Dear Editor,
Kindly permit me a little space to offer my sincere condolences to the wife and family of Dave Martins and to pay a short tribute to the memory of my dear friend.
It was while in Toronto, Canada vacationing with my wife Debby and through a mutual friend Tony Yutzy and his wife Maria that we came to meet Dave. Yutzy, as we all called him, asked if we would like to go to Wee Place, somewhere in downtown Toronto to see Dave Martins and the Tradewinds preform. Of course, I knew of Dave Martins and the Tradewinds and had been to their shows in Guyana and loved their music. On arrival at Wee Place, the club was packed but Yutzy, being a part time musician with the band, got a table up front.
Immediately as the session was over, Dave came over and was introduced to us. He ordered a bottle of Champagne for the table and during the next session proceeded to introduce us as a visiting Guyanese couple and dedicated the first song of the next session to us after being told that we were recently married. Little that we knew then that, that first meeting would endure into a long-lasting friendship. We came back to Guyana and the band came to play here later that same year and we got to know each other even better.
Whenever they visited or we went to Toronto we would always see Dave and the guys. During one visit Dave and his wife of that time stayed over at the Yutzy’s in Pickering and the evening lasted into the early morning hours. Dave offered to make his favourite salt fish and bakes for breakfast next morning and it was the most scrumptious we have ever tasted. Another time he invited us to a recording session where we got to see them lay tracks, meet the sound engineer and record.
Not too long after, he informed us that the band along with his good friend Yutzy and his wife Maria had decided to move to Cayman Islands. I rather suspect that he had enough of Canada and was longing to return home. Guyana, at the time, was struggling with our socialist experiment and that was a concern of Dave’s which resulted in the next best place being Cayman where his wife was from. On his yearly trips to perform here we would invite Dave and the guys to our home to eat Metem-gee or some other local dish which Dave craves. His manager and man of business, Freddy Abdool, and his wife Carmen, would also entertain us from time to time.
He was impressed with my involvement in culture and especially as a Mashramani designer and would tell us of his plans to start a similar festival in Cayman. It was not too long after that he would invite me there to do workshops to get it off the ground. He was very involved and later became Director of the Department of Culture until he left and came to Guyana where he got married to Annette.
He would always tell me of his desire to perform live on the road in Guyana and I always wanted to make it happen for him. Our currency restrictions and value at the time made paying the band a hard proposition. However, I managed to convince Mr. Komal Samaroo and Chairman, Yesu Persaud that the goodwill and publicity which would be generated would cross all ethnic lines and cement Demerara Distillers Limited place as a leading manufacturer and distiller firmly in the minds of all Guyanese.
After agreeing on a price with the band, and which I should add was not the biggest motivator, but rather the opportunity to play for a Guyanese public at a national festival was what drove the Tradewinds to much excitement. The band’s theme, which I chose, depicted nothing else but his most well-known and popular song “Not a Blade of Grass” which won Band of the Road. We immediately got around to organizing things and Dave asked if I could find him an “Iron Man”, a percussionist who plays either the triangles or in this case a car rim which produces a most tantalizing beat to keep the band and the trampers alive. Dave and his Tradewinds played at Thirst Park the night before and at 7.30 next morning after breakfast, were loading their instruments on a covered truck.
In all my years of “Mash” I have never seen any band play non-stop on the road. At Vlissingen and Crown Sts. Dave jokingly called out for someone to bring some mauby for de boys and indeed a bucket of mauby appeared. Bobby Hunter, a Guyanese musician, tried to get on to the truck when his slippers fell into the mauby bucket, they took it out and continued to share the mauby. The band continued to play and when they arrived at 6.30p.m at DDL’s head office, then located at Water and Shumaker Sts. Mr. Yesu Persaud who stayed on the truck to the end had to launch an appeal to the crowds outside DDL to “have a heart and give the boys a break”. The crowd called for “One mo”, Dave obliged.
After completing a refurbishing job on the GDF Skyvan, the then Brigadier General, Mr. Norman McLean suggested to Cpt. Jerry Gouveia that he take my wife and myself for a goodwill trip to Kaieteur and Orinduik. I inquired of them if it would be okay for me to invite Dave Martins and his wife, who was at the time in Guyana, to join us to which I got a resounding “Of course you can… it would be our honour’.
We also took Dave and his wife on their first road trip to the Lethem Rodeo and bush camp-out where he was constantly flocked and asked to sing. On our trip back we were invited by our friends from Rock View Guest House, Annai to visit the Iwokrama walkway and I have never before seen Dave so scared in all my life. He just would not put a single foot on “Da shaky ting, not me, bro”.
Dave was a wonderful person to be around and would do anything for a friend, like packing his bass drum full of Pampers to bring to Guyana for my 2 year old. What a guy? A few weeks after the Lethem trip, I was surprised when a pair of off-road tyres arrived for me. I was confused since I had not ordered them, but low and behold, Dave had gifted them in appreciation for the trip which we would not let them spend a cent on. He also did very catchy jingles for me for El Dorado Rum, Tribal Vibes etc. but his most memorable one which plays to this day is “Spice up yuh Kitchen with Ricks and Sari.”
We love you Dave and all those wonderful times we shared together. Our last get together at Oleander Gardens for drinks and buffet with Annette, Freddy, Carmen and a few other close friends will live vividly in my head like the music you wrote and shared with all Guyana. May you Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory.
Sincerely,
Bernard A. Ramsay
