FROM OVAL BOYS TO INVADERS

Anecdotes of Invaders Steelband

Andre McEachnie

Dedication

To the memory of Birdie Mannette, Ellie Mannette, and the contributions of other founding members of Oval Boys, especially Ossie Mannette, and Francis “Peacock” Wickham, also to Emmanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley, Nervin “Teach” Saunders, Trevor Cooper, others including all the players, their supportive parents, families and the thousands of committed persons and supporters who contributed to the making of what is now once again Shell Invaders. Also in recognition of the cultural contributions of a Toco Boy, Valentine Wheeler.

Dedication

For Birdie Mannette, Ossie Mannette, Ellie Mannette, Francis Wickham, Emmanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley, Nervin “Teach” Saunders, Trevor Cooper, and Barbara Jenson, All the early players, their supportive parents, and supporters, Who represent all the various committed persons Who contributed to make what was Oval Boys, Shell Invaders Caribbean Airlines Invaders, and now Shell Invaders And in the memory of another Toco Boy Valentine Wheeler.

Copyright Information

First Published in Trinidad, 2008. Revised Edition ….2019.

Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Inside Cover Page Table of Contents Acknowledgement Introduction Chapter One

From Behind God’s Back

Chapter Two

Migration to the Promised Land

Chapter Three

Two Mannette Brothers: Birdie and Ossie

Chapter Four

The Genesis of The Oval Boys

Chapter Five

Crazy Days of the Steelband Violence

Chapter Six Chapter Seven

The Ellie Mannette Era Ellie Mannette and America, Land of Opportunities

Chapter Eight

Birdie as the Heir of the Mannette Dynasty

Chapter Nine

Panorama Blues

Chapter Ten Epilogue

Some Oval Boys and Invaders People

Appendix / Glossary Bibliography

Acknowledgement

This book emerged from a discussion between Mr. Valentine Wheeler, a former School Supervisor III, and the author. It took many years to complete this manuscript and I would like to thank all those who provided valuable information and pictures relating to Invaders Steelband. Special indebtedness is due to three deceased family members, Sydney “Pappy” Mannette, Vernon “Birdie” Mannette and the eldest sibling, Lio Locario. The same level of gratitude should be extended to Francis “Peacock” Wickham, Cecil “Coye” Forde, Ossie Mannette, Nervin “Teach” Saunders, Emmanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley, Barbara Jenson, Trevor Cooper, Norman Darway (deceased), Jim Innis, and other surviving family members of the Mannette family. Thanks also to the staff of the National Archives, Peter Blood and Lester Forde of the Trinidad Guardian, Keith Smith of the Trinidad Express, Carol Solozano, Dr. Louis Regis, Dr. Joan Bobb - Dann, Dr. Dani Lyndersay, Lincoln Beckles, Brenda Rampersad-Hosein, Debbie Wade, Sandra Grant, Valentine Wheeler and Catherine McEachnie. I express my special appreciation to the former Manager, Michael Dinchong and former Public Relation Officer, Colin Greaves of Invaders, Roger Henderson, the Chief Executive Officer (2008) of Queen’s Park Cricket Club, and Mr. Stephen Almondoz, the Curator of the Queen’s Park Cricket Museum, who allowed me to view his collection of irreplaceable photos and gave permission for the use of some of them. Finally, I extend my gratitude to Elton Prescott, Cheryl Neptune and Lennox Charlerie (deceased) for reading this manuscript and making some important suggestions, Sharon Ali Aziz for selection of photos in the first edition and design of the cover, and to all the others who have also contributed in different ways to make this book a reality. Appreciation is extended to Ken Jaikaransingh who was first involved in the idea of a revised edition of this book being republished. Finally, thanks to Louis Regis for accepting this onerous task of editing this new edition and also for the persistence, encouragement and support of Barbara Jenson, who insisted even while experiencing personal challenges that the author must complete this project.

Introduction

Oval Boys to Invaders: Anecdotes of Invaders Steelband evolved from a short in-depth study that mainly examined the involvement and exploits of “Ellie” Mannette and his brothers, “Ossie” and “Birdie”, in the early development of the Invaders Steelband. However, after interviewing several persons, the writer made the decision to focus on the recording of many interesting stories that some of the old- timers had to share. This book replaces the manuscript that contained a significant amount of information pertaining to the Mannettes. It includes critical data relating to numerous colourful characters, dedicated members and supporters who contributed to the evolution of Invaders. Chapters one, two and three highlight some of the experiences of the members of the Mannette Family when they lived at Point Carat, Sans Souci in Toco, their migration to Port of Spain, and some of the early exploits of both brothers, Birdie and Ossie Mannette. In chapter four, the book documents the emergence of “Oval Boys”, while in chapter five, it records some anecdotes associated with the “Crazy Days of Steelband Violence”. Chapters six and seven chronicle the involvement and dominance of Ellie Mannette as a tuner in Invaders steelband and in the steelband world of that era, his involvement with the USA Armed Forces and his subsequent migration to the land of opportunities. Chapter eight focuses on the ascension of Birdie Mannette and the tumultuous years of change in Invaders. Chapter nine, “Panorama Blues” offers varying opinions as to why the Invaders Steelband has never won a Steelband Panorama Competition. The two last sections of this book acknowledge the contributions of some prominent persons in the band and examine some of the options for the band in the future. There are several claims and counter-claims relating to the emergence of the steelband in the 1930s and 1940s. Stephen Steumpfle has provided detailed documentation of numerous persons who claimed they were participants in various events and innovations in the early development of the new instrument. Therefore, Anecdotes of Invaders does not attempt to negate the claims of persons from other steelbands, but it utilises the anecdotes of mainly old stagers of Invaders and other researchers, and highlights the participation and contributions of many persons who were closely associated with this specific band. Francis “Peacock” Wickham, Cecil “Coye” Forde, “Ossie” Mannette and Vernon “Birdie” Mannette were all present and very active participants when the first group of young men from the Woodbrook area decided to form a band based on the model that they had seen when “Humbugger” of Alexander’s Ragtime Band employed pieces of steel in his tamboo bamboo band, as the forerunner of the steel pans. Sydney “Pappy” Mannette, the father, and Lio, the eldest sibling, also contributed critical insights about the early days of the Mannette family. Anecdotes of Invaders is more than just a collection of some old persons telling stories about Invaders Steelband. It is symbolic of the youth in the various communities who were creating a new era, a new dawn in the development of a country that was still under the control of the colonial powers which determined how the natives lived, celebrated cultural events and died. The book attempts vicariously to capture the experiences of a group of talented energetic young people who created a new musical instrument, developed a different form of musical expression and defied the authorities when they tried to destroy this unique innovation. Many young men made life-changing decisions to become involved in the steelband without realising the tremendous impact it was having on them and on the various communities in some areas in Trinidad and Tobago. Anecdotes of Invaders also sheds light on some of these persons who made significant contributions to this steelband and provides a glimpse into their lives and achievements. The book examines a wide range of subjects and issues, usually presenting the perspectives of the ordinary persons associated with the band. These views

of some members relating to the reasons why the band has not fared better in Panorama competitions over the years, make interesting reading for persons who are not familiar with some of “the behind the scenes” issues associated with steelband Panorama Competitions. Members also gave some unique reasons for the type of violence that members of other steelbands unleashed against the members and supporters of Invaders. The irony of the publication of this document in 2008 and its republication in 2018, is the unprecedented violence that the country had been experiencing since the beginning of the first decade of the new millennium and the fact that powerful organisations including the government, the business community and the church leaders, seem at a loss to identify and execute effective strategies to control the raging crime situation that is stalking the land of Trinidad and Tobago. They have employed various limited approaches and programmes that have all proven to be ineffective. Perhaps it would be useful to remember that during the early era of the development of the steelband, it was also extremely violent and some professionals in different fields and other caring citizens came forward with creative ideas to address the difficult situation. The present crime wave that Trinidad and Tobago is experiencing would only be solved if the Government and non-governmental agencies are willing to implement imaginative proposals in confronting this apparently deteriorating state of affairs and if prominent citizens step forward to offer their assistance in alleviating the causes of this overwhelming terrible crisis. One of the most salient factors of the early evolution of the Steelband was the young age of most of the pioneers and participants who were involved in the new craze. Some youths were not even ten years when they attempted to produce their own little instruments. Others were displaying extraordinary talent as early teenagers. Ellie Mannette, Emanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley, Ray Holman, Nervin “Teach” Saunders and several others were outstanding players at very tender ages. All the great players in the steelband world indicated that their exposure at an early age through listening to various genres of music and observing older folks playing music had a significant influence on their development. They admitted that their environment had a tremendous impact on their psyche and made them interested in becoming involved in the new and exciting steelband activities. Just after independence, the momentum of the 1960s and 1970s of developing a national culture in Trinidad and Tobago has now dissipated, as globalisation has engrossed the attention of decision makers, who continue to seek validation from foreigners, “while neglecting we own culture”. This mindset for foreign validation has become very pervasive in the society. During the first decade of the new millennium, we entrusted foreigners with the responsibility to design and construct some major buildings which could be viewed as major showpieces for our cultural activities and celebrations while others would be used as significant learning institutions. Although there was a strong local Archetectural legacy of outstanding work from Colin Laird, …. Lewis, because the locals are not recognised as being capable to design these buildings. The list of edifices included The National Academy of the Performing Arts (NAPA – North) on the grounds of the old Princess Building in Port of Spain, Southern Academy of Performing Arts (SAPA – South) in San Fernando and the proposed Carnival Centre at the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain which was never constructed. There was also the construction of the main campus of the University of Trinidad and Tobago at Cumuto and the reconstruction of several old Junior Secondary and Secondary Schools and their replacement with new technological centres of learning. Somehow, we continue to neglect the importance of ensuring that the young generation becomes familiar with the rich cultural heritage of this blessed country. Without any serious grounding in some of the customs that are unique to different Caribbean nations, the images and foreign lifestyles of the North are constantly bombarding the youths of Trinidad and Tobago and the wider region. Many of these youths believe that the only thing that is missing from their lives is snow. Some of them even wear clothing that is suitable for the winter, so they become mimic people copying their Rap star heroes of American and Jamaican Dancehall idols in thoughts, words and deeds. This writer once asked a secondary school student to complete the

statement, “Trinidad and Tobago is known as the land of … .” Amazingly, this form-three student, who indicated he wanted to be a Disc Jockey (D.J.), replied that “Trinidad and Tobago is the land of Reggae”. This is just one of several instances when young people have displayed enormous ignorance of their cultural heritage. Another glaring example reveal that some young teachers in the Performing Arts area of studies and many youths who have never attended any shows associated with Best Village and do not have a clue about National Folk Fair. This is a serious indictment on the education system which has not utilised the opportunities of this national cultural institution which was identified as a pillar for cultural retention and development at the time of attaining national independence. Societal, spiritual, educational and parental factors are significant agents that should influence the behaviours of young people, but in many situations, the youths exhibit deviant behaviours because they have a poor sense of self, experience difficulties with literacy and numeracy skills, encounter various forms of child abuse and they mirror the ways of some parents and adults in their communities. Even in the second decade of the new millennium, some local commentators, including Martin Daly continued to emphasise that Arts and Music, especially steelband music has the organisational set up that can be utilised to offer many opportunities for personal development to young people, thereby reducing the attractions of negative influences. Anecdotes of Invaders is all about the experiences of youths using their talents in developing and sustaining a new instrument through a very difficult period in the evolution of their country on the road to nationhood. It demonstrates that with positive thoughts and actions, the youth of this beautiful country of Trinidad and Tobago can originate, produce and sustain a proud cultural heritage. However, all the excellent tuners who emerged from Invaders, Ellie Mannette, Birdie Mannette, Emmanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley, and Cliff Alexis emphasised as a recurring theme, dedication and undiminished desire to continue to learn the skill of tuning over fifty-five years after they had first engaged with the instrument. At first glance a reader may conclude that there is an anomaly in the way the names of persons are used in this book but there is a logical explanation for this approach. The author had a difficult time to identify the real names of some persons who were mentioned in the manuscript because even persons who associated with each other for many years, in some instances never knew the real names of some of their associates. To some persons now, it would appear strange that some nicknames took on the significance and replaced so many real names but this was a common practice during that era of the early development of the steelband, Ellie, Birdie and Ossie are three good examples of which the literature on steelband always refers to these sobriquets as the real names of the three Mannette siblings. The author has used the nicknames of these brothers and a few other contributors as their real names in the same way they were utilised in real life. In other situations, just first names were given in some interviews and it was challenging to obtain the real names of some individuals. However, the author has tried to retain the use of the name a person was commonly known by, another good example of this in the book is Francis Wickham who is not continuously referred to as “Peacock”. The author explored different source to obtain information for this book and utilised the ethnographic approach which facilitated the employment of a range of methods in its compilation. Although personal interviews comprised an important aspect of this book, triangulation afforded the opportunity to verify this information through the use of archival materials including newspaper clippings, magazines and other writings relating to the evolution of the steelband.

Chapter One From Behind God’s Back The primary root of the Invaders steelband emerged many years ago in Sans Souci, a small remote agrarian and fishing village in the Ward of Toco. Since three Mannette’s siblings made tremendous contributions to the establishment and evolution of Invaders as an orchestra until the early 1990s, it is important to illustrate the link between the small Toco village and Ellie Mannette, considered by many as one of the most prominent innovators of the steelband world. The older folks in the North Eastern village of Sans Souci once referred to their existence as “the years before and after The Big Flood”. This huge flood occurred in October of 1921, when after continuous torrential rainfall for twenty-four hours, the Sans Souci River overflowed its banks, washing away two Chinese shops, and causing severe damage to several other buildings. It completely destroyed the large bridge spanning both banks of the river and changed the physical layout of the village forever. Many decades later the senior citizens would still be telling many stories about that era until they passed on.

