The classical “Mash in Guyana” song celebrates thirty years since it was first recorded this month.
It was thirty years ago in February that the song first blasted across Guyana’s airwaves and has since become somewhat of an iconic song and one that is a must heard during the Mashramani season.
“Mash in Guyana people going crazy….,” some of the lyrics that can be rolled off the tongues of almost any Guyanese. When the minibuses tune into radio stations playing the classic, passengers hum to the song; women at home sing in the kitchen some even swaying and children dance to it onstage at competitions. Then, come February 23, it will be the big showdown on the road when revellers gyrate to its rhythm. Since its debut “Mash in Guyana” can claim the fame of being the anthem every Mash.
It all began when singer/songwriter Rudy Grant visited friends on Hadfield Street, Georgetown and ran into radio broadcaster, the late Pancho Carew, who invited him back to the GBC Studio (now NCN) where he was doing an interview with Guyanese singer, Ebanie. It was November of 1986 and the Mashramani preparations were already in full swing.
This would be the first time Rudy would hear of Mash. Rudy had migrated to England when he was just eight years old, long before Mashramani came about so the holiday was foreign to him. Pancho went on to explain that it was similar to carnival and Rudy did not have much trouble figuring out what it was all about after that since England held its Notting Hill Carnival every year.
Pancho used the opportunity to request that Rudy write a song for Mashramani since Guyana was doing Calypso and road-march songs, but never putting them on record. Rudy replied that he was not a prolific writer and Pancho didn’t insist anymore for the day. A few days later Pancho contacted him again about writing a song, and Rudy decided to take on the task.
“…I headed down to GBC and spoke with Enrico Woolford and talked about footage for the video; Jean Harding made sure that I got the footage,” Rudy recalled. “I took that footage to Barbados, and spoke with a husband and wife team named Mervill and Betty Lunch who were producers and editors of programmes and videos at CBCTV, Betty also produced TV videos called fillers for my brother Eddy [Grant] in the mid-70s. I left the footage there, went to London and started to work on the song; it was just after the 20th of January. I got together with a band called ‘Masquerade Band’ and a good friend of mine, Errol Reid. I sat with Errol to see what was the best way to do the song and how quickly we could have gotten it done.”
A few days later he met with Patrick Daniels played the trombone and arranged the brass section. Daniels came from Guyana along with Wayne Nunes who played bass, Trinidadian Lenny Hathaway on the guitar, Jonesie at the steel, Eddie Heizn on the saxophone, Clair playing the trumpet, Errol Reid on the Dx7 keyboard; Jackie Robinson, Peter Campbell, Nunes, Paul Brown, Pauline Grant and Maria Grant as background vocalists and Rudy as the lead, the group got to recording “Mash in Guyana” at the Hive Studios and later mixed at the Hollywood Studios.
Rudy recalled that before they actually got to recording, it was debated whether brass answering the string section could work well on a soca composition. Rudy wanted it to be done but Daniels said it was unheard of.
However, Rudy got his way in the end.
“We recorded at 5 am the Monday… and by Tuesday I rushed down to CBS studios in town to cut the master and also an acetate copy for Pancho Carew to play,” Rudy said. “He played it as soon as he got it. When I called him, he said, ‘Partner this thing is going to kill them!’ I’ve seen it, it’s never been down. ‘Mash in Guyana’ has always been the iconic song for Mash.”
Rudy confessed in our sit-down, “When I heard the strings played with the bass sometime after, while sitting in my car, I said, this is it! Tears came to my eyes and I said to myself, I did this for my country.”
According to the singer, he knew it was going to be number one in Guyana but didn’t expect it to be number one in England on the soca charts in the Black Echoes Music paper in front of songs like the Road March winner from T&T “Thunder” by Duke and a song called “Is Horse” by Explainer. He was surprised also at the song being a hit as far as Zimbabwe, yes Zimbabwe.
Five years ago when “Mash in Guyana” celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, deputy editor of H-Metro (a lifestyle and entertainment newspaper in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare) Robert Mukondiwa in a letter to Kaieteur News’ then reporter, Neil Marks said, “My mother was then a humble African woman in the post-colonial era of Zimbabwe and to think she knew and loved it meant it was a song that had broken the barriers of class in society.
“She is the one who would always swing and sing along to it.
“‘Mash in Guyana’ was played a lot on the national television station ZBC TV (Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television) and it was almost an anthem everywhere one went.
“The video was a hit and to be honest people didn’t know it was called ‘Mash in Guyana’ but rather knew it as ‘Mashingayana’ as if it were one word.”
Questioning Rudy on whether he had planned to become a singer, he said, “I was actually a footballer but then I began following a sound system called Ska Beat Federal owned by a Jamaican from north London called Mr P. The sound system used to play at special dances at certain people’s homes and clubs mainly on the weekend and I was the DJ/Selector most of the time. But the sound system had a couple of other selectors before and after I left.”
Rudy said he used to DJ the sound system just like the toasters/chanters from Jamaica and people who followed the music could not tell the difference between him and the Jamaicans. In 74/75, Rudy by then known as ‘the Mexicano’ had a minor hit on the British Reggae charts top 20 called “Cut Throat”. Then in 77, he had a massive hit with “Move Up Starsky,” which topped the reggae chats in England, T&T Barbados and Guyana. It was also in the top 100 on the British National charts.
He has since done an average of 10 albums, 100 covers and 25 singles including hits such as “Lately,” “Cut Throat,” “Move Up Starsky,” “Mash in Guyana,” “I Love You Cherry” “Hit the City,” “Dallas” and he also created the famous series of albums called ‘Soca For Lovers’ in 1988 in London.
He expressed thanks to “Errol Reid for all the help that he gave, all the musicians and all the background vocalists that helped to make this record a success; and to the late Pancho Carew who was the person who inspired me to write this song.”