GARFIELD BLACKMAN
FROM SINNER TO
SAINT
The Death of Ras
Shorty I
By Hollis
"Chalkie" Liverpool
Director,
Carnival Institute
Sunday Express
July 23, 2000
Pages 26-29
At
a concert in London in May this year, neither De Fosto, Ella
Andell, Crusoe, Baron nor I was able to move the audience as calypsonian
Alberto did when he sang Ras Shorty I's hit "Watch out my
children". Alberto and I both
agreed afterwards that that calypso was not only a timely and timeless
composition, but it had to come from the pen of someone inspired by the creator
in the same manner as were the Biblical writers. A closer look at the calypso reveals not only beautiful
well-rhymed lyrics: "sober thinking leads us to righteousness, and happiness,
spiritual bliss", but the lyrics contain that psychological mask that is
so common to good calypso. Not once did
Ras Shorty mention the word cocaine and yet the message was so effectively
communicated.
In
the calypso Ras Shorty I assumed the role of an international father-figure
pleading with and advising his children to beware of Satan. Alberto and I agreed too, that only a man
who was truly grounded in spirituality and a faith that made him taste in
advance the light of the beatific vision could have composed such a calypso,
and that Ras Shorty I could not have done so, if he did not experience the
adversity that made him turn from a life of glitter and glamour to one of
prayer and dedication to his creator.
Black Stalin and I were present at the Jean Pierre Complex when Ras
Shorty I sang that calypso for the first time.
At
the end of the first verse, we both watched each other in amazement for we knew
that that song was the essence of good calypso, and branded with the stamp of
immortality. Fresh from victory over
his Southern contemporaries such as Composer, Black Stalin, Rambler and
Bitterbush, Shorty came to Port of Spain in the 60s triumphantly echoing in
song the pleasures of love and the blissful meanderings of the promiscuous male
on the one hand singing serious commentaries like "Index of a
Nation", in 1969. Like Kitchener,
Beginner and other great singers before him, it was traditional for one to be a
conqueror in one's district before thinking of competing with the bards of Port
of Spain. In any case, Port of Spain's
tent managers of the day would not put on stage a country youngster who had not
first made his kingly mark in his district.
In Port of Spain in the 60s and early 70s, the carefree and nattily
dressed Shorty became a household word among calypso fans dishing out such hits
as "Indrani", 'Om Shanti", "Endless Vibrations", and
"The Art of Making Love", as he combined the rhythms of Africa and
India to "change" as he said, "the music of Carnival" and
make it "super sweeter." When
in 1976 he had heard West African music being played by bandleader Ed Watson
who had just returned from a tour of that continent, he realised that in some
ways West African music complimented the East Indian music that drowned his ear
in Lengua Village where he grew up as a boy, and straight away Shorty changed
the bass lines and patterns in the calypso to give Trinidad and Tobago and the
musical world, the Soca. He himself
told me then: "I am trying to put some soul in the music to make it more
danceable. The soul is not American
soul; rather it is the feeling. The
"Kah" is the Indian influence, but it also stands for calypso. Soca then is Soul Calypso."
When
on the one hand, in the 1970s many citizens of Trinidad and Tobago reacted
angrily and expressed shock at Shorty's adventurous courage in "Om
Shanti", "Indrani", and "The Art of Making Love", as
he dared in song to make love to east Indian women while praying with them,
extolled their inner and outer beauty, and then passed on tidbits to other
eager "love men", on the other hand, young singers then like
Valentino, Stalin, Duke, Brigo, Composer, Swallow and I were mesmerized by his
musical and creative ability, his "short" height, and his unusual Bob
Marley-like voice. Like the late Kitchener
and Maestro his mentors, Shorty used choice words that made for perfect rhymes,
yet he never sacrificed rhymes for intelligence and lyrics that captured the
hidden double-entente transcripts of Trinidad and Tobago while making
sense. For example, in "Don't
Chook Your Mouth" (1970), he warns Dennis a "makochious sex
pervert" about "always chooking (his) mouth in woman business:
All the girls singing the
same song
They like you bad but they
fraid yuh tongue.
In
"Love the High-falutin' way" sung in 1975, he puts up Trinidadians
who on returning to Trinidad from their sojourns in England seek out
prostitutes, but speak to them like "Sir Galahad".