Just around that period of “The Big Flood”, Sans Souci was considered a very thriving rural village, being home to over three hundred persons. It was a port of call for the steamer that plied the Trinidad to Tobago sea route in those days. On its journey to Tobago, the steamer stopped off at Grande Riviere, Sans Souci and Toco, while on its return voyage, it made calls to these same locations in reverse order, transporting livestock and agricultural produce from Tobago. This vessel brought in cattle and sheep, which the two village butchers sold to the villagers as fresh meat every Saturday morning. Many young men from Tobago also took the first opportunity to disembark on Trinidad’s soil when the vessel docked at these North-eastern villages. This situation resulted in many inhabitants in the Toco region having strong family ties to Tobago. Point Carat, a village even smaller than Sans Souci, was just two and a half miles to the west, also bounded by Grande Riviere, Monte Video, and the refreshing clean water of the Caribbean Sea. This is where Sydney Theodore Mannette first saw Imelda, a beautiful young Spanish girl who convincingly captured his heart. Although this beauty was already the mother of two toddlers, Lio and Agnes, Sydney decided to make her his wife. This love union later produced seven offsprings, Phyllis, Rufus, Audrey, Doris, Ellie, Ossie and Vernon. The birth place of Ellie Mannette has always been a subject of contention since persons from St. James and Woodbrook have continuously claimed him as their son. However, both brothers, Lio and Vernon, have confirmed that all the siblings except Vernon, the last child, were born in Point Carat. Ellie Mannette came into this world about five years after the Big Flood in Sans Souci. Surprisingly, the older steelband men of Invaders, including Francis Wickham, Cecil Forde, Emanuel “Corbeau Jack” Riley and others confirmed that all the earlier members of Oval Boys and Invaders were well aware that Ellie and Ossie were born in Sans Souci and both siblings maintained a close relationship with their relatives, the Locarios. At the time of Ellie’s birth Point Carat was a vibrant little community with roughly one hundred inhabitants living peacefully and enjoying the fruits of nature. The villagers did not have what we would consider an easy time of it, as they depended mainly on fishing and agriculture to provide a livelihood. Some folks from other areas of Trinidad humorously referred to it as “the place behind God’s back” but it was a good place for anyone to live at that time, especially if one was young. Most of its inhabitants were closely related to the villagers of Sans Souci. Imelda was a relative of the Locario family, a very prominent clan, with the Tenias and Craigs as other families of significance in the village. The younger members of the Locario family grew up between both villages as their grandparents were living at Sans Souci. Lio, Ellie’s eldest brother, recalled that their grandmother’s house was situated on the road now known as George Street, close to where the Roman Catholic School / Church still stands. The large cocoa estates enclosing the village employed many of the youths and older folks in the village. Cocoa was king, and it proved to be the backbone of the economy of the small North-eastern villages in Trinidad at the time. Some persons were also involved in subsistence farming while a few others tried to eke out a living from fishing, using the small oar boats of that era. There was neither electricity nor refrigeration, so fishermen had to dispose of all the fish caught on the same day. Bartering was a common practice during this period, as fishermen usually exchanged their fish for agricultural produce or salt. The fishermen and hunters “bucanned” (salted and smoked) their fish and meat to preserve them for future usage, sometimes they produced corned fish by just using salt and putting their fish to dry in the sunlight for a few days. The people knew life was challenging but they found various ways to relieve the stresses they encountered. Rounders was a very popular game with inter-village rivalry being common among the neighbouring villages, while Cricket was another common pastime. Rounders was an adapted version of American baseball, with players using their hands instead of a baseball bat to hit a soft ball or tennis ball. Drinking alcohol was another important pastime. Before “the Big Flood”, Sans Souci hosted eleven rum shops, and perhaps this situation

confirmed that the villagers had accepted partaking of alcoholic beverages as equally important as any other aspect of their existence. Musical celebrations were also an integral feature of their lives and they utilised every opportunity to celebrate special events and occasions. During this era, the common folk enjoyed various genres of music. Universally, under trying conditions, man has always used music as a significant form of stress relief. For these simple villagers, music was an essential feature of their life, used during wakes, funerals, weddings, christenings, church harvests, and in any other noteworthy happenings in the village. The Craig brothers led a young energetic tamboo bamboo band that provided music for most of these functions. In Pt. Carat, the cultural landscape was rich in music, although the tamboo bamboo band was the main source; singing was an essential element in the musical offerings and an important musical device for the varied occasions. Besides sports, consumption of alcohol and enjoying local music, the men enthusiastically displaying amorous and physical appreciation for the women of the village. The tamboo bamboo band comprised mainly of pieces of bamboo (Bambusa sp.) stems of different lengths and various diameters. The bamboo plant grew profusely in the green luscious vegetation of the surrounding areas. The tamboo bamboo players split and cut up small pieces of bamboo to make “quack qua”, with two pieces being knocked against each other to provide back up music for the chantuelles and chorus singers at wakes. Sometimes the smaller pieces were also knocked against a long piece of bamboo with two persons each holding one end of it. Other options ranged in sizes from smallest in diameter to the largest, the other pieces of bamboo in the band were the cutter, the fuller of medium size and the largest in diameter being the bass, all pieces were mostly of three or four joints each. Lio, the eldest child of Imelda remembered the music scene as: These early musicians were extremely creative. The different lengths and sizes of the pieces of bamboo rendered a different sound in tone and volume. They also discovered by grating or rubbing the heel against the wooden floor produced an enchanting bass sound. The head of a bottle was sometimes rubbed against a wooden area to give another bass sound. These innovative musical instruments were utilised a great deal when practicable to use them to accompany the other musical instruments. The guitar, the cuatro and the violin or fiddle were also prominent instruments among these early musicians. Sydney Mannette, the father of Ellie, Ossie and Birdie claimed that he was musically involved as a guitarist / cuatroist in this era, especially around the Christmas Season, his favourite time of the year, when he and other musicians from the village went from house to house paranging. These parang sessions sometimes lasted for extended periods with sweet Spanish songs and enticing string music accompanied by the generous intakes of strong drinks and local foods comprising many dishes prepared from the different agricultural produce and preserved meat or freshly hunted animals from the neighbouring lands. Sydney also recalled he was an ardent dance fan, never missing a fete in the village for any reason. Young Ellie was exposed to this cultural melee in his early formative years. In educational theory, various researches over the years have shown that the early experiences of a child especially during its first five years of growth, or even earlier usually have a tremendous influence on the child’s personality. Undoubtedly, these early years in Toco did leave an indelible mark on the young virgin minds of Ellie and his siblings. Although, some may argue that Ellie was too young to remember some of the things he saw as a toddler, subconsciously these experiences would be a part of his development, since individuals are usually the sum total of genetic inheritance from their parents and the experiences of their environment. The facts are that Ellie’s father was a musician and together with his fellow villagers used imaginative ways to produce music, although the extent of this influence on the toddler may never be properly determined.

Chapter Two Migration to the Promised Land

Living at Point Carat in Sans Souci during the years after the big

flood, some adults found life to be very arduous in many different ways, although many youths considered it to be extremely simple. Sydney Mannette was facing many difficulties at the time. It was the custom in those days for most of the small estate owners to build their houses so that each building would consist of the Cocoa House or Cocoa Box at the top level, which served as a roof for the lower two or three rooms at the lower level, these being used as living quarters. Sydney’s home consisted of a modest two rooms inclusive of the fireside and kitchen area at this lower level which provided accommodation for this large family of eight persons. The state of the cocoa industry at the time was another matter of grave concern, as the price of cocoa was going through a very depressed period. Producing cocoa as their main crop on their estates, the farmers, Sydney included, depended almost exclusively on the financial returns from this crop to support their families. There were other demanding conditions in those days; electricity was an unknown entity in those parts and pipe borne water was non– existent, so they obtained potable water from a ravine or small spring nearby. The young children also made a daily trek of two and a half miles to attend the Sans Souci Roman Catholic Primary School. Many persons were frustrated in their attempts to commute to other parts of Trinidad over land because of the limited transportation available. Communication with relatives in Port of Spain was difficult, sometimes impossible. Given the numerous problems, Sydney started to express more concern about the limited opportunities available for his children in the next few years. Around the time of the birth of Ossie, his sixth child, Sydney started to give serious consideration to moving to Port of Spain. He emphasised however that although all the aforementioned conditions were influencing his thoughts, he ultimately had to leave Toco because of a situation he had no control over. A new owner of the same estate which he was farming served him with a notice to vacate his father’s estate. The following is the story of Sydney Mannette: Sydney claimed that he was unaware of all these developments taking place in Port of Spain since he was almost a hundred miles away in Point Carat. Unknown to him, one of the neighbouring land owners had bought piece of the property that he was overseeing. Subsequently, to his consternation, an Indian man introduced himself as the new owner of the estate on which Sydney was living, and served him a Notice of Eviction with a specific time to remove his belongings and vacate the property. On April 16, 1929, Sydney Mannette and his family left Toco, one daughter; Audrey remained with her maternal grandmother, “Ma Chatchit”. He took his family to Bournes Road, St. James where his other brothers were residing. Then in the same year, he moved his family to Agra Street where Vernon “Birdie” Mannette, his last child was born on September 19. The family then relocated to the corner of Roberts and Damien Streets, where they spent some years. The monumental Roxy Cinema was being built in 1934 around the period that the Mannettes were living in that area. Later on, the family’s next home was number 147 Tragarete Road. Over a period of several years this location became the birth place of Oval Boys Steelband, which we today know as Invaders Steel Orchestra. The band’s first name was chosen because of its location directly opposite the Queen’s Park Oval, and the youths obtained permission to use the secluded spaces in this venue to rehearse their music. When Ellie’s family arrived in Port of Spain to reside, he was still a very small child but when he attained school age, he attended Woodbrook Canadian Mission (C.M.) Primary School, which was situated on Tragarete Road, near the Roxy Cinema. Mr. Akal was the principal of this school, and as it was the norm in those days for schools to be called after their principal, the school became more popularly known as “Akal’s school.” Elliot “Ellie” Mannette, Joseph Milton “Ossie” Mannette and Vernon “Birdie” Mannette were the last three children of Sydney Mannette and Imelda Mannette. Joseph Milton was the last sibling born in Sans Souci, Toco in February, 1927. These boys were born with just a year or two years separating them, as a result they were extremely closely attached to each other while growing up. All three siblings became known by their sobriquet.

Birdie remembered his brother Ellie as a young boy who always showed a keen interest in school while his two other brothers and friends broke “L’ecole Biche” to go bathing at the head of the Maraval River. Ossie also recalled that while Ellie went to school, they went to bathe at “Sand Box,” a natural pool formed by the river with a huge Sand Box tree growing on the bank of the river that provided a covering from the sun and ensuring that the water always remained cool and refreshing. This was the place where they normally went to enjoy a long entertaining bath. Sometimes Ossie and Birdie joined the other boys while they made their way to the Harbour Scheme, as the developing Wharf area was then called, in order to enjoy a soothing sea bath. Around this time, extensive dredging of the Port of Spain Wharf was taking place. The parents of Ossie and Birdie eventually found out about the indiscretions of both brothers when the teachers began to inquire about the absences of the boys from classes. Both brothers were severely punished for their adventurous spirits, but this did not stop them from continuing their exploits; they and their friends just became more cautious. While Ossie and Birdie continued to enjoy their primary school days, Ellie was a model elder brother, he was always in school trying to do his school work. Birdie insisted that Ellie did not like to be absent from school for any reason, and his teacher considered him a very good student. Birdie recalled that their parents took Ossie and him out of Primary school before Ellie and sent them to learn a trade. They placed Birdie to do welding and introduced Ossie to joinery. This arrangement was not unusual since Ossie has stated, it was the accepted custom in those days for parents to encourage their sons who were faced with limited academic prospects to learn a trade, as this was regarded as adequate preparation for future employment and an acceptable adult life. Although Ellie always focused on his studies in primary school, his father eventually took him out of school at seventh standard and arranged for him to become an apprentice bicycle mechanic at Mr. Akow’s Bicycle Shop. Fortunately for Ellie, his stint at Akow’s only lasted two to three weeks. After he had dropped out school, the Education Inspector for Schools visited Akal’s Primary the school on two occasions to inquire about him because Ellie was considered an intelligent student. The school inspector then went to Ellie’s place of work to inform him about an offer for him to qualify for free secondary schooling based on his good marks and creditable performance at primary school, Ellie had succeeded in obtaining a scholarship to attend Ideal High School situated close to Queen’s Royal College. What a great day that must have been in the Mannette household. At Ideal, Ellie was not just a bookworm in school, as a young man he enjoyed participating in sporting activities, excelling at long distance running, and playing football and cricket. After completing his studies at Ideal, Sydney Mannette took Ellie to H.E Robinson to pursue an apprenticeship in metal work. The father had to sign an agreement for his son to stay five years with the firm as was the norm in those days. Ellie’s exposure to the lathe as a steel turner provided his first experience for him to work with steel. He developed an affinity for metal from his first encounter with it, and this was the beginning of a long lasting relationship. A short period after Ellie started his apprenticeship, the most experienced worker of the firm retired after completing over thirty years of service. When Ellie indicated that he could perform the tasks the former worker used to do, his employers were skeptical about his abilities. However, his performance on the job subsequently convinced them that he was a very competent worker. Mr. Robinson was pleasantly surprised with the progress Ellie had made in such a short time, as he was considered the only steel lathe operator to learn so much so quickly. Ellie’s proficiency became well known all over Port of Spain, although this rise in popular recognition was not commensurate with any increase in his salary. Despite Uriah Butler and Arthur Cipriani, two prominent trade union leaders, spearheading among others the struggle for ordinary workers to receive a just wage for their labour and for a general improvement in their working conditions, most employers still did not exhibit a tremendous amount of concern in these matters. Therefore, H.E Robinson was not obligated to pay Ellie an attractive salary, because he was only an apprentice. Big brother Lio and last brother Birdie explained that although Ellie was one of the best workers of H.E

Robinson’s, he did not get the pay increase he waited on for months. Ellie’s dissatisfaction resulted in his leaving the firm before the completion of the full five years agreement in the contract which his father had signed. Close relatives also recalled that when Ellie left H.E Robinson, he was unable to take up the job offer that Engineering Limited made to him, since he still had some time remaining in the previous contract, so he decided to stay at home. There is the old saying, “when one door is closed another is opened.” This period of unemployment provided him with the opportunity to concentrate totally on the experimentation with the early development of the steel pan. Thus the passion and commitment he had for his previous trade was now transferred to this new task of musical discovery. During his apprentice days at H.E Robinson, he had obtained a significant amount of experience in a relatively short period. He gained tremendous knowledge in metallurgy, specifically in the physics of steel, while he developed the ability to spend long hours trying to complete a task and to give a lot of attention to doing quality work. Around this same period Ellie began to show an interest in the musical activities that his brothers and friends were involved in. He was able to transfer and utilise his experience and skills from the work place to the early days of research and development of the steel pan. When he joined the group of boys who were “making music” with different metallic containers, he soon became the leading tuner. For several months, he focused mainly on the development of the steel pan as a personal project. Engineering Limited finally persuaded Ellie to join their company, after pursuing him for many years. When the five-year period of the previous contract came to an end, Ossie claimed that Ellie moved from Engineering Limited back to H.E Robinson Company Limited and then back to Engineering Limited because of a bidding war that was going on to obtain his services. In response to claims that his brother may have worked at the Eastern Foundry, Ossie explained that Ellie used to go to the Eastern Foundry sometimes when Engineering Limited had rush work and it could not be done at its facilities. Ellie Mannette was not just a good steel lathe operator, many persons considered him as the best in Port of Spain at that time. At the beginning of World War II, with the American Army occupying the Chaguaramas Base, in Trinidad, it was just a matter of time before the Americans also solicited Ellie to join their staff as a machinist. They then started showing a great deal of interest in his work in the steelband. They made an offer for him to start a steelband, and to train their officers to play the instruments. This introduction of Ellie to the American people, has flourished into an ongoing association which has lasted more than six decades. When the World War II ended in 1945 and “ the Yankees gone” as Sparrow later sang in his calypso “Jean and Dinah”, Ellie’s job went away too but he found employment with the Shell Trinidad Limited, a major petroleum enterprise in South Trinidad, owned and operated by Royal Dutch Shell Company. In the early 1960s this company became one of the first sponsors of a steelband. Through its sponsorship, Invaders steelband became known as Shell Invaders. When the Government of Trinidad and Tobago bought out Shell Trinidad Limited in 1974, the sponsorship of Invaders continued under the new names of “Trintoc Invaders” and subsequently “Petrotrin Invaders.” Years later the band experienced another situation with sponsorship changes, when its sponsor, British West Indian Airways (BWIA) from 1996 eventually closed down in 2006 and the new company, Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL), which was incorporated in the same year, started operating in 2007 and maintained the sponsorship to the band. As it was in the beginning, Shell became the sponsor of the Invaders again in 2018, when the band and CAL decided to bring their relationship to an end after twelve years.

