We don’t hear much reference to it, but a major factor in the development of artists or cultural agents in a society is the interactions with influential persons of the day which are a natural consequence of their work. Very early in my own career, for instance, as Tradewinds began in 1966 in Toronto, I took the band to Trinidad Carnival in 1967 with our four recorded songs to get the group known in the Caribbean market. A man by the name of Sam Ghany, head of the government station Radio Trinidad, became one of those influences for me in that he was the first important media person I interacted with and I learned a lot from watching up close how he operated, juggling the combination of solid business man and handling temperamental creative people successfully. What struck me immediately about Sam Ghany was that he was never rattled, no matter how difficult a situation became. Several times, mostly as a bystander, I was to see him handle contentious matters before him purely from the manner of his approach and even from the very words he would use. I was a total rookie in the music business at the time, but I could see the impact his manner had and it was something I later used as Tradewinds became popular and began touring the Caribbean and North America when I found myself dealing with diverse promoters in various places. I had seen Sam’s model at work, and I used it to my own advantage. These exchanges with persons one encounters affect us all, and looking back this week on the path my own life took after 1966, I was reflecting on the persons in my own life, some of them prominent people, with whom I had interacted. I recall a Canadian recording engineer in Toronto (unfortunately his name escapes me) doing our first Tradewinds recording, who stopped us to emphasise the importance of doing the take over and over until we got it right. “If you don’t, every time you hear the recording with the part not quite right, it will bother you. Don’t fall into the ‘it’s okay’ trap.’ Take the time; get it right.”
Sometimes, the exchange is a silent one. With Tradewinds launched via Honeymooning Couple, we came to Guyana, and our representative here, the late Freddie Abdool, arranged a courtesy call for the band with Cheddi Jagan. I don’t recall who else was in the meeting, but I remember like yesterday Cheddi’s quiet demeanour, very soft-spoken, and his answering my question about the stress of the work by saying, with a shy smile, that he had found regular exercise to be the key. I was nervous about an interaction with him, a first for me, but the meeting with Dr. Jagan was very low key, no other officials, and I came away impressed by how gentlemanly he was. Purely from his demeanour and the things he brought up, you relaxed. It was an exchange I talked about to others later, and several people told me, in almost the same words, “That’s how he is.” It was a learning interaction; that humility in the man.
Cheddi, much of the uncomplicated man about him, talked to me almost zero about music or my songs but was very intense on the subject of looking after my health; told me the important role exercise played in his life with all its demands and stresses…spoke to me like a father speaking to a son, offering opinions on this and that… no airs about him whatsoever… humble interaction.
Some years later, with BLADE OF GRASS roaring, Freddie Abdool again arranged a courtesy call, this time with President Burnham, who had invited us to the conference room, upstairs in the Cultural Centre, for a chat. I remember him saying “thank you for the song”, and it struck me that here I was, a green country boy, but hearing that compliment from the Chief, or, as I used to call him, “Skipper”; another interaction that I could lean on. I’m not claiming that I became part of the President’s circle, but one of the things that stayed with me about him in the intervening years was that Forbes Burnham was always dapper in his dress. Every time I saw him – at State House, at some event, in the Cultural Centre meeting, even getting on a motor boat to cross from Vreed-en-Hoop to town, he was always dapper. I was a country boy and clothes didn’t mean a lot to me then, but from the interactions with Mr. Burnham I immediately saw the impact it could create. It was a lesson that stayed with me.
Another interaction I look back and recognise came when I moved Tradewinds to Grand Cayman in 1980. Through my former wife, Angela Ebanks, I got to know Ormond Panton, who had been the country’s political leader, pushing for independence from Britain, and in this man, now retired from politics, I saw a relentless drive to uplift the Caymanian people across the board. Mister Ormond, as many, including me, referred to him, was fearless in his commitment. The fact that he lost friends over it, did not matter. He persevered. He even clashed with the British Governor and ended up in a fist fight with the man in the Governor’s House. He fought the British all the way to the Privy Council and helped win independence for Cayman. His story showed me the power of concerted belief; another interaction I look back and recognise.
There are others, too numerous to relate here, but I must mention two: one of them is the late Lord Kitchener, with whom I interacted in Trinidad over the years and who impressed me, creator that he was, with his complete lack of outward complexity. Kitch was creating this astonishing music and remained a quiet Trini. The other one is Hamilton Green. In his case, it was the collection of Guyanese carvings that Hammie had assembled in his home. I remember the impact, sitting there and seeing these stunning pieces and realising they were all Guyanese. That interaction spurred me to later acquire some Guyanese carvings of my own.
Looking back on them, an impressive list of Caribbean achievers: Sam Ghany, Cheddi Jagan, Ormond Panton, Forbes Burnham, Lord Kitchener, Hamilton Green….stalwarts all.
