Barnet Henry was a day-dreaming 14-year old who used to get in trouble for scribbling calypsos on his desk instead of doing his lessons when a calypsonian named Blue Boy changed his life.

Blue Boy had come to the Point Fortin Anglican GBC, a small, rural school in southern Trinidad one day in 1980 and sang his hit Soca Baptist.

"Blue Boy lick off my head that day. He had me going wild!" says Henry, who is now known as the Preacher, the winner of the 1994 Road March with "Jump Up and Wave Again." Preacher has gone down in the calypso record books as the man who prevented Blue Boy (now Superblue) from taking his place in history as the only man since Roaring Lion to have four consecutive Road Marches.

Both singers grew up together in Point Fortin where they spent much of their time composing songs in Dunlop panyard. Preacher, who grew up in a house surrounded by churches, began playing pan at seven. Neither his father, who is a Seventh Day Adventist pastor and a singer, nor his mother, who raised 12 children, wanted their son to play pan. So Preacher used to slip out and play until one night, he brought a tenor pan home and started to play. His parents finally gave up trying to make him stop playing pan.

By the time he was 16, Preacher, who was given his name by his boyhood friend singer Iwer George, was living in the panyard. He was in charge of taking care of the instruments so nobody would take them. He had already written his first soca tune by then, a crossover love ballad soca tune called Soca Baby. He sold his first song, "We Doing That," to New York based singer Wayne T.

Preacher was contented puttering around in the panyard, going some painting jobs on the side and writing his songs until one day Iwer George came and said, "I going to town to audition for a tent. You come too."

It was in 1986, the year of David Rudder's "Hammer and Bahia Girl," when the Point Fortin duo went to audition at Blue Boy's Culture House, Kitchener's Revue and Spektakula. "We went to every tent in town," says Preacher, "and everyone had the same answer. 'They put their arm on my shoulder and said, 'Youth, You have real potential. Keep trying.'"

Had the tent manager's reaction been positive, Preacher may have take the road that Point Fortin calypsonians like Cro Cro, Duke or Luta took. He may have stuck to serious social or political commentary. However, the rejection made him turn in a different direction.

In 1988, Trinidadian musician/arranger Kenny Phillips (who arranged Preacher's winning Road March) did a demo of Preacher's Obeah and Pan Revenge and it was included on an album called Witty, Wassy and Lumpy with Trinidad Rio, Preacher and Dyno.

Those two songs took Preacher to a calypso tent in the National Stadium. "We were singing, but times were hard," says Preacher. "Iwer and I used to buy a bread and a box of chicken and split it. We slept in the car or the Stadium until we scraped together money to travel home to Point. But I wasn't giving up. I just wanted to sing and let them know there is a Preacher coming."

In 1990, the tide turned from Preacher. Ironically, it would turn out to be a turning point for Superblue, also. Alison Ayres gave Preacher a song called "The Pledge" which made real waves during the 1990 coup attempt. The song had originally been destined for Superblue until Ayres remembered Superblue already had a song called "The Pledge."


When Superblue arrived for the 1991 Carnival singing "Get Something and Wave," which would become the Road March, Preacher was making waves with "The Pledge." And that went on to inspire him to write an upbeat social commentary called "Abu Bakr Take Over" which he sang in the Calypso Revue.

By that time, Preacher had become a prolific songwriter. The Barbadian group Spice were singing "Lift Your Leg and Wine." Internationally acclaimed singer Arrow from Monserrat was singing "Wine Your Body." The United Sisters sang "Whoa Donkey." Alan Welch sang "A Little Bit of Wine." Drupatee sang "Lick Down Meh Nani". Ajala did "Jump", the 1993 Road March runner-up, and Byron Lee took Soca Bogle and Soca Butterfly.

Still, Preacher remained one of the most invisible songwriters until Superblue's Bacchanal time got him thinking about a song called "Jump and Wave Again."

In 1994, as the Carnival clocked ticked off to the half-way mark and Superblue still hadn't arrived, it looked as though it would be clear sailing for Preacher, as indeed it was. "Jump and Wave Again" won him his first Road March title.

For Carnival 1995, Preacher headlined the government run calypso tent with "Dance Like a Baptist," inspired by Superblue's 1980 Road March Soca Baptist. His music has become known for its energy, popping horn lines and riveting rhythms. Preacher's first album, Rattlesnake Wine, produced by Kenny Phillips, one of Trinidad's leading producers, has been released on Ice Records and is poised to take the world by storm.