Chapter Three Two Mannette Brothers: Birdie and Ossie There are many persons from various families who contributed to the evolution of The Oval Boys to Invaders Steelband, but Ossie and Birdie played monumental roles in the early stages of this steelband. Ossie was the first tuner of the Oval Boys before this band evolved into Invaders Steelband, while Birdie was mainly responsible for the unique sound for which the Invaders became very famous for, especially on any J’ouvert morning in the early 1970s. An elder of Invaders gives a figure of around five thousand (5,000) supporters chipping to the music of the band one J’ouvert. This count is also backed up by police records. There has been no proper documentation of the contributions of these brothers. Admittedly, the name of Birdie has enjoyed favourable mention in the steelband’s fraternity, but the name of Ossie still remains one of the best-kept secrets in the folklore of the steelband world. Neither brother received the type of recognition that they deserved, despite the fact that they were an integral part of the early evolution of Invaders Steelband, they always lived in the shadow of Ellie, their more illustrious brother. Vernon “Birdie” Mannette, like most steelband men of the past generations, embraced the sobriquet “Birdie”, which many persons thought was his real name. His name at birth was Vernon Juanarius Mannette. He was the last child of Sydney and Imelda Mannette, the only one of their children born in Port of Spain, at Agra Street, St. James, on September 19, 1929. His brother, Joseph Milton Mannette, was the last sibling born in Sans Souci, Toco on February, 1927. Eventually, Joseph was called “Ossie” Mannette. Both brothers confirmed that they thoroughly enjoyed their school days. While Rudy Piggott, a close school-mate of Birdie, had dreams of one day becoming the Premier of Trinidad and Tobago, the Mannette brothers had no such illusions. Birdie continuously got into trouble with his teachers because of his free-spirited nature. Rudy, many years later attained a senior position as a member of the teaching staff of the esteemed Queens Royal College, but Birdie became the leader of Invaders, one of the prominent Steelband in Trinidad and Tobago for over twenty-four years, while maintaining their school days connection. Ossie explained that as young boys, all three brothers, including Ellie, would run away from home to visit the Barrack Yard of Alexander’s Ragtime Band at Woodbrook to view stick fighting and to listen to the beating of the Tamboo Bamboo band. Ossie and Birdie claimed that it was one of these forays to that yard which influenced the brothers and their many youthful friends to go back to their home, at Tragarete Road, to experiment with steel objects and containers. This led to the birth of Oval Boys, quite naturally named after the Queen’s Park Oval situated across the street from the location where the young boys meet. Both brothers Ossie and Birdie, Francis Wickham and other persons who were involved in this significant development, stated emphatically that Ellie was not involved in this early experimentation because he was concentrating on his schooling. Ossie assumed the task of tuning the different metal receptacles and containers, until Ellie came into the band after its first major competition at the Oval, in the late 1930s. Birdie commenced his involvement in the band as a player of the bass pan, the called the du-dup. In those days, players carried their pans hung around their necks or carried in one hand. This arrangement reduced the mobility of the players and it was mainly responsible for the police apprehending Birdie on one occasion, when his band was illegally parading the streets. The bass pan at the

time was a big biscuit tin, so Birdie was unable to run from the police due to the size and weight of this drum. Birdie and Ossie got into serious trouble for not attending school, still Sidney and Imelda never had any qualms about the involvement of their sons in the early steelband craze and as parents actually encouraged their participation. Both brothers insisted that their parents were always very supportive of all the youths who were members of the band, even during the days of steelband violence. This support even resulted in their father, usually a very quiet man, being beaten when Tokyo attacked Invaders while he was just jumping up enjoying the music. Both brothers encountered hostility in Port of Spain during their early days in the steelband movement. This situation developed because of the violent reaction of the other bands to Invaders members and their band, which many commentators surmised was mainly a vicious response to the musical superiority of the Invaders and the support of prominent persons from the middle class. Self-preservation became a significant consideration, after encountering violent situations continuously; both brothers developed an aggressive and fearless attitude. Sometimes Birdie depended a great deal on the same whitehandled razor he used performing the role of resident barber for the other youths in Invaders. He was not afraid to use it to get himself out of serious difficulties. The two Mannette brothers, the Blackhead brothers, Francis Wickham, and many others became Invaders’ protectors. Stanley Hunte was the first leader of Oval Boys because he was older and had obtained essential experience from his previous membership in Alexander’s Ragtime Tamboo Bamboo Band. The Blackhead Brothers who also came from the same band and played a very important supporting role in providing protection for the young players. Birdie graduated from playing the Du-dup to the Ping Pong, now known as the tenor pan, and in a few short years he developed into a prominent tenor pannist, while he continued to improve his skills as a tuner. He considered himself as self-taught, by learning mainly through trial and error. Ossie withdrew from tuning after viewing the great potential of Ellie, but indicated that Birdie and Ellie were always involved in tuning and since Ellie was getting greater exposure in working in metals, he was able to share a few techniques with his youngest brother. In the 1950s, Birdie became one of the earliest musical composers in the steelband fraternity, composing musical selections exclusively for the steelband. His “Birdie’s Mambo” was a Spanish musical piece, which revealed the influence of the ancestry of his parents, and the popular Latin music that the large local traditional orchestras performed in those days, which was the craze in Trinidad at the time. His other composition, “Keep Your Daughter Inside”, was a tune that trumpeted the bravado of his band and was supposed to create fear in the other competing steelbands. He also extended his creative talents to mas designing and production. Both Birdie and Ossie designed and constructed several outstanding individual carnival costumes for their good friend, Lenny “Good Bad” Russell. Their mas costumes also competed with the sections produced by the young George Bailey for the Carnival presentations of Invaders steelband. Birdie described the arrangement as We used to play mas on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. We went out on Monday J’ouvert morning, come back later Monday evening and on Tuesday play big mas like Aztec, Totem, Incas and things like that. George Bailey used to play with Invaders, bringing out a section (Birdie 1999). Albert Bailey, the brother of the famous George Bailey, confirmed that they had a group of young persons who brought out a section of about seventeen players in the early Sailor Bands of Invaders. He explained that a number of young boys from the Woodbrook area had formed a group that participated in several sporting and cultural activities. The members of this group met regularly at the Bailey’s home at Buller Street, under the leadership of George Bailey. They eventually called the organisation “Cecil B De Mille’s Production” as a tribute to that extraordinary Hollywood Producer of that era, who was responsible for many epic movies, including “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1953) and “The Ten Commandments” (1956). The boys transformed the gallery of the Baileys’ house into a mas studio, where they constructed their exciting costumes. A disagreement over band fees, between the Bailey’s group and the members of Invaders was a blessing in disguise, as the group eventually went

independently. Years later this group developed into a very formidable mas band and produced some unbelievable and spectacular Carnival portrayals depicting many different themes. The Invaders Steelband provided the Bailey Brothers and company with the first stage to display their tremendous talent in mas designing and production, at a time when they were virtual unknowns. While Birdie developed his skills in tuning pans, he became a very generous panman, who was always willing to assist his brother, Ellie, in attempting to support other bands. Sometimes he also used his initiative and donated pans to other bands without his elder brother being aware of this situation. When “Beeh”, Wilbert Forde of Dead End Kids Steelband, which later developed into Desperadoes, approached Ellie for assistance in obtaining pans, in answering the call, Ellie took Birdie and Emmanuel Riley “Cobo Jack” with him. Birdie sometimes took some of Ellie’s pans without the knowledge of his brother and gave them to his good friend George Yates. Yates was a foundation member of Desperadoes, who in later years brought his talented son “Raj” to join Invaders, because as George put it, he knew “Raj” would be “safe” there. Birdie also shared his pan-tuning skills with Renegades and Casablanca, sometimes perceived as two of the worst foes of Invaders and many other bands. Over the years, he worked with Merrytones, Starlift, Phase II, steelbands in Tobago and in some West Indian islands. At the same time that Birdie was emerging into a multifaceted steelband person, Ossie decided to leave the steelband world and relocate away from the band in the late 1950s. “I did not like certain things that were happening”, is how he described his reason for leaving the Invaders. When Ellie migrated to take up permanent residence in America in 1967, Birdie assumed the herculean task of leading Invaders. His responsibilities included the tuning of the instruments, mas designing and production, and all the other challenging situations that developed in the band. He was the main man in charge of the overall management for over twenty-five years, and was able mainly through the quality of his tuning, to maintain the great love and interest that many persons in the society felt for Invaders steelband. In a bitter irony of life, in 1992, while Birdie was experiencing a very difficult time with members of the band, who wanted him to step down as leader of Invaders, through what some have described as “a palace coup”, during that same period, West Virginia State University was elevating his brother, Ellie, to the status of Associate Professor in a special steelband programme at their campus. Even the members of the band, who replaced Birdie and Doc. Parris, Birdie’s good friend, who acted as manager for many years with an elected committee, agreed that it was impossible to ignore Birdie’s sterling contribution to Invaders and the general steelband movement. Birdie obtained many different awards, but he took special pride in receiving a Trinidad and Tobago National Award: Humming Bird Medal Silver 1992, the Tropical Splendora Art and Culture Association Award (New York) and an award from the Carnival Development Committee in 1986. He was extremely excited with the great influence he had in the development of international pannist, Anise “Haffers” Hadeed. He made several international tours to various places including New York, Suriname and Scotland. He also enjoyed listening to the musical tapes of Invaders during Ellie’s era and comparing them to those of his reign, his nephew Lincoln recalled that he always had a smile on his face while carrying out this musical exercise. He spent his last working days at Lincoln Enterprise Limited, where he was producing the sweet low range tenor pans. This was a big change from the famous cellos he became well known for decades previously. Birdie died in November, 1999, after a long bout with cancer. Many dignitaries including government officials, Roman Catholic Archbishop Anthony Pantin, trade union leaders, the Invaders Elders Organisation and other prominent persons from the steelband world attended his funeral. Len “Boogsie” Sharpe flew in from the United States just a few hours before the funeral service to perform with BWIA Invaders Steel Orchestra in the church. PCS Starlift and Scorpion Pan Reflections escorted the cortege from the St. Mary’s R.C. Church, St. James to the cinerary at Long Circular. Hundreds of pan lovers chipped briskly following the procession of this great panman, their last form of tribute to his tremendous contribution to the sweet steelband music on the streets for Carnival.

Selwyn Taradath, steelband researcher, teacher and past Education and Research Officer of Pan Trinbago, described Birdie as a very experienced tuner but because of his quiet nature, his laid-back style and his dislike for publicity, he never received the level of recognition as his brother, Ellie did.

Chapter Four

The Genesis of Oval Boys

Other prominent roots of the Invaders Steelband lay in the major involvement of many members of various families who lived in the Woodbrook area. Although this writer selected and highlighted the contributions of the Mannette family, there were many others including the Hunte brothers, the Stephenson brothers, the Dove and the Forde families, who participated in the early evolution of this organisation. Later on, the Blackhead brothers and the Poolool brothers also played important roles as protectors of the band at different periods in its evolution. Most of these boys who formed the original Oval Boys group were just eleven, twelve years or in their early teens when they first became involved in steelband related activities during the end of the 1930s and the start of the 1940s. This phenomenon, the young age of the participants was not limited to the Oval Boys but was true of all the other bands that emerged during this period because these youths were trying to emulate what the older guys were doing in Alexander’s Ragtime and some of the other newly established bands that evolved from the Tamboo Bamboo era. These young boys came from an environment where although they experienced much social and material deficiencies compared to what the youths of today now enjoy, they wanted to be like some of the prominent pan players in

their communities, as their environment had such a pivotal influence on the minds of these young boys. Today the situation has changed, as many young men from specific depressed areas of Port of Spain are more interested in emulating the exploits and lifestyles of some of the reputed drug lords in their communities who appear to be extremely successful, very rich and are regarded as community leaders. Francis “Peacock” Wickham, who is two years younger than Ellie was one of the original members of the first group of young boys who were significantly influenced by Alexander’s Ragtime Band. In 2007, almost seventy (70) later, he was still active in the steelband fraternity, besides being one of the major forces behind the Invaders Elders Association; he also worked at some of the major events of Pan Trinbago. One of his most memorable moments in the steelband world came in that same year, when he received the Sunshine Lifetime Award in New York in 2007 for his contribution to Invaders Steel Orchestra and the evolution of the steelband in general. The three Mannette brothers were among the group of youths who experienced the offerings of the Alexander’s Ragtime Band. Ossie explained that as young boys, all three Mannette brothers including Ellie occasionally ran away from home to visit the Barrack Yard of Alexander’s Ragtime Band, which acted as a Gayelle or venue for the viewing of stick-fighting and other cultural activities, and the playing of music from the Tamboo Bamboo band. They were genuinely excited about these experiences. Ossie and Birdie claimed that it was what they saw and heard at one of these forays at the Barrack Yard that influenced the Mannette’s brothers and their youthful friends to go back to their Yard at 147 Tragarete Road and to experiment by formulating their own musical contraptions using steel objects and containers. This event eventually led to the birth of Oval Boys Steelband (Ossie 1999, Birdie 1999). Francis Wickham, Kelvin Dove, Harold Mascall, Cecil Forde, the brothers, Roy Stephenson and Reynold Stephenson, Ossie and Birdie were some of the young boys who came together, while most of them were in their early teens. They called their band the Oval Boys because it was situated directly opposite the Queen’s Park Oval and most of the boys spent considerable time in the Oval, being ball boys trying to earn some precious cash from the more affluent members of that organisation. Francis Wickham and Cecil “Coye” Forde, in a conversation with this writer at Wickham’s home in Carenage in 2003, confirmed that the initial group and the pioneers of Oval Boys were: Francis “Peacock” Wickham John Doyle Ossie Mannette Charles Brown Vernon Mannette Beresford “Berry” Dove Kelvin Dove Clarence Gulston (Manager) Irvin Taylor “Turkey Geese” Solomon Phillip “Carpaul” “Ellis” Luther Roberts “Estick” James Biscombe Harold “Guy” Mascall Horace Dove “Bob Boy Dove” Bob Hewitt “Tall Boy” Cecil “Coye” Forde Francis Innis “Beggar Boy Francis” Cecil Mojais “Scratchie” Conrad Hunte “Cocoa” Syl “Bus meh Chest” Fitzroy Hunte “Darkie” “Vin” Reynold Stephenson “Flash” Roy Stephenson It is important to note that Ellie’s name is not mentioned as one of the original founders of Oval Boys because both Wickham and Forde repeated that Ellie was not involved in the first group of boys who came together because he was attending Ideal High School on a scholarship and he appeared to be interested in his education. The majority of the boys, who came together attended “Akal’s” School”, The Woodbrook Presbyterian Primary School. As part of their daily routine, after dismissal of school, the young