Princes Serene Primus, you
are a ruby's enchantment,
A diamond translucent, a
pearl from the Orient
Your transcendent flow,
dynamically glow
From your pulsating
meandering effervescing below
Has motivated the nucleus of
my masculine ego.
As
young singers, we were mesmerized by his ability to accompany himself on guitar
with rare but sweet chords, and to exploit the minor key especially, in a
manner that seemed unbelievable, since all musicians know that the minor key at
most times is a very restrictive one.
Thus the melodies of "Om Shanti", "Who God Bless",
"Soca Fever", "Endless Vibration", like Kitchener's
"Pan in A Minor" are extremely sweet but rare and outstanding, since
the major and minor keys created that melancholy mood in the calypso
"Watch Out My Children".
Sweet,
however, are the uses of adversity, which like the toad ugly and venomous,
according to Shakespeare, wears yet a precious jewel in his head. In 1977, Shorty embarked on a tour to Canada
that not only turned out to be disastrous in terms of the financial ruin it
brought him, but the resultant adversity and depression that engulfed him
changed his life, his music and his relationships with his creator. His financial losses made him realise his
powerlessness, his limitations, and his finitude despite the prosperity and
glamour that calypso had provided him.
Truly it could e said of him that prosperity doth best discover vice,
but adversity doth best discover virtue.
Like the biblical Saul who was spiritually transformed into St Paul, the
hand of the Potter was working in Short's life.
White
flowing robes took the place of black and blue tight-fitting sexy outfits, the
Piparo wilderness was favoured to Marabella, his wife and many children were
embraced instead of Jean and Dinah, the spiritual Ras Shorty I replaced the
materialistic Shorty, poverty was seen as virtuous and wealth as immoral, Jamoo
music replaced Soca and man's creativity was to be used in the service of God
who created him to enjoy the fruits of the earth and the happiness of heaven.
As
young singers too, we were hypnotized by the charisma that Lord Shorty,
Garfield Blackman, possessed. I was
privileged to see that power that was divinely conferred on him openly
displayed at Spektakula Forum. At 1
a.m. one morning in 1983, Tommy Joseph brought Ras Shorty I and the Love Circle
on stage, but eh crowd was calling for the traditional calypso. On this earth there are few men who can
weather that storm; there are fewer artistes who can perform amidst that
bedlam. Ras Shorty, in the midst of
boos and catcalls began to pray.
"When I see all my children around me, I know that the Lord has
blessed me," he said. "You
here are witnesses to this great event and must thank the Lord for your life
and the fact that you can breathe and can enjoy a concert. Say Amen." The crowd responded with a rather weak "Amen". Ras Shorty I shouted out: "Say
Amen." The crowd, shocked and
fearful of Ras Shorty's wrath, answered loudly this time "Amen". And Ras Shorty I performed to thunderous
applause.
When
at the height of his career he stepped off the Soca stage and embarked on the
Jamoo platform, there were many who felt that it was simply a passing
cloud". However, his great outward
show of faith in God made his detractors realise that his changed life and
spiritual utterances were indeed "showers from Heaven." Even on his deathbed when I visited him, he
informed me that, unlike other men, he had entrusted his whole life to his
maker. 'Some men," he said,
"give the Lord their baggage of problems, but when they find the Lord is
taking too long to help them they take it back."
He then
proceeded to give me a joke that would make Tommy Joseph proud. "There was this man, who fell off a
cliff but luckily held on to a protruding tree branch. He looked down at the chasm 5000 feet below
and called out aloud for God to help him.
Suddenly God answered: "Leggo the branch." We laughed and Ras Shorty I thanked God that
he could still be used as his servant.
His
last words to me a few days ago were: "Chalkie, ah tired; ah going and
sleep." Little did I realise then
that like St Paul, it was his "desire to depart and be with Christ."
The
rich rhyming scheme with words of a similar sound within the sentence as well
as at the end, the haunting melody, the choice intelligent lyrics and the
"sober thinking" of Ras Shorty I ought to be communicated not only to
every school child in the world today, but to future generations. Ras Shorty I pleads:
You are young and your
future is ahead of you.
Right or wrong, sweet or
sour depends on what you do.
Taking the wrong direction
will drain your constitution
And promote tension, chaos
and confusion
Then corruption to the inner
man.
And that was not God's plan.
Watch out my children! Watch out my children!
It have a fella called
Lucifer with a bag of white powder.
And he don't want to powder
yuh face
But to bring shame and
disgrace to the human race.