I did a television interview here recently along with Al Creighton and Ron Robinson on the subject of the arts as a propellant for social cohesion. In the course of the discussion, responding to a question on music by the host, Neaz Subhan, Al Creighton referred to songs as often being “reflections” of a culture. I have mentioned this condition in previous writings, arguing that most of our popular Caribbean songs, rather than influencing behaviour, are actually drawn from our existing culture and are indeed “reflections”, as Al put it.
Some two weeks after the interview, I played in Toronto last weekend to a crowd of mostly Guyanese performing a number of Tradewinds songs with the band of Raymond Lee Own (Guyanese know him as Chinny) which included Chinny on guitar, Barbadian Brian Huntley on bass, and Ricky DaSilva on drums. It was a rousing night, with a sold-out crowd in a festive mood; one of those nights where you don’t want the session to end; you want to keep going. I had started out the evening by mentioning to the crowd that the first song we would play, Honeymooning Couple, had been written 50 years ago, coinciding with my decision to do only Caribbean music with Tradewinds, and the set that followed was all Tradewinds material except one song from an old Trini calypsonian called Killer, and even that