![]() Old calypso recordings from the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies are rare. Just as fascinating as Eddie Grant's future is his domination of the past. ![]() Grant's new album, Soca Baptism, features 15 classic calypsos, arranged by Grant, with top band leaders Pelham Goddard and Leston Paul and guest instrumentalists include saxophonist Roy Cape and the guitar virtuoso Fitzroy Coleman, 'the black Segovia'. ![]() About 20 are signed to Ice, from veterans such as Roaring Lion, Kitchener and Sparrow, to carnival aces such as Superblue and Crazy. He has the studios, the ideas, the experience, and the contacts - he's just signed an important US distribution deal with a top reggae company - and he has the artists. Ring bang's opening salvo, the Trinidadian Stalin's new album Rebellion, comes out early next year. a cross between the Yoruba talking drum, the bottle, and the tabla' and has as its mission world conquest in two years. Elusive to grasp, ring bang involves emphasizing rhythm with electronic components such as the 'wuku drum. If soca needs a kick up the backside, then the answer is Grant's new ingredient, 'ring bang', which he introduces as a rhythm, and eventually promotes to a 'philosophy'. Grant leaps up to demonstrate, alarming Muriel. Jamaica has an edge with youth, but the ragamuffin style, Grant alleges, is based on the Trinidadian 'saga- boys', or 'bad johns' of the 1950s with their exaggerated, swaggering dance. Grant has introduced a Jamaican ragga-style chant on some songs, perhaps to attract a youthful audience soca having an older, more middle-class public than ragga, the street-kids' choice. ![]() Grant's productions make Barbadian artists among the most interesting in the formulaic soca genre. By 1982, with Grant's second chart success ('Electric Avenue') peaking, he set up his studio in the colonial residence at Bayley's Plantation, in Barbados, and injected a tougher bass line, synthesizers, and a crispness into the sound of calypso. Ice Records was set up in Guyana, and a London office opened in 1977. Leaving the Equals in 1970, Grant pursued his entrepreneurial activities as vigorously as his solo career, mainly in the Caribbean, as the big London record companies weren't interested. ' Subsequent Eddie Grant compositions have cropped up all over the Caribbean. 'And that was eight years before Kitchener's 'Sugar Bum Bum' which some people say was the first soca record. It was reported in Melody Maker in the early Sixties.' He sees his 1970 hit 'Black Skin Blue-Eyed Boys' as one of the first kaisoul / soca productions. I won.' At the time, Grant used the phrase kaisoul (from kaiso, an alternative term for calypso), to describe his blend of Trinidadian music with rock and soul, which came to be called soca. 'Two of my songs were taken up by Prince Buster and I had to take him to court over authorship. There are also reports of a campaign by Grant to break the soca record market, of which he controls a major slice, out of its carnival ghetto and into North American mainstream. Above all, this year has seen the first four volumes of an enormously promising series named Caribbean Classics. Since then, tantalising new items have emerged from Blue Wave Studio via Grant's record company Ice, including innovative tracks by Gabby and a young Barbadian group, Square One, plus an LP by the 90-year-old 1930s calypso master, Rafael de Leon: 'Roaring Lion'. I was keen to find the source of this music, which seemed superior to the lyrically bland dance clones of Trinidadian soca at that time. This was in Barbados, where I'd just discovered the calypsos of the Mighty Gabby, in particular 'Chicken 'n' Ram', produced by Eddie Grant in his Blue Wave Studio, with Grant playing virtually all the instruments. Five years ago I spent a week's worth of phone calls trying to meet Eddie Grant, to no avail. Patience is a prerequisite of the Caribbean-showbiz correspondent.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |