Last Saturday, at the 56th University of Guyana Convocation Ceremony, internationally renowned musician and songwriter David Anthony Martins, founder of the famous Tradewinds band, was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters. This honour, to one of more famous sons of the soil, is at least two decades overdue.
At the graduation ceremony, Dave – as everyone calls this most down-to-earth of men – was the keynote speaker. As he delivered the feature address urging the university graduates to refine their skills and talents, one wonders how many of them appreciated that they were in the presence of our songwriter. The few readers – apparently this is another dying art form – in the audience who peruse this publication might have read Dave’s So It Go column, which ran on Sundays from 2007 to earlier this year, and had an inkling of who he is. In his sketches he explored myriad topics while providing keen insight to the world of music and travel. His thoughtful reminiscences, which gave the younger generation rare glimpses of what life was like growing up in British Guiana in the 1940s and the 1950s might be countered the following week by an essay on a current development.
In 1889, Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet and playwright, penned his famous essay, “The Decay of Lying” where he opined, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” Wilde went on to observe, “… the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy.” Wilde cited the example of poets and painters depicting the beauty and wonder of London fog, which had been around for centuries. “They did not exist till Art had invented them,” the poet wrote. Wilde, of course, was referring to the gifted artists among us, those who can observe and translate for us, the wonders of life into a discernable medium for the populace to savour.
Dave Martins was blessed with the gift of song writing. It was this attribute which propelled and sustained his group, the Tradewinds, to the zenith of Caribbean music, for decades. The pathway to the apogee of any art form is often arduous and strewn with pitfalls. We have seen the sculptor at work, chiselling away at a block of wood or a huge stone. We have witnessed a painter, palette in hand, translating a visual image on to canvas. Song writing is an entirely different ball of wax. Anyone can be ‘struck by lightning’ and write a one-hit wonder; producing masterpieces time and time again is the real litmus test for song writers. The list of artists – note artists, not singers – who create their own material is extremely short and includes “we boy” Dave.
Dave had migrated to Canada in the late 1950s, and like many West Indian artistes of that period, perched on the outside looking in was able to paint the true picture of who we are as a people. The Tradewinds was formed in 1966 in Toronto, with three Trinidadians, with a projected focus of creating music for Caribbean people. There was no beaten pathway to follow, and in one of his columns Dave emphasized the importance of paying attention to the business side of things, an overlooked aspect of the industry, which, unfortunately, led to the demise of many performers.
In 1967, the Tradewinds ventured off to Trinidad for carnival, where they recorded four songs, making two 45 vinyl records. One of the songs, “Honeymooning couple” was a hit all over the Caribbean, and the Tradewinds’ sails were billowing in the wind. A record contract with RCA produced five vinyl long playing (LPs) records and an introduction to the harsh world of the recording studio. Dave, then, way ahead of the curve, started his own label, Penny Records, and went on to manage and produce his own music from then on. The band’s vast body of work includes 23 LPs, and six compact discs (CDs), and came to a frustrating end with the advancement of computer driven piracy.
In the summer of 1977, while on the second of the Tradewinds’ then annual two visits to the Caribbean, in an interview with the late Matthew Allen on his popular radio programme “Night Ride”, Dave outlined the process of song writing. He noted that one starts off with a theme or an idea, and the concept can sometimes take years to come to fruition, and after then battling it, a casual remark or an aside, can start the ball rolling. He cited the difficulties he encountered when trying to take the hit songs “Wong Ping” and “Copycats” from idea to conception, and the vital sparks that led to their creation, as examples.
Great song writers like Dave not only pen the lyrics, but also score the music of their creations. What really separates Dave from the pack is his unique ability to write music in several genres. A quick review of his large repertoire will reveal songs in the forms of calypso, soca, reggae, spouge, zouk, kadans, soul and ballad. Over time he has documented in song, weaving a tapestry of the essence of who we are as a people. He has unveiled our souls, capturing our idiosyncrasies and our way of life, often, in witty form. Everyone has an entirely different list of their favourite ten Tradewinds songs, but they most likely will include some of these classics: the aforementioned trio of “Honeymooning Couple”, “Wong Ping”, and “Copycats”, “Boyhood Days”, “It’s Traditional”, “West Indian Suitcase”, “In Guyana”, “West Indian Alphabet”, “Brother Jonesie” and “Civilisation”. His tour de force, of course, is our unofficial second national anthem, “Not a blade of grass,” a song which he stated wrote itself in about an hour.
Those of us who were fortunate to have witnessed Dave and his Tradewinds band live in a concert still retain very fond memories of those occasions. These performances not only included their own music but quite often the latest offerings from carnival. Dave has led the Tradewinds to the peak of the hardest mountain to climb in the music business, crossing the generation gap, a feat which is virtually impossible to achieve. There is probably not a single Guyanese who has been exposed to modern communication who has not heard or knows one of Dave’s creations.
After shifting the band’s base to the Cayman Islands in the early 1980s, Dave returned home to live in 2007, in true artistic form of completing a four-act play. Dave has penned two musicals, the first, Raise Up, was commissioned by the Guyana Commemoration Commission to celebrate the 150th anniversary of full emancipation and another on the Cayman Islands. In 2017-18, Dave served as the Artist in Residence at the University of Guyana.
As a nation, we are blessed to have Dave create the soundtrack of lives, a gift we often take for granted and never pause to reflect on. The honour just conferred upon him is long overdue, but Dave knows that “it’s traditional” or as he would say, “So it go.”
Thanks for all the music and memories, Dave. Congratulations Dr Dave Martins.