Dear Editor,
A long time ago, I encountered Dave Martins once only at German’s Restaurant in what used to be called Tiger Bay back then. Yet, he was always around and will continue to be from Piccadilly to the West Indies. Like the Tradewinds that graces this region, a long breath of fresh air was Dave Martins. He was a legend in his time, a true iconic figure that left the inerasable imprint of music in young minds, a sense of pride, a feeling of meaning in that he gave us many things with which to identify. Guyanese do need a few things to coalesce around, to bring them to a state that is radically different from where they have always been helplessly stuck. Music is the food of love, indeed; and Dave Martins was a gastronomical delight in the musical fare that he served up with such unabashed joy for such a long time. Music that stirred and resonated. Clearly, some thinking went into the man’s creative and artistic productions. Just when it was thought that there is a little dip in interest, circumstances introduced a resurgence.
“Not a blade of grass” has seen a reincarnation and restoration in the national imagination. It is more than a song, or more than even what some accurately call an ‘unofficial national anthem’; it is hymn that is a symphony. From the patriotic to the profound, there were those lyrics that came out of life’s lessons, that he immortalized. From a “Honeymooning Couple” a borderline raunchy number that made one think. About where it started to where it was taking the flight of ideas. At the other end of the spectrum, I wonder what sort of reception “Wong Ping” would receive today. Civilization can be a retarding process in its vast, compelling sweep at times; too often, it is a broom that sweeps too clean.
Thinking of Dave Martins’ music and the lush pristine sprawl of them makes me think of a less fettered time, when a composer could put words to a string and a song, and the rest was pure inspiration. I am thinking of how constricted we have become now, with some looking over their shoulder, with others looking beyond these shores. Like so many Guyanese, Dave Martins was a citizen of the diaspora, a citizen of Guyana, and a citizen of the world. There is a certain universality about such simple grandeur, a richness to the texture of what was a different kind of Guyana. In this the new Guyana era of local heroes manufactured out of air and puffed-up verses and stanzas that merely multiply to the hollow, Dave Martins was the genuine article, a Guyanese performer of rare and singular distinction. In a long unending season of the outlandish and churlish, he was the ambassador extraordinaire who personified the stylish with just a hint of the waggish. I always sensed that he had a streak in him that was just as broad as a proud Guyanese blade of grass, and just as serene and unbowed in its bearing.
Dave Martins music was and is ours. Dave Martins, the man and the Guyanese, will remain our own cherished watermark of what could be, and actually do come to past. Thanks for the childhood joys, the adult re-associations, the moments of infrequent national inward looking. Like he sang that witty ditty that can be so true: “is your friend, is yuh fren.” He was an unforgettable son and friend of Guyana.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
