
par excellence is well known
by those of us who love
Classic Calypso Music the
world over, and in particular
the music of the Steelband,
for which it seems that
his writing skills were
particularly well geared.
I know from our many conversations
that he was a very deep
thinker on most matters
but actually spoke very
little of those things publicly,
choosing to let others who
were more flambouyant take
centre stage for their various
pronouncements and posturing.
Aldwyn Roberts the Lord
Kitchener, was, outside
of his stage appearances
and his songwriting, a rather
private person. I can remember
one day I needed to speak
to him quite urgently on
some matter and I suddenly
realised that I wasn’t in
possession of his home phone
number and had to phone
Mr. Lennox Straker one of
his inner circle to contact
the Grandmaster asking him
to call me, which he did,
and upon realising how restraining
the practice was, I’m sure,
decided to grant me the
privilege of possessing
this prized phone number.
I shall never forget his
loyalty to me when the ownership
of my companies was being
wrongfully challenged by
foreign interests and the
two profound words his mouth
issued, when I telephoned
him to tell him that the
matter was at an end in
my favour; the words were
"THANK GOD BOY".
The last time we met was
at the Ringbang Celebration
in Tobago on New Year’s
Eve 1999, where after years
of me dancing to his many
great Road Marches and other
great songs the Grandmaster
bestowed upon me the greatest
possible endorsement….he
got up from his seat and
danced to ‘Hello Africa’.
God bless you Grandmaster
you have distinguished yourself
among men and among the
greatest creators of music
the world has ever produced.
I can only imagine the pain
being felt by your loved
ones and to them I pass
on the sincerest condolences
of my family and myself.
I cannot liken you Grandmaster
to any other, as you have
come to represent a musical
instrument the likes of
which seems not to have
existed before you started
to write exclusively for
it.
Grandmaster, the Steelband
will miss you, Classic Calypso
Music will miss you, I will
miss you, the Caribbean
will miss you and the world
will never see the likes
of you again.
Bye Bye Grandmaster!
Eddy Grant
President
Ice Records Ltd./Ice Music
Ltd.
Lord Kitchener
Once and Future Monarch
of the Mas
By Timothy White
(Note: This Article Was
Written Before LK Passed
Away)
There are numerous fables
of wisdom and warning in
the folk culture of Trinidad
and Tobago, some of them
West African in their roots,
others originating from
the country’s East Indian
heritage, and most concluding
with the same admonishment:
keep your story straight,
living like it like you’re
giving it, or suffer the
consequences.
Among the most enduring
allegorical myths are those
Toucooma the spider, the
chubby and less clever son
of cute Bre’r Anancy, whose
dishonest attempts to appear
shrewder than his more discerning
parent continually go awry.
Equally familiar – and cautionary
– are those tales concerning
the shape-shifting Lagahoo,
a mystical human whose selfish
mischief when assuming another
form (such as a donkey)
inevitably backfires. And
then there is the fearsome
time-honored caution to
the children of Trinidad-Tobago
to "Sleep fast, yes,
or else Ma Coo-Coo in these
bedtime parables is plenty
harsh, yet it rarely helps
the unfortunate youngsters
who purportedly failed to
do what's good for them.
Such is the custom council
accorded the preadolescent
population of these islands;
but come the onset of adulthood,
a juncture when one most
needs canny instruction,
where can a person expect
to gain this timely guidance?
From calypso and soca, of
course, whose Percolating
narratives combine the urgency
of newspaper headlines with
the Solomonic overview of
the learned poet. And in
the annals of calypso, there
is no greater reporter or
literary sage of the Lesser
Antilles than Lord Kitchener,
once and future monarch
of the mass.
He was born Aldwyn Roberts
in Trinidad on April 18,
1922, one of the six offspring
("three boys , three
girls") of blacksmith
Stephen Roberts and spouse
Albertha. The infant Aldwyn
entered Trinidad at the
very moment each year when
the flowering of the poui
trees leave only stunning
pink and yellow blooms.
It was likewise a emerging
labour movement, riots in
1919 having emanated from
longshoremen’s and oil-field
workers strikes, the latter
revolt being the first effective
protest of discriminating
hiring practices. Aldwyn
grew up in Arima , a crossroads
town in the parish of St.
George. A bustling rural
terminus, Arima lay between
a mountain-bound territory
of roadside waterfalls ,
bamboo thickets and wildflower
chaparrals, and the ancient
coastal capital of Port
of Spain.
