Over the years, going back to my beginnings, travelling on school breaks to my father’s farm in the Pomeroon from our family home at Hague and Vreed-en-Hoop, and later when I worked for B.G. Airways at Atkinson Field and lived there with the family of my sister Theresa at her home near the airport, I had a great exposure to a wide swath of Guyanese culture that remains with me still. Just today, in a note to my long-time friend George Jardim, I was reflecting on the part that exposure played to my musical career in creating songs that Guyanese gravitated to because it was truly their story I was telling. In my youth, I had been exposed to the culture, face to face, and without being conscious at the time of what was happening I was building a legacy I would later draw on when I turned to song-writing as a youngster growing up on West Dem. I didn’t recognise the process consciously but looking back I see it as the genesis of the musician that people came to know from those Tradewinds songs. I was writing, in fact, about the various realities of life in Guyana, I was reporting, really, not inventing, and it is a process I recommend to any young creators who approach me on the subject, as some do……write or paint or design what you know about.
The process at play with creative persons, be it in literature, painting, or music is somewhat of a mysterious exercise which is operating on you without your full understanding, but the key for creative output is to let the process take you; in other words, to surrender to the inclination that is there. In my case, my exposure consisted of life in West Demerara, first at Hague, then Vreed-en-Hoop, and later still in Georgetown while attending Saints Stanislaus College and then at Atkinson Field when I started working for B.G. Airways and living at my sister Theresa’s family home there.
In brief, what I am advising, as I tell prospective song writers who approach me, is write about what you know. Interpret, yes, and elaborate, but deal with what you know, that’s the key, because the material then, drawn from the living culture around you, will be totally relevant and understandable for the other Guyanese in the society. That dictum applies to any creative aspect of the arts. Interpret, yes, elaborate, yes, but focus on what exists, what you know, because it will be relevant to all Guyanese holding the same knowledge. I was blessed, in my case, to have a wide canvas before me made up of wide experience with things Guyanese and living in very different versions of the culture in the different areas and in different countries.
In a way, as well, it is important that in the very early days of my song-writing, living thousands of miles away in Canada, I somehow managed to remain immune to the foreign culture I was living in while reaching back to my previous life and time. Drawn from a living source, the songs were reflecting a reality that required very little explanation to a Guyanese audience – they knew the subject inside out. I can’t recall any advice along those lines from anyone, but in retrospect it must have stemmed from my own love of the culture, so that when I turned to writing about it, I was, as earlier noted, simply reporting, instead of inventing, I was proud of this view of life I was born into, and it was a no-brainer for me to continue to embrace it fully. I must stress, however, that a great deal of resolve is involved because one is surrounded by the foreign cultural influences (radio, television, movies, etc.) that dominate Caribbean culture day after day, Indeed, allow me to emphasise the word “resolve” in the previous sentence, because that is precisely what is required for the process to succeed. I have been often asked, by other writers in the popular media, as to the source of this resolve for me, and my answer is that I truly just don’t know. Somehow, some way, this affinity was sitting there within me waiting for me to recognise it, and I found myself accepting it without question.
Now in the latter stages of my career, that inclination remains, somehow still continuing to keep me on the straight and narrow, even to the point of advising other aspiring artists to embrace that connection to the existing culture…..focus on what you know about. There is a world of material out there, no matter what your area is, for you to draw on. See it as the resource it truly is, a genuine one, waiting for you to work with and convey. Your embrace will produce great results. You will be both relevant and popular.
Our solace
The world is going through a litany of woes everywhere it seems, of late, including of course the horrors of Ukraine, where bombs are falling on completely innocent people, including young children, many landing on the very homes they live in, and it’s almost impossible to comprehend that millions, yes, millions, have fled the country, going God knows where. Mankind seems to have reached a new level of horror, almost mindless in its extreme, leaving us almost stunned by its madness. At the same time, we continue in a relatively quiet Guyana, but still haunted by the spectre of Covid, not knowing where the end of that is, with families torn apart, and with the lack of reason everywhere one looks, whether countryside or town. Human beings seem unable to cope with the hand fate has dealt them. At times such as this we have to turn to religious thinking or practice to help us stem the tide that seems to run on and on, generating more misery every day, instead of less. Mankind, it seems, desperately needs a faith in God more and more, a belief in a greater purpose, one not easily seen or found, with each passing day, as the storm continues. It is certainly a time to kneel and pray for understanding and strength to endure, leaning on the hope that there is better on the other side and for finding the calm after the storm. As the old lecture goes, “hope springs eternal’…. that must be our solace. Each one must be one. So, right now, it does certainly go.
