I was in Barbados performing some time ago and a young lady interviewed me and asked about my approach to music and to song-writing and arranging and so on. That’s a common line in virtually every interview I’ve done, the focus on the music, and it’s an understandable one. After all, I’m known as this lanky guy with a guitar who has written some popular songs about Caribbean life. On the surface that’s true, but if you dig deeper and go past the musical talent there’s something else in play that is actually more significant. To illustrate the something else, I’ll take you back to the 1970s when Tradewinds had our We Place nightclub in Toronto. The band had become popular virtually overnight across the Caribbean and we would tour the region every year from mid-January to March, and then around August/September, and each year before the January 
trip, we would have a special Christmas show in the club in Toronto where we would also have a number of other invited performers. One year on the schedule we had a Trini singer listed, and he didn’t show up, so Tradewinds took his slot and did a few songs including the Christmas favourite ‘Mary’s Boy Child’. About half an hour after we finished, Trini rushed in the door, ran up to Mike Rosteing, the Trini stage manager of the show, “Okay, padna, yuh boy here and I ready to sing now, ah doing Mary’s Boy Child.” Mike told him, “Tradewinds did that already. Pick another song.” Trini says, “But that’s the song I practised.” Mike said: “First of all, if you were here on time, you would have been able to sing it. Secondly, you told nobody what you were going to sing; we only know that now, that
