THE CARNIVAL STORY
CALYPSO EVOLUTION
By Terry Joseph
Episode Six
Express
February 26, 2000
Page 45
In its search for the yet elusive breakthrough to mainstream music
markets, calypsonians have always appeared eager to adopt what they see as
emerging trends.
Paradoxically,
there has been a robust resistance to change.
Moving from the minor to the major key, adjustment to the length of the
verse or chorus or other departures from calypso conventions, have attracted
scathing criticism at every sequence.
Even
soca, a homegrown product taken for granted today, experienced rough passage
before being accepted by the established bards.
Both
Kitchener and Sparrow fobbed off soca as one would a passing fad after Lord
Shorty (now Ras Shorty I) premiered this brand of calypso in the early
Seventies.
Shorty
had included East Indian instruments (most notably the tabla and dhantal) to
create a bubbling new rhythm in what had previously been an Afro-Trinidadian
domain. By the end of that decade,
however, even soca's loudest detractors would be jumping on the wagon, causing
Shadow (who had entered the fray with his unique rhythm) to sing "I Doh
Want to Sink That Soca Boat."
Rapso
had also come onto the scene, with Lancelot Layne's (1971) "Get Off the
Radio", which doubled as a protest song about the imbalance of airplay
between local and foreign works.
Brother Resistance and his sidekick Shortman would later emerge as rapso
artistes.
Classic
soca songs were born alongside traditional tempo calypso as this explosion of
new rhythms took root. Kitchener gave
us both "Rainorama" in the old vein and "Sugar Bum Bum" in
soca style during the Seventies, and by the turn of the decade, Sparrow was
fully into the new beat as well.
But
not all the inspiration for change was indigenous.
King
Shortshirt, among others, set the tone for a faster version of calypso music, a
trend that held for many years, particularly where the foreign singers scored
successes internationally. Such was the
acclaim for Shortshirt locally, that the road march rule actually had to be
changed it the middle of the 1977 Carnival competition, to expressly exclude
him from taking the top prize.
Perhaps
the most significant shift in the Eighties came with the arrival onstage of
David Rudder, whose songs brought yet another style to calypso, winning for him
the National Calypso Monarch, Road March and Young King titles, and signalling
to the fraternity a new twist in public tastes.
Rudder's
follow-up work, most notably his treatise on "Calypso Music" and his
tribute to the steelbands' "Engine Rooms", led to several imitations
in the calypso arena.
But
on the road, SuperBlue had dominated the race since 1980 and Rudder's
band-mate, Tambu, was to take three out of the five titles between 1986 and
1990.
SuperBlue
won another four titles in the 1990s, but the tide shifted with Nigel Lewis'
phenomenal "Moving" in 1996 and continued exploring fresh variations
to the end of the century.
Calypso
today waves a broad banner with apparently no restrictions on creativity; a
fact some say might well be bringing the art-form to ruin. But the likes of Iwer George and Machel
Montano are likely to disagree fiercely.
The returns they have accrued from their soca hybrids could be used to
forcefully make the point.
Ragga
soca and chutney soca, forms which are today legitimized to the point of having
separate annual competitions which earn hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
of prizes for winners, are indeed a far cry from what Gros Jean pioneered at
the advent of the 19th century.
Financial
return has largely guided the composers and singers even if it means steering
clear of what was once thought to be the fundamentals of good calypso.