boys returned home and then visited the Queen’s Park Oval, where they played a great deal of cricket and football, but all of this changed after they heard Alexander’s Ragtime Band. Wickham described those early days: We saw Alexander’s Ragtime Band after the Tamboo Bamboo days, playing pans and thing, and we decide to join up too, so we started we own thing. We used to pick up people’s dustbin by the road and other pans. Ellie was not one of the first set of boys who got together; he came in about six months after we placed second to Alexander’s Ragtime Band, in a competition at the Oval. Since his entry into the band, Ellie went on to do great things in the steelband world. “Coye” also identified Harold, Peter and German, who were not “pan beaters” but were very loyal supporters during this initial stage of the band, when most persons were not sure what would eventually result from this group of youths coming together, stealing the dust bins or garbage containers from the people in the neighbourhood, and then utilising these drums and containers to make musical instruments and create music. There are many articles that refer to Ellie Mannette as the first tuner of the Oval Boys. This however is one of the great misconceptions in the development of the steelband. Ellie was not a member of the original group and someone else performed this role. Francis Wickham confirmed: The first tuner in the band was Ellie’s brother, Ossie Mannette. Ossie started tuning pans for the band, and he was considered as the main tuner. He used to tune the little pans and then everybody used to chip in to help but Ossie was the main man. Some months later when Ellie came and started to tune pans, when we saw his potential, we allowed him to carry on. He is still the best. We were all around eleven, twelve years old, when we first came together. That is around 1939-1941. When we first came out on the road, actually was for V.E. Day (1945). When we came out we were still Oval Boys and that night, we changed the name from Oval Boys to Night Invaders. We say to ourselves, we coming out in the night and we going to invade town. So we called ourselves Night Invaders and kept the name from that. As you will notice, the majority of the steelbands of that time took their names from the popular movies of that period. Casablanca, Tokyo, Renegades and Desperadoes all get their names from the theatre. We came from the early dustbins time, beating pans with one hand and the other hand holding the bigger pans. The early pans were not actually pans but dustbins, paint drums, biscuit tins and rubbish containers. So you can say we moved from dustbins to pan around the neck. We used to thief the dustbins by the roadside, the containers the people have their rubbish in, we used to empty them and take them. Sometimes they called police for we and they hold we. The parents never approved of the stealing of the pan but they never made any serious effort to get us to stop beating the pans. We had it hard with the police too, they used to find that we were making noise and they used to come and stop us. The Oval Boys first started to practice in “the Yard” at147 Tragarete Road. I was living in the Yard, Ellie, Ossie, Birdie and Kelvin Dove were also living in the Yard. Kelvin Dove’s father was living with my mother, Carmelita Joseph who used to work with Ms Springer, the owner of the Yard. We are from Carenage, so we came up there to live. There was a laundry, so when the laundry went out of existence, is then they got the rooms. Ellie and them come and meet Kelvin Dove and myself here. Kelvin Dove’s father name was Conrad Dove, he was a carpenter, with all the other names of Dove mentioned being family. Ellis and Estick used to live around, like Cecil Forde, his name “Coye”, “Berry” Beresford Dove and “Cocoa” was Conrad Hunte. We used to practice in the Yard, all the other boys used to come in. We had nowhere to store the pans, so we used to put them in the Oval. Harold Roberts was working in the Oval, he was Luther Roberts’ uncle. He was a big man who used to encourage us. You also had Peter and Brandon who worked in the Oval and used to associate with us. So we used to leave our pans there until they had a competition. Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Hell Yard which later became Trinidad All Stars and some other bands were already established. We, as little fellars went into the competition, Alexander’s Ragtime came first, Oval Boys came second and Hell Yard wanted to beat us. We were small fellars now from school; we could not fight anybody. It was Alexander’s Ragtime that stood up for us and prevented that.

The main leader in the beginning was Stanley Hunte that was our first Captain. He died in the late 1990s. The first competition in the Oval was held before the start of the War (W.W.II) and we used small drums. Cecil “Coye” Forde also supported most of the information that Wickham offered, by disclosing the following information about the early development of the band: I first came into the band, in the beginning in the late 1930s during the period of Alexander’s Ragtime Band. We played against them in the Oval; Vin was there and “Bust Me Chest”. Ellis was we band-master and Clarence Gulston was we band manager. Vin and “Bust Me Chest”, he was one of the old brigade, he used to live opposite the Yard. When you are talking about Oval Boys, then you will get Harold, Peter and German and they were not beaters but supporters. In them days, plenty people were doing their own tuning. Ossie Mannette was the main man tuning we pans. In them days you find a note in a thing, and is lavway going down the road. The song they used to sing was “Allan Ladd, Allan Ladd These Guns for Hire”. The whole band used to be singing going down the road. “Coye” continued to give valuable information about the early instruments the young boys were playing: The biscuit drum was Tune Boom and Boom, and you had the Dud Dup; you had them boys, who used to beat Dud Dup one single note like Primus and some used to beat the Dud Dup with two notes. Remember in them days we had the one note Bass Kettle. The introduction of the Tenor killed the Ping Pong. Gibby used to beat the second pan. Francis used to beat the Second pan too. The Second pan came in 1948, Discovery Day, that pan came in with “Rice Sally Water”. The first Second pan was tuned inside of the pan yard. Before we used to beat the Tenor playing background pan for the Ping Pong, Francis, you played Second Ping Pong. We were the first to introduce Second and Guitar pans. Both “Coye” and Wickham also recalled from the inception of the steelband, the players attempted to perform different genres of music. They admitted that the tune “Tico Tico” was an extremely challenging proposition for the pan players at the time because of the limited range of the instruments in that era. Strangely, they claimed, at that time calypso did not have the exclusive control that it later developed on the steelband world, so the bands opted for the popular music of the particular era, which was mostly the Hispanic/Latino influenced Mambo and Rumba and Salsa. The band exhausted the extensive repertoire of Mambos that made their way to the shores of Trinidad, and then Birdie Mannette composed his “Birdie Mambo” to become one of the pioneering panmen to compose tunes specifically for the steelband. Ossie supported the position of the two veteran Invaders, clarifying that the members of bands sometimes went into the Shango (Orisha) tents or places of worship before they went on the road in those early days. They performed this custom, mainly because that spiritual space offered them “the real vibrations to hit the road”, since most of the calypsoes of that era were very laid-back and provided inadequate energy for the band to perform on the road. Although, some researchers including Funso Aiyejina of the University of the West Indies and Rawle Gibbon, in Orisa (Orisha) Tradition in Trinidad and Tobago, and playwright, Rawle Gibbon’s play, “Ogun Iyan as in Pan,” have emphasised the African spiritual connection to the steelband and Carnival celebrations, there is still a lacuna in the research of the significance of the Orisha religion in the early evolution of the steelband. Lord Kitchener became one of the first calypsonians to record a calypso based on the exploits of the early steelband movement. He was so impressed with the impact of the steelbands in 1945 when they came on the road to celebrate V E. Day and V J. Day in carnivalesque fashion that in 1946, he paid tribute to many young steelband pioneers in his composition; “Yes I Heard the Beat of a Steelband”. He recognised the reputation of Ossie, and he referred to him in the calypso. Later, Lord Kitchener based in England, replaced “a calypsonian from the islands”, as the main contributor of enticing and appropriate music for the steelpan. He sent down his calypsos, which became very popular. Then the Mighty Terror, who was working together with Kitchener in the “Mother Country”, started to dispatch his compositions to Trinidad in the 1960s, and they became a major attraction for the steelbands. Some of the early panmen also identified Kitchener’s “Bric Bric Bricrico” or “I Wish I was a Mango Tree” as one of the

early steelband favorites. Bands later selected a wide repertoire of music from different calypsonians. This trend persisted until Ray Holman, originally from the Invaders steelband but as the youthful and enthusiastic arranger for the breakaway group of players that left Invaders to form Starlift Steelband, became the first steelband player in 1973 to compose a pan tune exclusively for the Panorama steelband competition. He and the band encountered severe resistance when his band performed it in that competition. His joint composition with Alvin Daniell, “Pan on the Move”, caused a big furore in the steelband world. Since then many steelband arrangers including Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Ken “Professor” Philmore and other composers have challenged the accepted role of the calypsonians in providing the repertoire of music for the steelbands to select for their Panorama choice. This trend continues. In 2011, various composers and performers composed and released fifty-eight “pan tunes” exclusively as selections for the Panorama competitions, despite the fact that Pan Trinbago allows the Single Pan Category to choose from old or new tunes. Wickham and Cecil Forde also referred to the opportunity that Invaders had to make a tour in the early evolution of the steelband. They insisted that Beryl McBurnie invited Red Army to be a part of her cultural excursion to British Guiana, but their band was the first to get a contract from the Lagoo Company to make an official tour. This tour to Aruba in 1950 was definitely one of the earliest tours that a steelband had undertaken at the time. The contingent for this engagement comprised Ellie, Birdie, Francis Wickham, Cecil Forde, Kelvin, Lloyd, Lennox Tull, “Beggar Boy Francis”, “Mai Fan” and Clarence Gulston. The testimonies of these two pioneers of Invaders Steelband were important because of some of the issues they highlighted relating to the early days of this steelband. They admitted while their recollections of most events were very clear, they sometimes experienced difficulties in recalling specific dates. Two other steelband researchers, Fedo Blake and Stephen Steumple, have confirmed the validity of this statement in the two informative books they produced on the early steelband movement. The most fascinating aspect of the birth of this steelband remains the age of the young boys who were creating this new sound. Most of these youths who were between ten and fifteen years old symbolised the dynamic youth movement reflected in the various bands, where the youths employed their creativity to play a pivotal role in the invention of a new musical instrument and the development of the steelband. Now seventy plus years later, despite the advances in technology, and the outstanding visible assertiveness of the young females in various fields in the society, the present young generation in Trinidad and Tobago appears to be lost, while a significant percentage of the members of this demographic segment does not know very much about the rich cultural heritage of the country and mimics the negative destructive cultures of the developed countries. Annually for Carnival, most of the steelbands, including the most prominent bands in the steelband world, showcase the talents of thousands of young people, predominantly female, in their ensemble as they perform their Panorama renditions, but there are limited sustainable programmes to maintain the year round interest of these youths. Although, there are many benefits to be derived from the utilisation of the steelband as a mechanism for social transformation and human development, Trinidad and Tobago continues to neglect the steelband and to treat with it as a bastard child. The country still continues to embrace the outdated attitude that rejects the potential for the development of an effective programme that contains the required resources to positively affect the lives of thousands of young people in this country through steelband driven projects. As the world shrinks through globalisation there is a dire need for Caribbean countries and small states to establish a strong cultural foundation through their education system, cultural activities and celebration of festivals so their citizens can develop a positive sense of self and show more appreciation for their national culture. Therefore, this arrangement necessitates some independent states retaining significant features of their cultural heritage.

Development associated with the steelband continues to be neglected, despite the contribution of Lloyd Best, a world renowned economist, who advanced a theory of “Schools in Pan”, in which he described in great detail how society can utilise the pan yards and spaces used by the steelbands as essential learning resources in the development of various programmes to offer a plethora of training opportunities to the steelband members and by extension their respective communities. He insisted that academic, technical and vocational skills courses should be offered to participants. Some of these skill courses, including welding, can enable some members of the various steelbands to become self employed while ensuring that a significant amount of revenue circulates within the steelband fraternity. In Trinidad and Tobago, there is a deficient sense of nationalism that requires foreign validation of our culture in tacit approval before showing appreciation for it. This attitude continues to be a major challenge for cultural practitioners. The society has not yet recognised the sacrifices that the youths made when they placed their lives on the line and shed their blood, sweat and tears for the development of steelband, one of the iconic cultural symbols of creativity and freedom of the last century. Steelband still suffers from tremendous disrespect from many segments of the society including the political directorate and occasionally, even from the myopic vision of the mother organisation representing the various steelbands in Trinidad and Tobago. Sometimes, some persons question the national attitude displayed toward the steelband where most citizens still view it as a nuisance throughout the year and which they must tolerate in a restricted manner during the Carnival period. ha) tents in those early days, before they went on the road, mainly because that spiritual space offered them “the real vibrations to hit the road”, since most of the calypsoes of that era were very laid-back and provided inadequate energy for the band to perform on the road. Although, some researchers including Funso Aiyejina, the Dean of the University of the West Indies, and Rawle Gibbons in “Orisa (Orisha) Tradition in Trinidad and Tobago” and playwright, Gibbons in his play, “Ogun Iyan as in Pan” emphasised the African spiritual connection to the steelband and Carnival celebrations, there is still a lacuna in the research of the significance of the Orisha religion in the early evolution of the steelband.

Lord Kitchener became one of the first calypsonians to record a calypso based on the exploits of the early steelband movement. He was so impressed with the impact of the steelbands in 1945 when they came on the road to celebrate V E. Day and V J. Day in carnivalesque fashion that in 1946, he paid tribute to many young steelband pioneers in his composition; “Yes I Heard the Beat of a Steelband”. He recognised the reputation of Ossie, and he referred to him in the calypso. Later, Lord Kitchener based in England, replaced “a calypsonian from the islands”, as the main contributor of enticing and appropriate music for the steelpan.

Lord Kitchener became one of the first calypsonians to record a calypso based on the exploits of the early steelband movement. He was so impressed with the impact of the steelbands in 1945, when they came out on the road to celebrate V E. Day and V J. Day in carnivalesque fashion, that in 1946, he paid tribute to many young steelband pioneers in his composition; “Yes I Heard the Beat of a Steelband”. He recognised the reputation of Ossie, and he referred to him in that calypso. Later, Lord Kitchener temporarily based in England emerged

as the main contributor of enticing and appropriate music for the steelpan. He sent his calypsoes home to Trinidad and Tobago, which became very popular. Then the Mighty Terror, who was working together with Kitchener in the “Mother Country”, started to dispatch his compositions back home to Trinidad in the 1960s, and they became a major attraction for the steelbands. Some of the early panmen also identified Kitchener’s “Bric Bric Bricrico” also known as “I Wish I was a Mango Tree”, as one of the early steelband favorites. Bands later selected a wide repertoire of music from different calypsonians, until Ray Holman originally from Invaders, became the first steelband player in 1972 to compose a pan tune exclusively for the almost decade-old Panorama steelband competition at that time and to have his band perform it in that competition. His joint composition with Alvin Daniell, “Pan on the Move”, caused a big furore in the steelband world, and since then many steelband arrangers including Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Ken Professor Philmore and other composers have challenged the accepted role of the calypsonians in providing the repertoire of music for the steelbands to select for their Panorama choice. This trend continues, in 2011, various composers and performers composed and released fifty-eight “pan tunes” exclusively as selections for the Panorama competitions for that year. However Pan Trinbago eventually changed the rules of the competition to allow bands in the Single Pan Category, formerly called “Pan Round d Neck” to choose old selections from any previous year. This approach has reduced the opportunities for some new tunes to be played in this category at Panorama in the same year in which they were composed. Wickham and “Coye” also referred to the opportunity that Invaders had to make a tour in the early evolution of the steelband. They insisted that Beryl McBurnie invited Red Army to be a part of her cultural excursion to British Guiana, but their band was the first to get a contract from the Lagoo Company to make an official tour. This tour to Aruba in 1950 was definitely one of the earliest tours that a steelband had undertaken at the time. The contingent for this engagement comprised Ellie, Birdie, Wickham, Coye, Kelvin, Lloyd, Lennox Tull, “Beggar Boy Francis”, “Mai Fan” and Clarence Gulston. The testimonies of these two pioneers of Invaders Steelband are important because of some of the issues they highlighted relating to the early days of this steelband. They admitted while their recollections of most events were very clear, they sometimes experienced difficulties in recalling specific dates. Two other steelband researchers, Fedo Blake and Stephen Steumple confirmed the validity of this statement in the two informative books they produced on the early steelband movement. Now seventy plus years later, despite the advances in technology, and the outstanding visible assertiveness of the young females in various fields in the society, the present young generation in Trinidad and Tobago appears to be lost, while a significant percentage of the members of this demographic segment does not know very much about the rich cultural heritage of the country and mimics the negative destructive cultures of the developed countries.