As a boy Aldwyn loves investigating
the diverse terrain. Meanwhile,
the British-held Caribbean
was exploring the latest
notions of confederation
as analysed in the Major
Wood Report of 1922. In
the wider world during that
same year, Mussolini marched
on Rome, forming his Fascist
government; and the Irish-Free
State was established, completing
the partition of Ireland
into the British-ruled North
and an independent republic
whose capital was Dublin.
In America, Louis Armstrong
had joined King Oliver’s
Creole Jazz Band in Chicago
as a cornetist, his spirited
solos helping ignite a hedonistic
era F. Scott Fitzgerald
captured in his current
book, Tales of the Jazz
Age. And commercial radio
broadcasting had been inaugurated
in the U.S, with 500 stations
established by the end of
1922, most featuring sports
coverage and dance music.
Trinidad and Tobago are
the southernmost Caribbean
islands, the former isle
lying just eight miles off
the Coast of Venezuela,
and they were discovered
in 1498 by Columbus. The
original inhabitants, nearly
wiped out by armed conflict
and disease (smallpox),
were the Carib tribe. The
island’s remained under
Spain’s control for almost
three centuries, Trinidad’s
governors establishing a
capital inland at St. Joseph
in 1592 and then moving
it to the seaside site of
Port Of Spain in 1757. Land
grants to Roman Catholic
pilgrims that commenced
in 1776 attracted a diversity
of settlers, including French
planters. Dutch, British
and Latvian farmers also
repeatedly tried to establish
themselves in the largely
neglected adjoining island
of Tobago.
The British captured Trinidad
in 1797 and made it a Crown
colony in 1802; Tobago came
under official British Control
in 1815. To keep wages low
after the abolition of Slavery
in 1883 and to guarantee
a reliable work force to
harvest the cash crop of
sugar cane, the British
induced 145,000 East Indian
migrants to work the fields
as indentured labourers,
as well as thousands of
Chinese (largely recruited
as family units), and Portuguese
from the island of Madeira.
These workers signed two-,
five-or ten-year contracts.
As for Aldwyn Roberts (nicknamed
"Bean" by a sister
due to his slender six-foot-two
frame) the first salaried
employment held by the 14-year-old
after his abrupt departure
from Arima Boys Government
School was a position playing
music for the Water Scheme
workers in Trinidad’s San
Fernando Valley. Aldwyn
had been unexpectedly forced
into a wage-earning environment
because of the death of
both his parents, and while
he had excelled in mathematics
in school, the teenage guitarist’s
most marketable skill was
the instruction he’d received
since age 10 in the oral
traditions of calypso.
It was 1937, and morale
amongst the rank and file
of Trinidad’s work force
was a sensitive issue after
the country was rocked by
more civil riots. "My
job was to entertain the
workers while they were
laying government water
pipes, "recalls the
singer-songwriter, relaxing
in his house near Diego
Martin, Trinidad. "The
men liked a song I composed
about foreigners who were
here looking for employment.
At that time, you have lots
of outsiders that come to
work from a place called
Carriacou, and island that
belonged to Grenada; so
I was making jokes of these
people who leave Carriacou
to come to Trinidad! "I
had learned about music,"
he notes, "from my
father, who was also a ballroom
dancer and an excellent
whistler. While he was shoeing
the horses in his blacksmith
shop. He’d keep whistling
the songs of Spanish origin
that were very popular in
the dancehalls. At the same
time, the calypsos –which
I feel came from folk music—were
becoming more prevalent
as I grew older." Calypsos
and the steel band traditions
that grew out of Carnival
were initially the pre-Lenten
mass (masquerade) celebrations
of Trinidad’s wealthy French
colonialist; they were know
as Canboulays (from the
French Cannes Brulees or
burning canes). The government
banned the use of Calabash
drums and other skinheaded
percussion instruments,
however, since they had
been widely used in the
Caribbean to coordinate
slave uprisings.
The Europeans were soon
threatened by even these
restricted displays, however,
since they also contained
aspects of the fighting
rituals that were accompanied
by warlike songs called
Kalindas.
Following several canboulay
street upheavals in 1881,
it was forbidden for groups
greater than ten to assemble
with sticks. The downtrodden
Afro-Trinidadian populace
responded by cleverly devising
a festive, percussive alternative:
the Tambour-Bamboo bands,
which employed bamboo poles
as a thumping counter-point
to the cadent martial music.
Over the course of the next
decade, the authorities
also curtailed these practices,
and celebrants turned to
rhythmically beating pans,
bottles and kettles with
metal spoons and other implements.
In time, the players noticed
how the tone of the pans
and tubs they thumped were
altered as both the mass
and their intense pounding
wore on.
In 1937, a street troupe
from New Town repeatedly
seized the imaginations
of the people with a Carnival
float on which the revelers
offered and eccentric adaptation
of Irving Berlin’s jazz
standard "Alexander’s
Ragtime Band" (triggered
in this case by Louis Armstrong’s
then current hit rendition
on Decca) in which they
beat on an assortment of
buckets and scrap metal
and, especially, oildrums.
(Oil was discovered in Trinidad
in 1907, and its colonial
exploitation, inflationary
effects and castoff production
debris—mountains of rusting
steel drums—have all helped
shape the modern destiny
of the country). The prize-winning
Carnival float inspired
imitators, and the ingenious
development of steel-pan
music was thus engendered.
Ellie Mannette is believed
to have been the first man
to "sink" and
then tune, in raised sections,
the surface of and oil drum
top; Winston "Spree"
Simon and Neville Jules
also played key roles in
the rapid maturation of
steel-pan. In addition,
Carnival drum and steel-pan
rhythms owe much to the
percussion calisthenics
of Trinidad’s Latin mainland,
as well as Muslim Hosein
and Hindu drumming.
The precise origins of calypso
songforms and even the term
itself remain as obscure
as they are controversial.
Some scholars see the seminal
expression (Kaiso) as West
African in origin; comparison
in motifs have been made
between the defiant cheerleading
of the Chanterelle, who’d
exhort participants in a
Bois Bantaille (stick fight),
and the verbal formulas
of Yoruban Ijala or hunter’s
songs.
But several outspoken elder
calypsonians like Raphael
De Leon aka The Lion vigorously
dispute this perspective.
The Lion asserts that the
coinage of "calypso"
resulted from a corruption
of Canso, a 14th century
French word for love song,
and "Caruso",
the surname of Italian Opera
singer Enrico Caruso, whose
Victor recordings of the
early 1900’s circulated
in the region, the peasantry
supposedly using the famed
tenor as a casual synonym
for any powerful singer
or song.("It meant,"
says The Lion, "that
you were performing well
and they were likening you
to the man.").
Perhaps, although it seems
remiss to ignore the prevalence
since antiquity of Homer’s
Odyssey (an epic common
to the Caribbean’s classrooms)
in which the Greek bard
described the activities
of Atlas’ daughter Calypso,
the comely nymph who for
seven years entertained
Odysseus on the island of
Ogyia, before Odysseus declined
her offer of immortality
and resumed his journey
homeward.
For decades, beginning in
the 1920’s, performers in
"Trinibago" sang
the lilting, topical and
frequently risqué French
folk songs in a Creole patois
that gradually gave way
to English as the music
drew the interest of American
record labels like Brunswick,
Decca and Bluebird. In Trinidad,
the biggest calypsonians
who vied each year at Carnival
for the title of calypso
king were mainly males:
King Radio, Lord Beginner,
William the Conqueror, Attilla
the Hun, Lord Executor and
Growling Tiger. (Executor
and Tiger were masters of
seminal minor-key calypsos,
Tiger being the first officially
crowned King of Calypso
on the strength of his formidable
E-minor vocal might.)
The content of the evolving
calypsos ranged from double-entendre
political rants and Picong
(improvised insult) attacks
on musical rivals, to witty
and expansive commentaries
on the social mores and
pressing issues of the day.
After the music was discovered
by the
British and Americans and
ballyhooed as a buoyant
novelty, calypsonians like
Lion, Attilla (Raymond Quevedo)
and Executor (Phillip Garcia)
found themselves on live
stateside radio broadcasts
with such stars as Bing
Crosby and Rudy Vallee.
While on a Caribbean U.S.O
tour during World War II,
comic Morey Armstrong heard
a humorous ditty by Lord
Invader ("Rum and Coca-Cola")
about the cultural wrinkles
caused by American servicemen
stationed on Trinidad and
passed it on to the Andrew
Sisters (who cut a sanitised
rendition from which the
caustic satires of the Yankee
troops were excised).
As for aspiring calypsonian
Aldwyn Roberts, he began
performing as a proper calypsonian
in Arima in 1938. A year
onward he scored his initial
kaiso success with the song
"Shops Close Too Early."
He served as a Chanterelle
for the Sheriff Band, and
also won the Arima Calypso
King Title, adopting the
non de plume of "The
Arima Champion."
In 1943 he moved to Port
Of Spain, where he sang
in cinemas for two years
with the Roving Brigade,
and was noticed by entrepreneur
Johnny Khan, who managed
the Victory Tent. Khan invited
Roberts to join in 1944,
when the tent was located
on Edward Street, and it
was then that Aldwyn came
under the wing of Growling
Tiger, one of the foremost
talents of calypso’s first
(1920-40) Golden Era.
During 1944 Aldwyn composed
"Green Fig" the
lacerating lament of a cuckold
husband who can’t get a
fit meal in his own bungalow.
"I was singing about
my girlfriend, who was cooking
green fig for my lunch,"
he remembers, "which
was not something I approved
of. The joke in the song
was that she was taking
my money and cooking chicken
for her boyfriend!
"Green Fig" (also
known as a variant title
"Mary I am Tired And
Disgusted") became
a national sensation, moving
a greatly impressed Growling
Tiger to honor Aldwyn with
the calypso sobriquet of
Lord Kitchener (after Field
Marshal Lord Kitchener,
hero of the battle of Omdurman
and the Boer War, England’s
former Secretary of State
for War.
By 1945, Kitchener was singing
in the House of Lords tent,
with colleagues Lady lere,
Lord Ziegfield and Caresser.
Kitch’s "Yankee Sufferers"
was promptly banned by Police
Commissioner Angus Miller,
but Kitch was permitted
to perform "Green Fig"
for President Harry Truman
that same year at Waller
Field.
Kitch rejoined the Victory
Trent in 1946; its roster
included old guard calypsonians
as well as comers like the
Mighty Killer. It was here
that Kitch'’ reputation
exploded with his "Tie
Tongue Mopsy" a calypso
of the familiar Caribbean
"yard comedy"
category, whose antic premise
involved a paramour with
a speech impediment. The
dramatic levity of the romantic
saga transcended the merely
mocking because Kitch centered
the tension of the narrative
on the tongue-tied girl’s
desperate attempts to rouse
her dozing lover before
the arrival of her baleful
grandmother.
Come 1947, Kitchener and
Killer boldly established
a new tent at 100 Vincent
Street under the management
of Elias Moses, luring Spoiler,
Viking, Lord Ziegfield,
Lord Pretender and Lord
Melody from House Of Lords.
This audacious "Young
Bridgade" touted a
more rhythmically and lyrically
aggressive and less folk-based
mode of calypso; its horn-heightened
Latin mambo/samba/swing-flavored
tempos were intensified
by hedonistic themes reflecting
elation with the end of
World War II.
The experience of entertaining
American Troops had made
the Calypso garrison of
the Young Brigade more attuned
to a salacious, danceable
style that largely side-stepped
current events and parochial
issues in order to exult
in the at-ease attitudes
and presumed prosperity
peacetime would bring.
Each evening following their
shows the Young Brigade
would strut the streets
crooning:
Everyone knows or have been
told that the young bound
to conquer the old so tell
them we are not afraid We’re
going to mash up the Old
Brigade!
What made Kitch the preeminent
exponent of the Young Brigade
was his ability to merge
his various cohorts’ individual
strengths:
Tuneful verve, offhand wit,
superb diction and projection,
inventive structure – and
the crowd-pleasing knack
for parroting the banter
of the citizenry, regardless
of sex, age group or ethnic
persuasion.
Yet Kitchener departed Trinidad
in late 1947, stirred by
a mixture of career ambition
(he longed to be a recording
artist) and curiosity about
calypso’s place in the international
music landscape. He passed
through and performed in
Curacao, Aruba and Jamaica
(where "Kitch Come
Go To Bed" made him
a star), sailing ultimately
for England with chum Lord
Beginner AKA Egbert Moore
on the S.S Empire Windrush
– a vessel that would soon
epitomise the mammoth postwar
West Indian immigration
to the seat of the fading
British Empire.
A Pathe newsreel account
of Kitch’s June 21, 1948
disembarkment contained
one of the most famous images
in calypso. "I decided
to sing a new song I wrote,
‘London Is The Place For
Me’ Kitch reminisces , "because
that was really the way
I felt when I landed in
England."
It was not until 1950 that
Kitch began cutting his
first important records
in the UK, recording first
for Parlophone and then
for Melodisc. All his releases
were swiftly dispatched
to Trinidad, where they
usually became Carnival
triumphs. These recordings
highlighted not only Kitch’s
reverberant vocal zest but
also his innovative taste
in orchestrations. Kitch’s
Parlophone sessions were
backed by Cyril Blake’s
Serenaders under the supervision
of UK Jazz proponent Denis
Preston. On Melodisc, the
still more sophisticated
harmonic progressions and
integrations of steel-pan
elements that Kitch pioneered
occurred with the assistance
of gifted arranger Rupert
Nurse. At this point, the
ever-experimenting Kitch
was rightly calling himself
"The Professor".
