In the tangled and often confusing world of popular music both in the Caribbean and abroad, one is often asked in interviews about the “key to success” in that field. While the assumption most of the time is that my response would be “talent”, in fact while many may agree, the cogent answer to the question is actually “perseverance”. There are so many obstacles and variables in a music career anywhere, be it the Caribbean, North America, or elsewhere, the most important requirement for success is that the individual must persevere. That quality, that attitude of not being deterred by setbacks, must be there; without it, performers with obvious musical talent will fall by the wayside, as I saw many times in my early days in music in Toronto among the many Caribbean migrants there, several of them with clear musical talent, but minus the determination to press on despite the various obstacles in the way. Perseverance may be partly inborn, but in my case the attitudes to life, displayed by my mother Zepherina and my father Joseph Francis, were a vivid lesson for me, as a youngster growing up in West Dem, and time and again it was my determination to keep going, instilled merely by their example – they never actually used the words to me; they just showed it – that kept me going through the significant obstacles that face newcomers to music. From my father, a Pomeroon farmer struggling with flooding problems and crop failures, I never once heard the words “give up”; JFK would be out there the day after the waters receded, clearing the rubble, and replanting. And in our home at Hague, and later Vreed-en-Hoop, my mother was there, running the house, holding the fort, and frequently showing us examples of tolerance and resolve and “going forward” in the face of difficulty.
Similarly, when I finally formed the Tradewinds band in Canada, in the 55 years that followed a key ingredient in our success, music per se aside, was that I was fortunate to find people in the Caribbean, experienced in promotion work, to become our representatives in the various countries and they, too, came with the determination to succeed. Very early on, a key one in Guyana was the late Freddie Abdool, himself a seasoned manager of the local band Night People, who had the experience and knowledge of local venues for our music, taking us to play in places like Bartica and Linden and New Amsterdam and Kwakwani – venues that would never see touring bands. Similarly, in Barbados, we struck a gold mine in attracting the interest of radio personality Vic Fernandes, who became our representative there, steering us to the out-of-town venues where we built a strong local following in successive tours. In Antigua, a business man there named Peter Michael, who knew the band from visiting our We Place nightclub in Toronto, became our guy in his homeland for many years. In Trinidad, it was the combination of music promoters Ellis Chow Lin On, and later Cosmos Hosam, who organised bookings for us, all over the island, from the north coast to San Fernando. In St. Vincent, we had Stilly Fraser, owner of a popular nightspot there, bringing us in for shows, and I was lucky to make friends with the late Bobby Clarke in St. Lucia who became one of our biggest supporters in the region. In each of these men, the word “perseverance” was always in play in the work they did for us; they never wavered. I recall, Bobby Clarke, for example, berating a Guyanese music promoter in St. Lucia who was critical of me, to the point of Bobby almost coming to blows with the man. These various representative also came with that “press on” attitude, a necessary ingredient in the Caribbean with an often temperamental music industry, and, with respect to Trinidad in particular, I have to cite the strong support the band got from such Trini stars as Sparrow, Duke, Kitchener, Mano Marcellin and Andre Tanker that was an important factor in the acceptance we quickly gained in that mecca of calypso and carnival.
In previous writings, I have sometimes mentioned the travail of music tours in the Caribbean where conditions can vary wildly – both on stage and off – and the sometimes gruelling travel hours, as in Trinidad, after Carnival, catching an early morning flight to Guyana, half asleep in Piarco, but pressing on. Life on the road is no bed of roses for musicians, even for the ones at the top – I recall seeing Trini bandleader Joey Lewis, nodding off in Piarco en route to a gig in New York after the night before at the Trinidad Hilton. It may not have been obvious to others, but I could see Joey doing what I’m citing in a musical career – he was persevering. For any aspiring musicians reading this, yes, practice your instrument, stay away from the opiates, and rehearse your songs until you can do them in your sleep, but, in the end, back of all that, you must also be prepared to persevere. Just this morning, my wife Annette, played me a short video of long time Guyana music man Nesbitt Changurr, doing a song called Tain Public Road, in which he points at problems in our country, years ago, very similar to the election turmoil facing us today. The lesson there for us, in music as well as politics, is that if you come to the party, come with perseverance – you need it, big time, to stay on the road. It’s the glue behind the rah-rah.