The Oval: Cradle for the Steelband Movement All over the cricketing world, cricket enthusiasts have lauded The Queen’s Park Oval as one of the most picturesque venues for the staging of international cricket matches. Many persons are however unaware that this cricket ground played a very significant role in the early development of the steelband and in the celebration of Carnival during the 1940s. The Oval, as it is familiarly known, has always enjoyed an intimate relationship with the Invaders Steelband from the initial birth of the band and throughout its development. It was not just a sanctuary for the youths in the Woodbrook area to gather but it has remained the venue where this steelband still holds its major events, including the hosting of the judging of Invaders band for the Preliminaries of the

National Steelband Panorama, and for its fund raising activities. This recreational facility was a financial haven to the young boys who lived in close proximity, as it offered opportunities for them to obtain financial income as ball boys for the different sporting activities and it provided a unique venue for some of significant events in the early evolution of the fledging steelband movement.

The Oval reigned as the premier sporting and cultural facility in Trinidad before and after World War II, and even after the independence in 1962. It hosted all the international football matches, Test match cricket and other sporting and major cultural events. The Queen’s Park Club was a recreational centre for the elites in the society. Possibly, only the Country Club ranked higher in status at the time. This large expanse of land bordered by King George V Park in the North and by Tragarete Road in the South, offered its members the opportunity to participate in various sporting activities including cricket, football, lawn tennis and squash. Birdie indicated that the young boys of the Yard had a very good relationship with the folks at the Queen’s Park Oval. They sometimes stood in a queue, as early as 5.30 am, each boy hoping that he would be selected as a fielder (ball-boy) for cricket and tennis, with the lucky ones obtaining a small fee for providing their services. Years later some also obtained more responsible positions in the organisation. For many decades some of the early members and supporters of Invaders including the Blackhead brothers were among the most reliable grounds-men in the preparation of the cricket pitches at the Oval for the playing of Territorial Matches and International Test Matches. This facility was an exclusive one, a “home away from home” for male members, yet its management tolerated the poor young boys who sometimes performed the tasks of ball-boys and allowed them to try their skills at sports, mainly cricket and football. It is significant to note that the members of the original Oval Boys acknowledged the valuable assistance they received from Harold Roberts, Peter and Brandon, and all the employees at the facility. The decision to allow these workers to embrace the youth who were involved in the steelband was a radical stance at the time. The management of the Oval could have taken the position that it did not want these young steelband boys on its premises because of their low social status and the skewed perception of some persons that the youths involved in the development of this new phenomenon were making a lot of noise and were trouble makers. Later, the level of violence associated with this band could have been used as another excuse to keep the young boys out of the Oval but this was never done. Therefore, all credit must be given to the enlightened management and members of the club who maintained a cordial relationship between the two organisations. This situation was so unique, because in that bygone era there was the popular perception that the club did not accept persons of a darker hue as members of its sporting teams. However, the management of the club allowed the use of its facilities for the development and display of Carnival arts, and the hosting of many different activities, including the visits of foreign dignitaries and the staging of international boxing. The government has never duly recognised the significance of this contribution to national development. The young boys in the vicinity always regarded this recreation ground as a haven and they enjoyed the use of the facilities, as well as the opportunity to earn some money in a welcoming atmosphere. The critical influence this location had on their psyche was so obvious, that it resulted in the naming of their steelband Oval Boys. The Oval has retained its original size but around the 1940s, its management fenced it with “galvanise sheets” or a metal sheeting enclosure to secure its perimeter. There were still sequestered places at various locations on the grounds. Ellie Mannette tuned the first 55 gallon oil drum at one of these secluded spots. Different organisations staged Carnival competitions at the Queen’s Park Oval, one of the major venues for Carnival celebrations; it

competed with Woodford Square, St. James, Belmont, and The Queen’s Park Savannah. Gerald Sampson, the caretaker of the Invaders Yard during the 1990s, describes the arrangement as: The main competitions were at the Oval. Everybody came down…. They came down Elizabeth Street, then down to Tragarete Road. The bands keep flowing and entered Elizabeth Street and one band in and one band out and those who going back up town made way, using Rosalino Street. They had to come down there; we did not interfere with them. We never interfered with anybody first. They gave you a cup, a case of beer, a case of rum as prizes. Carnival Tuesday morning, you take competition in the Oval then you went into town to play mas, like today, you go to the squares to play mas. There was more mas, people used to see mas at that time. Tragarete Road is a very long road and the bands were not as big as now. Wickham, Coye, and Ossie have acknowledged some of the persons who worked at the Oval as some of their most valuable supporters during the Oval Boys era. They also indicated that permission to use this space allowed the boys to explore their sporting prowess which was minimal but it was crucial in the early evolution of the steelband, as it afforded them the opportunity to develop a strong sense of team spirit. Dedicated supporter, Barbara Jenson, confirmed that Gerry Gomez, a very prominent member of the Queen’s Park establishment for decades and world renowned cricketer attended most of the functions of Invaders and maintained his interest in the band for many years until his untimely passing in the 1990s. The very good relationship between the Invaders and the management of the Oval, has endured even to today. In 2008, Stephen Almondoz of the Queen’s Park Cricket Club was working feverishly to establish a small museum, at the Oval, which includes a section displaying some Invaders memorabilia. The management of the club opened the doors of this facility to the public in 2009, to coincide with the hosting of The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad, November 27-29. This venue is the secured home of a thirty-one notes tenor pan, with its label indicating that Ellie Mannette tuned it in the early 1960s. This old steelpan symbolises the solid relationship that continues to exist between Invaders Steelband and the QPCC. Seven decades after the birth of Oval Boys steelband, despite the significant contribution that the Queen’s Park Club has made to the development of the early steelband and the evolution of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, the Government, Pan Trinbago and the National Carnival Commission have never properly recognised and honoured QPCC. Undisputedly, the Club contributed more than just being a venue that was one of the main cradles in the early days of the steelband movement. Therefore, recognition of its involvement should not be restricted to only the steelband competitions but also its critical role in hosting Carnival celebrations and its significant contribution to the cultural and sporting development of the country.

Invaders Bay “Jim” Innis, the longest playing member of Invaders, in 2008, recalled that in the early days of Oval Boys, every Sunday morning around 10.00 am, there was a gathering of the Invaders clan at 147 Tragarete Road in the Yard before members and some supporters made their way through the sluice trace: In the late 1940s, it was “pan around the neck”, so the “Boys” went down Gallus Street Trace and branched across to Ana Street Trace because there was a canal and they played their instruments while going down the trace leading to

“Slipway”, which the Americans once used as a dry docks location for their ship repairs and maintenance. They played “Rice Sally Water” as the most popular tune while making their way to the beachfront. Innis described this song as a “two chord business”: Rice Sally water Put some in meh saucer Rice Sally water Put some in meh saucer But it was also a simple “call and response song”, one of the many musical offerings that allowed the fledgling steelband instrument to provide musical accompaniment while the members and supporters participated vocally in its rendition. Innis continued, “It was like a community gathering, as many persons from the Woodbrook area went down to the beach on a Sunday to enjoy a bath in the refreshing sea water and to relax on the beach while listening to the musical exploits of the band”. While the band entertained the persons on the beach, “Bubbles” and “Reds” Agard were competing with other members of the Woodbrook Limers Water Polo Team, some persons were fishing on the beach and others were cooking. This location became known as Invaders Bay. This recreational and musical picnic on the beach went on for many years. In 2008, during a football match between the old Mother Land (England), and the Trinidad and Tobago national team, a commentator remarked that Invaders Bay obtained its name when the British invaded the Spanish colony of Trinidad in 1797 at this location and forced the Spaniards to surrender the island. The members of the old brigade of the Invaders strongly disputed this statement as they insisted that the beach front area called “Slipway” became known as Invaders Bay mainly because of the activities of the members of Invaders Steelband and Woodbrook community. This spot, once the beach front for the location where the Hasley Crawford National Stadium is now situated, is no longer accessible to the ordinary citizens of Trinidad unless they are pursuing some form of commercial activity. Today it is home to the Marriott Hotel and the Movie Towne Shopping Complex. Discussions between the government of the day and major business interests continue to take place for even further extensive commercial development of this area.

Oscar Piles and Invaders’ Big Break Invaders band was one of several steelbands in that era, which had very few opportunities to give musical performances in Port of Spain outside of the Carnival period because of the dearth of organised cultural events. Therefore, it was not uncommon for members of various bands to spontaneously decide to parade and play their pans in the streets of their neighbourhood, and sometimes to even venture further afield into Port of Spain. So, the membership of Invaders was elated when Oscar Piles of Casablanca recommended their band to the southern organisers of the early North versus South steelband musical clashes, when the bands from the Port of Spain area journeyed to San Fernando to compete against their southern rivals. Casablanca participated regularly in these events, while the young Invaders members remained in their Yard just rehearsing continuously. After Oscar’s recommendation, the band made its debut appearance and impressing the organisers so much that it became a popular replacement for Casablanca and enjoyed tremendous support at the event, while always posing a serious challenge to the formidable southern steelbands. Casablanca and Tokyo were two of the bands that originally represented North, while Southern Symphony and Free French did the same for South. The Bonaparte brothers were the leaders of Southern Symphony, one of the best early southern steelbands. Francis Wickham and Cecil “Coye” Forde have described Invaders traveling to LaBrea to play in a concert and dance with John Buddy

Williams Orchestra and underestimating this southern steelband, only to discover that Invaders was woefully unprepared for the type of performance which Southern Symphony displayed. When Southern Symphony played “Old Man River”, the members of Invaders were totally shocked by what they were hearing from their competitor. Junior Pouchet described the band as “talented and impressive” while Ray Holman referred to the “sense of harmony” the players displayed in their performances (Johnson 2000). When they returned to their base in the Yard, Ellie ordered all members must report to the Yard early the next morning at eight o’ clock sharp. The members of the band were very familiar with the way Ellie dealt with any unpunctuality, because they knew if anyone arrived at 8.30 am, he was going to indicate to that person to keep on walking. The next day they practised until 12.00 noon and there was a break for the players to get something to eat for lunch. They returned at 1.00 pm and continued until 6.00 pm and had another one hour break reporting back to the Yard at 7.00pm, then practice went on until Ellie was satisfied with the session, then he brought it to an end. These rehearsals went on like this for a whole week in preparation for a revenge clash with Southern Symphony. Both bands played the same tune, “Old Man River” on their next encounter but Invaders conquered their competitor by playing a very spirited but short version, and this immensely impressed the judges and supporters. In a Kim Johnson’s article, Belgrave Bonaparte gave a different version of the first encounter in 1949 between his band, Southern Symphony, and Invaders. Bonaparte claimed, his band played “So Deep Is the Night” and Ellie was so impressed with the way they were playing chords. Based on inquiry from Ellie, he explained how he was experimenting with C, based on his musical knowledge and experience. He insisted that Ellie was surprised at the way he had arranged and the members had executed the music (2000). Corroboration for this version can possibly come from the way that Wickham and “Coye” described how Ellie reacted to the performance of Southern Symphony. Confirmation of the prowess of Bonaparte was later confirmed in his selection as a member of TASPO. His band eventually produced prominent panmen like Earl Rodney, Alan Gervais and Lincoln Noel, all players who utilise three playing sticks to continue to explore the practice of playing chords in their performances. Some of the top players in this band eventually developed into top tuners in the steelband fraternity. Invaders obtained its musical prominence because of the superior quality of its instruments at the time and also because of the proficiency of some of its players. In their narratives, both Wickham and Forde emphasised the importance of the musical battles in the days of the North - South Steelband Jamboree, which played a pivotal role in the development of the instrument and the quest for excellence from the players. In Cecil Forde’s words: In the late 1940s they had North-South. They had bands from the North including Casablanca and Tokyo. … when they say North-South, remember Despers did not born yet, we used to be carrying the entire load for the bands from North; the other bands didn’t always pull their weight when they went down South. the contemporary steelbands have retained the same traditions and methodology of the preparations they used for North-South steelband musical competitions, in rehearsals for Panorama competitions.

Chapter Five Crazy Days of the Steelband

I say in the recording of the history of the steelband there must be unpleasant things. The history of the steelband must have violence because that is how it was born. I was looking at the History Channel and they tell you about the amount of violence that was associated with their history. We have to accept what took place and the people who did it, to form back our history (Trevor Cooper, Captain of Invaders, 1989, 1991 – 1995, Personal interview). The birth of the steelband occurred during a very tumultuous period in the history of Trinidad and Tobago, at the end of the 1930s. Demonstrations and strikes were the order of the day, as ordinary workers attempted to convince their employers in the petroleum industry and the sugar industry that they required a just salary for the very challenging jobs they had to perform, so they could earn enough income to enjoy an improved standard of living. At the conclusion of the Second World War, the celebrations for Victory over Europe (V.E. Day) and Victory over Japan (V.J. Day) not only provided the opportunity for the fledgling steelbands to participate in Carnival-like performances but they also ushered in a period of extreme competition for the many steelbands, as they staged very violent battles to establish hegemony over each other. The purpose of these clashes was to settle conflicts relating to musical supremacy, to protect their physical space and to resolve issues associated with women who sometimes displayed dual interest in certain members from competing bands. Many of the youth were also experiencing tremendous difficulties, since they were facing unemployment after the closure of the American Army bases in Trinidad. Kim Johnson, cultural researcher and prolific writer of steelband articles for the Sunday Express newspaper has discussed this very worrisome situation of the early years of the steelband: In the late 1940s the society was in turmoil. The end of the war and the departure of the American soldiers left unemployment in their wake. Butler was agitating for industrial action. Pan men throughout the city were fighting one another tooth and nail, particularly those in Invaders and Casablanca (Sunday Express, 1999:4). George Goddard, an early Steelband pioneer and past President of the National Steelband Association, stated that after his involvement with the instrument for forty years, he still found it very difficult to explain “the senselessness of the steelband clashes” (Goddard 1991). Kim Johnson also painted a frightening picture in his columns in both the Trinidad Express and the Trinidad Guardian newspapers. He reported, “No month passed without some panman stabbing or Steelband affray. Respectable society, already disdainfully recoiled in fear and loathing. In response, the police were brutal with the panmen.” Oval Boys and later Invaders youths found this period extremely challenging, but the Mannette clan regarded it even more difficult. Most persons who knew Ellie at this time, described him as being generally a very pleasant young man, who was mainly interested in the development of the steelpan as an instrument, but was also well capable of defending himself against some of his arch enemies who held many grudges against him and his band. He was committed to his physical fitness, since he had a close relationship with Lennox Kilgour an outstanding Trinidad weight lifter at that time. He depended on this physical training to be a part of his defense mechanism for self-preservation. Many young ladies found Ellie an attractive male and he was the subject of several conversations among females during this period. Some young girls became helpers in the band making costumes and befriending male members who sometimes had more than one girlfriend. This attraction of the females further fuelled the aggression of other bands against Invaders.