While in Albion, Kitch began
writing more serious social
critiques and odes of ethnic
pride, 1953’s "Africa
My Home" and "Black
or White" (If Your’e
Not White Your’e Black)"
helping cement the Pan African
underpinnings of Caribbean
culture in the popular imagination.
The bulk of Kitch’s decade-plus
stay in England found him
residing in Manchester,
where he briefly owned a
nightclub. But he spent
considerable time performing
, recording and enjoying
his newfound celebrity in
London’s Soho-section clubs,
like the Sunset. He was
also rumored to have attracted
a loyal fan in Princess
Margaret (who had visited
Trinidad in 1955; she is
said to have purchased 100
copies of "Kitch, Come
Go To Bed").
"It was at Chesterfield
Club where I appeared and
sang for Princess Margaret,
"Kitch confirms, and
she definitely enjoyed Queen
of England a bear for Prince
Andrew, and that bear was
called Nicky, so I sang
a song called "Nicky
the Little Brown Bear."
Which brings us to a synopsis
of the staggering array
of jewels in this anthology
of Kitchener:
In Volume 2: The wry vaudeville
of rique possessiveness
espoused in the double-talk
of "My Pussin"
earned Road March in 1976.
The courtroom tensions and
ghoulish detail of 1973’s
"One To Hang"
make for a spell \binding
track. "P.P.99 is the
registration number of a
fast mover" with a
lot of horsepower "and
Kitch thoughtfully shares
the "parking"
problems he had in 1971
with the sedan’s chassis.
An adolescent’s petition
for understanding is the
crux of the dialogue between
mother and daughter after
the latter has been seduced
by "Panaroma Night."
"Take your Meat
Out Of Me Rice," 1967,
traces the tensions over
the cereal – and meatball
meal a Bajan and a Trinidadian
have prepared together.
The petty intolerance between
Barbados and Trinidad bespeaks
myriad simmering ethnic
conflicts that obscure the
melting-pot impact all historically
displaced West Indians have
had on each other. Witness
how conveniently islanders
forget that their beloved
rice, roti and curried goat
all originated in India.
"No More Calypso"
was a tune Kitch originally
penned in 1950’s (this tracked
appeared on a 1967 compilation)
to decry what he perceived
as the lapsed standards
of calypso writing, siting
the Mighty Sparrow in interviews
as a prime culprit. Bystanders
perceived the controversy
as a clash between a legendary
rulebreaker and his latest
and biggest challenger.
"Handy Man,"
is a tale of a domestic
hireling whose "broom"
is accidentally slipped
under the "coverlet"
(bedspread) of the mistress
of the house.
"No
Melda" (1963) is the
fragmentary chronicle of
a street-corner mating dance
that has somehow affected
Kitch’s memory. "Love
In The Cemetery" (1963)
displays a cryptic but sexy
human interest bent.
"Mama, Dis Mama"
grabbed the 64 trophy in
the Road March, and the
North Stars’ steel arrangement
swept the panaroma. "The
Road was the well-deserved
Road March champion of 63.
"Miss Tourist"
enraptured the 1968 Road
March, its lyrics relating
the potential for adventure
on "Jou’vert on Carnival
Monday morning, the start
of the main two-day festivities.
Volume 2 concludes with
"67", which cavaliers
steel band made the Panaroma
victor that very season,
and 1970’s "Margie",
is a sly sonnet that stole
the annual March with its
tireless entreaty: "Now
is the time on Carnival
Day/I want you to come in
town/Don’t let me down/Just
throw on your morning duster!
For over 55 years, Lord
Kitchener has extended an
impromptu invitation to
come as you are to Trinidad
and frolic with the rest
of humanity. In the process,
Kitch has helped shape musical
idioms as diverse as jump
blues, rap and dance, while
giving the world a kinetic
poetry of exhilarating eloquence.
Kitchener is one of the
most distinguished architects
of the lively arts in this
century, and his mythic
efforts exist in the eternal
present, rallying the poor
of means, reviving the poor
of spirit.
"I
was born a calypsonian"
Lord Kitchener assures,
reminding is that there
is an aristocracy of the
soul that eclipses any caste
or peerage.
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