Violence, Violence

Britain exerted colonial rule in Trinidad and Tobago, and subjected the country to direct control through its local representatives including the Governor General, the Head of the Police Force and other senior government officials. Colonialism was a debilitating system that exerted tremendous influence on the way ordinary folk lived during the pre and post-World War Two. Frantz Fanon, in his book, The Wretched of the Earth, analysed the system of colonialism and demonstrated how it had almost exclusive control of the natives in the different colonies. Panmen operated in a very ‘hostile world’ because of the hegemonic situation that existed at the time. Regulations from the authorities impacted on local forms of worship, the indigenous mode of dress, economic development, and even the way people socialised through their music and other forms of celebrations. It is in this context that some eventually became so frustrated that they regarded it as normal to become very aggressive towards each other. This cycle of violence became so vicious that the authorities were extremely confused how to deal with this phenomenon. Fanon explains that the colonised man will first attack and “beat each other… [at this stage] the police and the magistrate do not know which way to turn when they are faced with this astonishing wave of crime”.

To treat with this tsunami of criminal activities, the authorities responded with ‘brute force’, employing the Police Force and the Magistracy as their main strategies in attempting to control the masses, and to quell the violence in the Society. Some members of both arms of the law occasionally used this situation as an excuse to wage a crusade against the panmen and the early steelbands. Many prominent politicians and legal luminaries came out in support of the plight of the young panmen. Included in this group of outstanding supporters were Albert Gomes then Chief Minister, Norman Tang, the Mayor of Port of Spain; and lawyers, Lennox Pierre, Bruce Procope, Courtenay Hannays, and Edgar Gaston Johnson. Meanwhile other professionally qualified local blacks were also zealously persecuting and prosecuting the panmen who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. George Goddard states in his book, Forty Years Of Steelband, that the senselessness of the steel band clashes might have been influenced by persistent legal repression aimed at persons who were members of the Tamboo Bamboo bands and the early steelbands. Careful examination of these early days reveals that at different intervals the authorities banned various cultural and musical expressions. As Goddard theorises: “It was as if enraged by the harsh treatment of the law and rejection of the society, steelband men had turned their fury upon themselves in the senseless act of fighting and wounding.” In his Historical Dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago, Michael Anthony expressed another view on the crazy days of steelband violence. He surmised that there was always a great deal of violence associated with Carnival celebrations and insisted that this situation started from the year after emancipation when some slaves used the occasion to settle old scores with other slaves. Since they were disguised, they found it very convenient to attack others. He also explained that there were frequent brawls between different groups of masqueraders, and these sometimes led to bloody clashes with the police. He indicated that the Carnivals from 1839 to 1881 were unusually hectic, boisterous and violent. After 1881, Carnival experienced a cooling off period from the violence of some of the previous years (103-105). Brereton’s writings supported the position that Anthony advanced, as she described “The 1940s and 1950s were years of intense rivalry between bands, similar to the gang fights of the second half of the nineteenth century, and fights at

Carnival time were frequent and sometimes serious” (1981: 226). Selwyn Taradath, cultural researcher, shed a great deal of light on the early violence that existed in the steelband world. He shared the following information at an interview conducted at his home: Steelband music was born in Port of Spain, South East Port of Spain, ‘Behind the Bridge’ and also the Woodbrook area. Since Woodbrook was a sort of built-up area, during World War II, ‘Behind the Bridge’ defended and nurtured the steelband when the authorities were trying to suppress it. In the early days, Invaders was not a middle class band, although there were middle class persons living in the area. Ray Holman, Roy Rollock and the sons of John Buddy Williams, were some of the youths of “well to do families” that became involved in the early Invaders. They were all attracted to the pan as a musical instrument since they all knew music. However, most of the other youths involved in the band at the time came from ordinary parents. Invaders band was in rivalry with Casablanca and Tokyo. Those fellars were always jealous of Invaders. When Invaders went up the road with their pans for Carnival, they would mash up the pans. Invaders had most of the outstanding panmen in the world in the 1950s: Ellie and Birdie Mannette, Emmanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley, Kelvin Dove, Chic McGraw, ‘Moutha Be’ Phillips, Ray Holman, Cliff Alexis, Zepherin and others. Invaders eventually became a force on the road because of the involvement of the Toco people, Carenage people, the Blackhead Brothers, the Poolool Brothers and many others. In the 1950s Invaders became a very powerful force no one wanted to tackle because of what the band had to go through the years before. Taradath validated the picture of friction between Invaders and other bands that had been painted by early Invaders members. “Coye”, one of the founders of Oval Boys claimed “Invaders had confrontations with other bands even “before Renegades and Casablanca; we had problems with the band, Bar 20. Ossie also confirmed in the following story, the sentiments that Taradath expressed in the two interviews he gave to this writer: Other bands were always jealous because we always had good tones from the pans. If our band was coming from a distance, from the time you heard the pans you would know that it was Invaders. A lot of girls from other bands started leaving them and falling in love with fellars from Invaders. This used to cause the problem. They used to try to advantage us. The Boys were not bad boys but after a time, what you have to go through, that does change people. Carnival morning when you watch the road and know that you have to go up there, it was tough, sometimes as soon as you reach up the road, is fight. So the Boys started getting brave and don’t care as the other members in other bands. So you don’t care if it had a fight or not. If when you go up the road and it have fight, we go fight. Riot! It used to have plenty of that. Casablanca gave the most trouble. Invaders band was in war with Casablanca for over five years, the main cause was women. Sometimes, Casablanca came down the road to look for fight, other times the Boys went up to their area. A Carnival night, we clashed with Tokyo. They were waiting on us as we were going up to town, then bottles started raining down on Invaders. A lot of people got cut. When they raided the band a lot of fellars got chopped up and burst head. They made thing real bad. Ellie dropped his pan, “the Barracuda” as he was running. Tokyo members took the pan and hang it up on a Downs fruit tree in John John, and send to tell him to come for it. Ellie did not take up the invitation because he had no other choice. He had to make another pan. I am still not aware of our band doing anything to bring about this problem. Invaders and Tokyo clashed, then Invaders and Casablanca and later on Invaders and Red Army. After a while Invaders was fighting almost everybody in town. One night we ambushed and attacked a band when they were not expecting us. We parked them up, fellars got damaged and pans mashed up. So Invaders started getting a name. Then if anything happened in the area, Police used to invade the Yard to hold the Boys, although many times they did not know anything about the incidents. The Boys were nice quiet young fellars while growing up but a few of them made jail because of some of the things that happened. The Boys got a real bad name so people started to get concerned about their children joining the band because of the bad name. Everything was Invaders’ fault, true or not. They were not remembering what Invaders had to go

through the previous years. Individuals, who claimed to be present as participants, have confirmed the legendary clash between Invaders and Tokyo. Vernon “Birdie” Mannette is the only person of those who were interviewed, who insisted that the incident never took place. He insisted that Tokyo clashed with the band, Five Graves to Cairo in 1950, but two of his older brothers, Lio “Chatchit” Locario and Ossie Mannette confirmed there was a very serious clash between Invaders and Tokyo which took place before1950. It is interesting to note if the incident occurred in the middle of the 1940s, there is the possibility that “Birdie” did not remember, since there were so many different classes between Invaders and other steelbands. During an interview with Radio Power 102 FM, Lord Blakie, the famous ‘badjohn” calypsonian clarified his version of the Tokyo and Invaders clash. He claimed that he used 1950 for convenience in his big calypso hit, “Steelband Clash” of 1954. He explained that he was in jail for some time, and he stated that the clash between Tokyo and Invaders took place on VJ Day 1945, at the end of World War II, when steelbands came back on the road. Lord Blakie claimed he was a bare-back, sledge-hammer man in Tokyo during this riot. He also confirmed the assumption of Ossie that most of the steelband clashes were because of women, “If a woman was ‘friending’ with a badjohn in one band and she went to lime with another badjohn from another band, this caused a clash of these men to test their strength, this sometimes went on to include the whole band.” Kim Johnson quoted Neville “Bake Nose” McCleod of Tokyo, another badjohn of that era, who also confirmed that when Ellie Mannette made his escape, he dropped his ‘Barrcuta pan’, and the members of Tokyo were overjoyed at capturing it. McCleod recalled that “Thick Lip”, who was a member of the Tokyo band, used a baseball bat to beat almost the whole of Invaders band. Norman Darway, the revered cultural historian of the evolution of the steelband movement in Western Trinidad (Woodbrook, St. James and other surrounding areas), recalled that there was also another clash between Invaders and Tokyo around 1950 when members of both bands had a legal matter before the courts. He claimed that some members of Tokyo ambushed some members of Invaders, who were able to return to “base” (their Yard) to report how they were attacked. He insisted that Boysie Singh, a notorious criminal of that era, who lived at Rajkumar Street, came to the rescue of the band. Singh was very instrumental in mobilising the forces in the band to return to Port of Spain, as he insisted that Invaders was going back up to town with “full force” on the same day. Darway says that Singh distributed arms and ammunition to key persons in the band and to members of his gang to protect the band from further attacks. Invaders set off for town, with flag in front, as always. When Tokyo members saw that flag from the band fluttering in the breeze and advancing in the distance, they started to relish thoughts of another vicious attack. This preparation for another assault on their enemies had to be curtailed when the Invaders members came closer and the Tokyo members recognised Boysie Singh and his squad of henchmen in front of the band. Due to Singh’s legendary reputation, the members of Tokyo allowed better sense to prevail. Rudy Piggott in an obituary for his good friend, Birdie Mannette, described “When Invaders first came into town in 1945, Tokyo beat them up, but within a few years they toughened up to become one of the most violent bands in the country”. He continued, “During the 1950 Carnival, Invaders had seventeen members with cases for fighting. They had a bitter five years feud with Casablanca, which overlapped with their fights with Tokyo and Renegades but tackled all simultaneously.” The Trinidad Guardian of Thursday February 16, 1950 confirmed that these seventeen members included two female offenders who appeared before Magistrate B.W. Celestain, were charged for malicious wounding and taking part in an unlawful assembly. This newspaper also reported that the defense lawyer Mitra G. Sinanan requested that the Magistrate should also warn the main “prosecution witnesses, the members of Casablanca, “There must be no clash between rival bands”, while the Magistrate postponed the case for the following week. Piggot identified Francis Wickham, Stanley “Ponehead” Hunte, Cecil “Coye” Forde, Leonard “Lenny Bad Good” Russell, the Blackhead Brothers and the Mannette Brothers, as the main pillars of the militarism and protection around the early Invaders.

Despite having so many members before the courts, it is documented that on Carnival Tuesday 21 February, 1950, Invaders clashed with Tokyo. This account also confirms the inspirational role that Boysie Singh played in instilling confidence in the young Invaders members, when he distributed five guns to members and with his gang led the Invaders back to the scene of their big battle with Tokyo some hours previously (When Steel Talks). Many researchers have considered this major clash between Invaders and Tokyo as a significant marker in the early violent years, but overall, rampant violence was phenomenal in the world of the steelband. Invaders and Casablanca were considered as two of the most violent but also two of the most musically accomplished bands at the time. Several young men involved in the steelband movement were seriously injured while many others languished in jail, with a few of them even being sentenced for committing the ultimate crime. Lincoln Beckles, the nephew of Ellie Mannette, vividly recalled these extremely violent times while growing up as a young boy in the Oval Boys Pan Yard. He insisted that he saw signs and posters in the Port of Spain area, saying “Wanted: Ellie Mannette’s right hand.” This poster symbolised both the recognition of Ellie’s talent and his significant contribution to the creation of outstanding musical instruments for Invaders. It also reflected the level of jealous that some members of other bands had for Ellie, as they believed an incapacitated Ellie could result in reduced creation and production of high quality musical instruments. Lincoln also recalled his uncle Ellie going to work one day with a cutlass placed on his bicycle’s handle, which he assumed could be used as a weapon for self-defense if the need should arise. Eventually, his uncle Ellie had to use a cutlass to defend himself and was charged for wounding a member of another band. He also recounted an incident where Invaders band, on reaching Green Corner, the members of the band who were playing their pans actually handed over their instruments and changed places with other players. The original players took up the positions of protectors of the band. During this era, it was commonplace for some of the major badjohns to also be some of the best pan players. Lincoln, at his young age was fascinated and made light-headed by all the excitement that was associated with those crazy days. He recalled seeing “Vatican,” a colourful character in Oval Boys/ Invaders, as one of the persons carrying cutlasses and distributing them when the situation demanded it. He also recollected that during the serious clash at Green Corner, between Invaders and another band; he hid under a rice bag in a Chinese shop, and later upon crawling out after the violence discovered the bloody scene as he viewed some persons were covered in blood. He sometimes went under the house in the Yard, to listen as some of the early youths of Invaders made plans to raid another steelband. Later, he would witness the victory celebrations on their return. As a little boy, Lincoln just regarded the activities associated with the Steelband as being extremely hard to deal with and difficult to clearly understand what was really happening. Even today on looking back at that period, he is amazed that several more persons were not fatally wounded and more youths not incarcerated. Ossie explained that his brother, Ellie, was in a very difficult position although he tried to stay out of trouble: Ellie was a more level-headed fellar than Birdie and me. He never used to get into things just so. He was well trained; Ellie was exposed to boxing by Lennox Kilgour and was able to do a little wrestling. If his two younger brothers got into trouble, Ellie would go to their rescue. Birdie also supported the description of Ellie that his brother gave, and confirmed that his eldest brother did not like the violence so he concentrated on his pan. While Ossie and Birdie were not afraid to roam all over their neighbourhood, Ellie spent most of his time working and experimenting with the steelpan. Ossie claimed that over a period, he and his brother, Birdie, became very aggressive and reckless. Due to individuals and bands constantly taking advantage of them, the young Mannettes had to grow up and learn to take care of themselves. “Having the name Mannette and although he had two older, bigger brothers, Birdie still had to be able to protect himself,” explained Rudy Piggott. He disclosed that although Birdie was the smallest of the brothers, he

became one of the most feared youths at the time. Sometimes in order to defend himself he used the bone handled razor that was commonly employed in barbering members of the Invaders. He also confirmed that Birdie was an extremely brave youth, “He never had to move in any gang.” Francis Wickham insisted that their band had to endure many frightful and violent experiences through the vicious attacks the other bands unleashed against it, and these battles first stopped when Stanley Hunte came into the band in its early beginning. It could be that because of his previous involvement in the steelband and maturity and age, Stanley generated a certain amount of fear and respect from other bands at the time: He (Stanley) said that it had to stop and yes, he stopped it, he was older than us. We mobilize our forces and a day we head for town and from that day on, we were respected. We had to stand up. We had to fight otherwise you might have found the whole steelband scenario would have been different. All the steelbands now down in the West, they would not have been able to form because there was a time when all the other bands used to wait on us to head up the road first, because they were afraid to go into town. When you see we coming up town, we not coming up just so. It was do or die. We had to fight. We don’t say that we fight for weself, we does say, we fight for Woodbrook people too. There are several references of when Invaders members took their destiny into their own hand and attempted to defend themselves against many vicious attacks from other steelbands. In his reference to the contribution of Stanley Hunte to the development of early Invaders, Wickham credited Stanley as being able to mobilise the youths to stand up and develop confidence to defend themselves against aggression. Ossie, Wickham and Coye all agreed that Invaders virtually became a mother-band for many of the other bands coming from West Port of Spain, because these bands waited for the Invaders flag to take the lead position while making their way to the heart of Port of Spain. With Invaders in the forefront of this steelband convoy, the other bands enjoyed a measure of security for their members to play their instruments and display their costumes.

Strategies to Control Steelband Violence Many persons from the middle class felt that the violence in the steelband fraternity should not be encouraged and different strategies had to be utilised to combat this terrible scourge. There were serious concerns that the situation was deteriorating and something had to be done urgently. Since there were several factors responsible for the cause of steelband clashes, a multiprong approach had to be utilised to deal with the situation. The steelbands’ feuds fuelled a prolonged “almost warlike” situation in the society, which confronted the police officers and eventually had a severe effect on them. Police officers inevitably retaliated in like manner when dealing with the problem. There were many historic antecedents for adopting this approach. It was the same aggressive style the police had employed in the post emancipation period when the authorities tried to impose various restrictions on the Carnival celebrations including the banning of the drums and outlawing of Canboula. Later, Hosay celebrations were also prohibited. This aggressive approach of the police in trying to eradicate the steelband clashes resulted in certain prominent persons in the society condemning their actions. Lennox Pierre of the National Youth Council, Albert Gomes, one of the leading politicians at the time, and other outstanding citizens attempted to address the situation by proposing different alternatives for dealing with the problem of uncontrollable steelband violence among the youth, mainly in Port of Spain and environs They made an appeal to the authorities to offer an amnesty to the many pan men who were facing the courts with criminal charges, while some enlightened persons attempted to get representatives of the various bands to form a National Steelband Association in 1950. It is reported that schoolteacher, Harold Blake, initiated the formation of the first Steelband Music Association in 1949 at Chenet Alley, and Ellie Mannette and Oscar Piles were elected as President and Vice president

respectively of this first body. However, this organisation never got off the ground, but most of the bands did sign a non-aggression pact a year later, which resulted in the formation of a permanent National Steelband Association, with Lennox Pierre, Carlyle Kerr and Sydney Gollop given credit as the persons mainly responsible for the establishment of this new body. 1950 was a watershed period in the History of the Steelband, when on March 2 nd Invaders and Casablanca decided to bury the hatchet, no doubt influenced by the number of their members who faced the courts a few weeks before for attacking each other. Four days later, six more steelbands, March Hill 60, Destination Tokyo, Crusaders, Merry Makers, All Stars and Desperadoes with five hundred members and supporters also assembled to join the two other steelbands to commit to the idea of stopping steelband clashes. This development came just two weeks after the Invaders and Tokyo clash on Carnival Tuesday. All seventy-six bands as members of the new Steelband Committee had a different opportunity to showcase their musical talents in steelband recitals which started in June the same year and replaced other pan competitions for five years. In 1949-51 a government appointed committee made efforts to reduce the level of steelband violence, by suggesting different strategies including the formation of Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) as another significant strategy in the crusade to stop the steelband violence among warring steelband youth. TASPO offered an opportunity for the leaders of the unit bands of the newly formed Steelband Association to be included in an ensemble band that would represent Trinidad internationally. Ellie was the representative for Invaders. Lt Joseph Griffith, the appointed Musical Director of the newly formed orchestra, acknowledged the advanced tuning skills of Ellie and recommended that he should be the lead tuner for the new formation. The Committee recommended that Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) could bring about unity in the steelband world, with the best player coming from each major steelband that was a member of the National Steelband Association at the time. After a massive public fund raising drive, Lt. Griffith and his group of talented musicians left Trinidad in 1951 for their tour to England. TASPO comprised of the following great players:* * * * * * * * * * * *

Ellie Mannette - Invaders, Woodbrook Winston Spree Simon - Tokyo, John John Anthony Williams - North Stars, St. James Sonny Roach - Sun Valley Sterling Betancourt - Crossfire, St. James Theo Stephens - Free French, San Fernando Belgrave Bonaparte - Southern Symphony Andrew De Labastide - Hill 60 Philmore “Boots” Davidson - Syncopators Orman Patsy Haynes - Casablanca Dudley Smith - Rising Sun, Belmont Granville Sealy - Tripoli, St. James This new body, TASPO, obligated the various talented steelband players to work together as a harmonious team. Ossie Mannette insisted that his brother Ellie was the selected Captain, and his style of tuning was used to prepare the pans down at the “Aquatic”- Carenage seaside. Anthony Williams and Sonny Roach also assisted with the tuning of TASPO’s pans since they were outstanding practising tuners in their own bands. The establishment of this orchestra ensured significant improvement in the musical range of the various instruments. In his book, The Steelband Movement, steelband researcher, Stephen Steumpfle quotes Anthony Williams, who indicated that they used a twenty-three note ping pong, and also developed other pans to obtain chromatic range. In his interview with the Government Information Services, Williams confirmed that they discarded the biscuit drums because of their thin layer of metal and used mainly oil drums 23 inches in diameter. He explained that Lt. Griffith used numbers to represent the note, with 0 being middle C. He also indicated they utilised the piano to tune the pans to produce chromatic tuning and harmony. This quantum leap in the proficiency in the tuning of these instruments propelled the quality of the steelband music to another level, thereby facilitating the band’s ability to

render a wide repertoire of various genres of music including the established Classics and the popular music of the time: Waltz, Rhumba, Samba, Mambo, Calypso and Fox Trot (95-96). Unfortunately, Sonny Roach had to be hospitalised in Martinique because of a throat problem so he missed the tour of the Festival of Britain. Undoubtedly, both the formation of TASPO and the establishment of the National Steelband Association had a tremendous impact on the steelband fraternity. They acted as very powerful catalysts in the reduction of steelband violence at the time by having a positive influence on the way the steelband men recognized each other’s contributions and abilities. This arrangement offered them the opportunity to develop a sense of respect for each other and even to work together. Ossie remembered that at the era of the establishment of the new steelband body and the formation of TASPO, the attitude of the police toward the steelband movement began to show a big change. “In those days police had no guns but they tried to cool down things, they tried to get the fellars together,” he remarked. However, there were still the occasional physical flare-ups among the bands. It is reported that even Invaders was attacked for their choice of tune for Carnival one of these years. All the varied and questionable reasons that produced street warfare among the early bands eventually gave way to a more recognisable war. From 1963, the battles of the steelbands gradually shifted to the established stages of Steelband Panorama Competitions, the enhanced Steelband Music Festivals and the supremacy for the title of “the sweetest band on the road”. Today, the steelband fraternity has come a long way. It is now customary to find previously bitter enemies of the early crazy days of steelband violence pooling their resources to support each other in various steelband and other related activities. It is now the accepted practice for any steelband having a fund-raising event to invite four or five other steelbands to participate; the favour is reciprocated when required. Some steelbands clearly exhibited this togetherness during a fund raising venture when Starlift Steelband hosted a Benefit Concert on the night of Friday September 17, 1999, to assist with the medical expenses of Birdie Mannette at the turn of the last century. The bands performing at the function included BWIA Invaders, Petrotrin Phase II, Woodbrook Play Boyz, the Silver Stars and Scrunters Pan Groove. Barbara Jenson also recalled Invaders and Starlift jointly hosting a similar event in the early 1990s to provide financial assistance to a member from each band. Steelbands also sometimes demonstrated unity when bands that did not qualify for the semifinals and finals of Panorama competitions, made available to other bands, some of their best players and their instruments to fortify the performances of the qualified bands. This assistance and support given to bands with limited resources usually improved their showing in the later stages of these competitions. However under present Pan Trinbago rules, players are no longer permitted to join or perform with more than one steelband in the Panorama competition, since there is an appearance fee and playing for multiple bands could cause resentment. Today, any steelband supporter can go into any other panyard while practice sessions are taking place, and would only encounter some mild picong or “fatigue”, generally, the members of the host band would shower that visitor with a great deal of true hospitality, whereas Barbara Jenson remembers as late as the mid-1970s one would not dream of visiting another panyard wearing a jersey identifying that person as a member or supporter of a different band. Sponsorship is another important factor that has helped to mellow the aggressive relationships between members of different bands. Management of various bands had to attempt to get their members to display more acceptable behaviour. All sponsors would have been concerned about their association with these bands and the impact on their corporate image. Today, the crazy days of steelband violence are now just a faded memory of the reckless and dangerous actions of those energetic but creative youth of a bygone era, but over six decades later, some of the early panmen, who were active participants still find it extremely difficult to talk about that period.

Fortunately, those who came after would learn there was more than one way “to skin a cat” and to demonstrate superiority. There was always the music.

Chapter Six The Ellie Mannette Era “Ellie Mannette can be considered the first real innovator of the steelband. He took it from its primitive stage, into making it a musical instrument” (Selwyn Taradath 1999).

Numerous researchers locally and worldwide have acknowledged Elliot Ellie Mannette as the father of the modern steelpan. He revolutionised the method of tuning the pans when he introduced the very progressive idea of using the concave method of tuning the steel drums instead of the convex manner that the other pan tuners commonly used during the initial developmental stages. He has made a significant contribution to the development of the steelband locally and in spreading the steelband culture through out North America. He was always resolute in the role he had to play in the evolution of the steelband movement. He considered himself to be blessed with a creative mind, and never saw obstacles as some of the other youths did, but he was always interested in other options and possibilities that he could explore to overcome challenges. He had a clear picture in his mind about what he wanted to accomplish in his experiments with the steelpan and he laboured relentlessly trying to achieve a distinct sound and to establish standards that even the tuners of today still use as their reference of quality control. Ellie claimed that the innovations of Alexander Forde, also known as “Humbugger,” had a great influence on his early life, probably around 1935, when at the age of nine years he saw Alexander’s Rag Time Band for the first time but because of his size was unable to participate in the festivities. Two years later, in 1937, he was big enough to be part of the celebrations, going with the bigger boys and getting the opportunity to play on the small drums (Blood/Narell 1986:8). There are several claims and counter-claims about the emergence of the steelband in the 1930s and 1940s. Stephen Steumpfle, in his very informative book, The Steelband Movement, has provided detailed documentation from numerous persons who claimed they were participants in various events and innovations in the early development of the new instrument. Therefore, Anecdotes of the Invaders does not attempt to negate the claims of persons from other steelbands, but it utilises the anecdotes of mainly old stagers of Invaders and other researchers, to highlight the involvement and contributions of many persons who were closely associated with this specific band. Past President of the Steelbands Association, George Goddard, in Forty Years in the Steelband 1939-1979, explained that when Carnival 1935 arrived, drums and tamboo bamboo could not be used to provide music for persons to parade since the authorities had previously outlawed their uses, so that Mr. Forde went around before the celebrations collecting all types of cans to be used as instruments for members of his band. He included brake drums, grease barrels, paint pans and other pieces of steel. Ellie also described how players were attacking each other “to the extent that they were taking some of these bamboo joints, sharpening them like spears, and stabbing each other. It was a real trouble era at the time [. . .]. So Tamboo Bamboo was banned completely (28). Historian Michael Anthony identified two significant events, the major

developments on the Queen Royal College Science Block building in 1939 and another block in 1940, as taking place around the same period that the youths in Woodbrook area were going through the formation of the band, Oval Boys (Anthony 1997:106). Birdie’s earliest recollection of the beginning of Oval Boys dates back to 1940-41, when he was about eleven to twelve years old. Ossie on the other hand is positive that they had already started their band, a year or two years before World War II began in 1939. He insisted that they had participated in two Steelband competitions at the Oval before steelband activities were officially suspended during the World War II. Ossie explained that as young boys, all three Mannette brothers including Ellie occasionally ran away from home to visit the Barrack Yard, which acted as a Gayelle or venue for the viewing of stick-fighting and other cultural activities, and the playing of music from the tamboo bamboo band. They were genuinely excited about these experiences. Ossie and Birdie claimed that it was what they saw and heard at one of these forays at the Barrack Yard of Alexander’s Ragtime Band that influenced the Mannette brothers and their youthful friends to go back to their yard at 147 Tragarete Road and to experiment by formulating their own musical contraptions using steel objects and containers. This event eventually led to the birth of Oval Boys Steelband. Wickham, Coye, and Ossie are just three of the elders from the Invaders band that are confident in their recollection that Ellie was not very active in the early exploits of the band but admitted once he became involved in the band it was obvious to all the others that he possessed extraordinary talent in the tuning of the early instrument. Ellie was not afraid “to think outside of the box” and by using this approach he was extremely creative in his efforts to develop the new instrument, which propelled him to become one of the top tuners of his time. Ellie always had a clear vision and the determination to fulfill that unique role he was required to play in the development of the steelband. He utilised his creativity very effectively by being positive with his God-given talent. He worked relentlessly to achieve a distinct sound from the new instrument. He usually secluded himself for many long frustrating hours while he directed all his energies into creating and experimenting with the early instrument. Although, Ellie encountered tremendous difficulties in trying to convince others of the possibilities of some of his ideas for the steelband, he dealt with this situation in the best way he knew, by producing results in the form of tangible developments. One of his most significant innovations still remains the revolutionary sinking of the surface of the pan from convex to concave. Through his methods of tuning, playing and the selection of quality materials over the years, he has also contributed and still continues to influence the tone and sound of the instruments, which have improved tremendously and now retain their tuning for longer periods. In order to extract the best sound from the early instruments, he introduced rubberised pan sticks about 1943 after several experimentations using various types of materials including pieces of coconut branch. He discovered that the “inners” or rubber tubing of the bicycle tyre, when cut into strips and wrapped around the tips of playing sticks, produced the best results (Blood / Narell 1986:8). This innovation at the time revolutionised the sound that emanated from the pans and enhanced the musical capabilities of the various instruments. Many researchers have credited Ellie with the introduction of several voices (different pans) in the early development of the steelband. His contribution had a profound impact on the composition of the instruments in those early stages. Some of the instruments he worked on included both the single and double versions of the second pan, the guitar pans and the cello pans. The development of the pans of various musical ranges provided a wider choice of instruments, so players were able to attempt more challenging musical pieces thereby enjoying greater musical flexibility. His band, the Invaders, was the first to play musical arrangements with various pans playing the melodic lines. Ellie also had a good relationship with Beryl Mc Burnie who frequently invited the band to exhibit the skills of its talented players at some of her

cultural shows at the Little Carib Theatre, two blocks from the Mannette home. Ellie Mannette and Invaders experienced the brunt of the attacks of some of the aggressive steelbands during the 1940s and early 1950s. Jealousy of the unique sound the band was able to produce and conflicts resulting from some young girls leaving the other bands and falling in love or showing amorous interest to some of the members of Invaders were identified as the major factors of this aggression. Although Ellie was considered a cool and level-headed person, he approached Lennox Kilgour to train him in the self-defense skills of boxing and wrestling, so that he would be in a position to defend himself if required to do so. Later, Ellie eventually found himself before the court for a serious act committed in self-defense. However, he did not like the violence and he concentrated his creative energies on the innovations on the early development of the steelband. Norman Darway, many decades later he operated a gym from his home in St. James, also indicated that Ellie was also interested in working out regularly in the gym. Undoubtedly, Ellie had to operate in a very independent and determined way so that he would not be influenced by “the doubting Thomases” in the young steelband fraternity but to focus on the possibilities of some of his unique ideas for the improvement of the new instrument. Keith Smith, Editor at Large with the Trinidad Express Newspaper, until his death in 2011, described it as: “…What Mannette, among the earliest of innovators must have had to go through” (Smith 1999:13). The young innovator conquered each situation by producing practical results with the instrument (Ossie 1999). Ellie’s innovation of sinking the surface of the pan resulted in significant improvement in the tone and overall sound, and it also facilitated the pans to stay tuned for a longer period than previously. Keith Smith claimed that Ellie has always been referred to in the Steelband fraternity in “…awed tones; the man whose seminal idea of tuning the pan inwards instead of outwards changed the instrument for the better.” He wondered about the creative process that Ellie used “…that led him to see that for his and our pan purposes “convex” had to give way to “concave” (Smith 1999:13). The next major creation came in 1946 when Ellie decided to make a tenor from his parents’ 55 gallons (180 litres) barrel previously being used for storing water in their backyard. Ossie and Birdie recalled that when they first heard of their brother’s idea, both brothers and their friends had a good laugh as this extraordinary proposal. The boys in the band all felt that it was impossible, since it had never been done before Their negative attitude only increased Ellie’s determination to show them that it was possible. Ellie secured a spot in the Oval, where he was able to work unmolested for several days until he completed his goal, (Ossie 1999). This was the first time that anyone had produced a tenor pan from a 55 gallon barrel (Blood / Narell 1986). This development later had a great impact in 1956, with the introduction of the thirty-one notes tenor pan. Anthony “Tony” Williams, another genius in invention and innovation in the early days of the steel pan, in an interview with The Government Information Service Ltd. in Trinidad, explained the impact that Ellie Mannette had on tuning of the early instrument. He claimed he heard Ellie Mannette and Invaders play Stardust in 1949. He confirmed it was the first time “he heard the semitone, so he tuned a pan with it”.

When Tokyo captured Ellie’s pan, the “Barracuta,” during the famous clash with Invaders, this instrument was at an advanced stage of development at the time. Those persons who compared the instruments of Ellie to the other pan tuners all considered his pans to be at a more progressive stage of tuning (Ossie 1999). Emmanuel “Corbeau Jack” Riley claimed that Invaders had the Kettle pan that evolved into an invention of Ellie’s, the Single Second pan, and then later into the Double Second Pan. He confirmed Belgrave used to play a double second at “Tavern on the Green” with three pan sticks, and he also stated that Belgrave had approached Ellie and asked him to design and tune a pair of double seconds from a sketch on a piece of paper. This situation demonstrated the kind of collaborations that sometimes occurred between the tuners/craftsmen and outstanding players in the production of new pans. Besides, being one of the

more recognised tuners in those days, many persons regarded Ellie as an exciting and skilled pan player. Ossie described his performance as “He used to make the Cellos talk in music festival” (Ossie 1999). A year later, in 1948, Beryl McBurnie invited the band to display their musical skills in a concert at Little Carib Theatre. This invitation also made them the first band to play at this venue and in such a concert setting. Although several panmen made life very difficult for Ellie, he had a few friends from the middle class. Beryl and Lennox Pierre were two of these prominent friends who tried their best to assist him and his band. Beryl was responsible for arranging the offer of a music scholarship for him to study in England, which he did not accept because he felt it was going to be a distraction from his major objective at that time, of developing the steelband. This gesture of refusing such an offer of a lifetime opportunity reflected the type of sacrifices that Ellie was willing to make so that he would not compromise his position of total commitment to advancing the development of the musical instrument. Ellie also enjoyed a special relationship with Prime Minister Dr. Eric Williams, which turned very sour later when he decided to migrate because of the promises of greener pastures in America. Dr. Williams had suggested previously that Ellie should be given the job to tune the pans for another National Steelband Orchestra after the success of the TASPO venture but other influential persons did not accept the proposed remuneration to do the job. In some quarters, the spectre of jealousy has been identified as the causative agent for this proposal being still-born. Ellie made many other contributions to the development of the early steelband. However, it is crucial for us to recognise the tremendous difficulties Ellie and the other members of his band, Invaders, experienced during these violent early years of the evolution of the steelband movement but they persevered and we are grateful.

Ellie’s Outreach Programme: Ellie was always a benevolent panman. Although as captain and leader of Invaders band, it was a tremendous responsibility in those days, he always found the time to assist other pan persons whenever they approached him to seek his assistance. He assisted Girl Pat, an all female steelband; however, he was not only involved in its formation but the tuning of their instruments and the training of their players. Wilbert “Beeh” Forde also invited him to go up to Laventille to help the Dead End Kids, a young band that evolved into the famous Desperadoes Steel Orchestra. Ellie carried his brother Birdie and Corbeau Jack to demonstrate to these interested youth how to make pans. According to steelband researcher, Kim Johnson, “Mannette showed them how to sink, groove and burn pans, but to tune them he’d brought his younger brother Vernon “Birdie” Mannette. And so the two Mannettes forged a friendship between the Woodbrook and Laventille bands, two of the most fearsome fighting machines…” (1997: 2-3). This relationship continues even today long after the principal players of the initial arrangement have vacated the scene. Despite the personal challenges he encountered, Ellie made a conscious effort to assist other bands that were interested in developing the quality of their instruments. He did not limit his outreach project just to support the bands that were located close to Port of Spain but he tried to help bands from different parts of the country, including those in places like Tunapuna and even as distant as Toco.

Girl Pat; first all female band Girl Pat Steel Orchestra is generally recognised as the pioneer of an all female steelband in Trinidad, despite the fact that previously other young girls were also playing pans in a penal institute for young female offenders. Ellie came to the rescue and assisted Ms. Henley, a school teacher from the Woodbrook area, to organise this band by providing instruments and training the young girls to develop a high level of proficiency with the various instruments. Curtis Pierre is reported as describing this band as “a female version of Invaders” (Smith2012). These girls came from middle class families and all had good jobs. Ms. Henley, the leader of the band, drilled her players on several occasions while using the piano, and insisted that in order for the members to become versatile in the band, they had to learn to play all the different voices in the band. Although this band created a favourable impact, the members had difficulties embracing some of the opportunities they had been offered because of their regular jobs, so the band eventually folded.

The Steelband and Sans Souci This writer, as a student of Sans Souci Roman Catholic Primary School, experienced his first exposure to the sweet sounds of live steelband music in the early 1960s. The village steelband, “Mello Harps”, provided the music for the young children to enjoy themselves, while they celebrated their annual Christmas treat at the end of the school’s year. The live steelband music and the brown paper bags with the apple, cake, dates, biscuits and balloons were the main attractions of this festive occasion. The sound of Mello Harps Steelband playing those scintillating Christmas carols has remained one of the most pleasant memories of early childhood and also planted the seeds of love for sweet steelband music. Professor at an American University, Clement London, a famous Toco son of the soil who has worked in several universities in the USA, recalled although he and other youths in Toco village were members of a steelband with their instruments from All Stars in Port of Spain, the band at Sans Souci was better because of the superior tuning of their pans. The children of Sans Souci always knew the pans that the men were playing were “Invaders pans.” Most villagers were able to identify many close relatives and even first cousins of Ellie Mannette, who were living among them. Lio, the eldest brother of the Mannettes was also a very popular resident, while the Locario brothers: Lawrence, Eric, Neville and Arthur, all first cousins of Ellie, featured prominently in the organisation and leadership of Mello Harps Steelband. Previously, Herman Locario, another cousin, also played a very active role in nurturing his skills and obtaining essential steelband knowledge from his cousins in Port of Spain then transferring that technology and information to the little steelband grouping they had in the village, in the early 1950s. There is also a vivid memory of a man of dark- complexion burning a part of an oil drum while making a tenor pan in the yard of Beryl Locario, in George Street, Sans Souci, and tuning this instrument in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Many persons referred to the tuner as “Corbeau Jack”. Many years later, through the numerous references to this great tuner, the true significance of that incident registered. Mr. Emmanuel Riley, the famous “Cobo Jack”, confirmed in an interview in August 2007 in New York, that Sans Souci was just one of the places or bands that he would go to assist in the tuning of the pans when Ellie was

unavailable. Sometimes members of the Locario family from Sans Souci journeyed into Port of Spain to support and express their appreciation to Invaders at Carnival time. The villagers of this small, remote, fishing and agricultural village have always been proud of Ellie as one of their most famous sons of the soil. While the steelband evolution was rapidly taking place in Port of Spain, Invaders band was always influential in the steelband presence in this small village associated with Ellie’s birthplace. Ironically, the youths bestowed the name Casablanca on one of the earliest steelbands that were established in Sans Souci. This band was located in Miss Millie’s yard in Basin Road. The youths also named the area where the band existed, Casablanca. Life has many strange ironies, so the decision to call the band Casablanca was most puzzling, since many of its prominent members were the Locarios who were closely related to the Mannettes who controlled Invaders Steelband at that time. Was it admiration for the tenacity that the original Casablanca steelband in Port of Spain demonstrated against Invaders in their numerous conflicts for many years? None of the surviving members could conclusively confirm how the first Steelband in Sans Souci got its name. Herman Locario, the first cousin of Ellie, was interested in what was happening down in Invaders pan yard, and became one of Ellie’s trusted assistant as he paid close attention to the tuning experiments that Ellie was carrying out in there. He then went back to the countryside in Sans Souci and tried to put into practice some of the knowledge and skills relating to pan tuning he had obtained. When Rudolph Ottley (“Harper”), returned to Sans Souci in the late 1940s with his eight-note small pan made from a carbide container, he discovered that the Casablanca band already had ping pongs made from the large water-barrel which were stolen from the villagers. Harper tried changing around the tuning from anti-clockwise to clockwise but he had very little impact on the situation as Herman was the tuner mainly responsible for converting the water containers into steel pans in the village. In the folklore of the Invaders, the name of Herman Locario has been prominently mentioned as one of Ellie’s early reliable and efficient assistant tuners in the Yard in Port of Spain. After the demise of the Sans Souci Casablanca, Mello Harps steelband emerged as the village’s new steelband entity. Some of the youth who were involved in the previous steelband were also members but a new cadre of young men joined up. This time, Ellie not only donated used pans to the band but also provided additional support by getting “Cobo Jack” and Birdie to make and tune new pans for this band. This relationship between the villagers of Sans Souci and Invaders steelband persisted until the early 1960s. Mello Harps suffered severely from the large-scale migration of several young persons to America and other places of greener pastures. Youths who remained in Sans Souci concentrated on starting families and pursuing fishing and farming to maintain their love ones. A few persons also gained employment with government. Just over a decade later, the Port of Spain band again donated all the steelpans that were required to start a new village band. This writer was fortunate to be a teenage member of the Northside Symphonettes around the middle of 1970s, a third generation of steelbandsmen who performed at different venues and functions in the Northeast Coast region in the Toco area using their instruments from Invaders. At that time, for some strange reason, the appearances of this band at Grande Riviere for the annual Easter Extravaganzas were always well received by those villagers. A highlight of this band’s existence was its performance at a Sangre Grande Steelband Panorama Competition at the Old Sangre Grande Civic Centre where the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) Bus Terminus now stands. Although, the band was not in the league of Sangre Grande Cordettes and most of the other bands from the Sangre Grande environs, it was an exciting experience for the young group of players from Sans Souci. The band had the unique distinction of being the only group with its instruments placed on wooden stands but the players were very proud of their sweetly tuned Invaders pans.

Chapter Seven Ellie and America: The Land of Opportunity “People migrate for different reasons, need, urgency or seeking opportunities…” (Von Martin, Organisation of American States journalist). Ellie enjoyed a mutually rewarding relationship with the Americans before eventually taking up permanent residence in the United States of America. He was involved in different projects both locally and overseas, before he migrated in the mid -1960s. During World War II, the Americans employed Ellie Mannette as a machinist at Chaguaramas Military Base, when they invited him to establish a steelband using their military forces personnel. He enlisted the assistance of some of the early Invaders players to do so. This band was later transferred to a base in Puerto Rico. Ossie recalled that there were several occasions when family and Invaders band members thought Ellie was down at Chaguaramas when he would really be in Puerto Rico on steelband business. In 1963, the Americans again commissioned Ellie to inaugurate a U.S. Navy steelband in the United States of America. He accepted the assignment to produce their instruments and to train the players. He spent a few months on this project and was very satisfied with its outcome (Sydney 1999; Ellie: Power 102 FM, 1999). As the years went by, although Ellie’s band, Invaders, enjoyed a reasonable measure of support from some persons from the middle and upper class in Trinidad, but he still was not satisfied with the overall local support for pan in general. After numerous appeals for assistance, he was becoming increasingly discouraged with the government’s attitude towards the steelband.

One of his cherished wishes was for the introduction of the Steelband into the school system and he had made several pleas to the authorities to address this shortcoming at that time, to no avail. In utter frustration, he finally decided to migrate to the U. S. A. Two years after he left Trinidad, William Doyle–Marshall a journalist in North America interviewed Ellie and documented extensively the tremendous amount of work that he had accomplished in America in that relatively short period. DoyleMarshall identified the numerous schools and projects that Ellie was associated with, but he also explained the deep sense of hurt and betrayal that the ace steelband tuner still harboured regarding his country and countrymen. He had quoted Ellie as saying: “From where steelband started, it is something in the atmosphere that causes the people not to appreciate it as the form of music that it really is.” Ellie continued, “They feel it was brought from the gutter and they still feel that it is from the gutter despite efforts to prove to the world, it is music like any other sort of musical device.” He was so disenchanted with the situation that he finally emphasised, “As long as the middle class refused to change I would stay away from home” (Doyle-Marshall 1969: 14, 15). Thirty-two years after he left Trinidad in 1999, another reporter claimed that there was still a great deal of emotion in the voice of Ellie, while recalling the way, he felt he was unfairly treated in Trinidad during the infancy of the Steelband development (Smith, V. 1999: 31). When Ellie left in 1967, he was accepting an opportunity to do what he liked best, to work with the steelband, where his work would be appreciated. He felt that he could not cope with the stress and neglect anymore. He had a fairly well paying job with Shell Trinidad Limited, where he went to work in long sleeve shirts with two or three pens in his shirt pockets, and he was very comfortable on his job. During the preparations for his migration to America, the company made arrangements in the event of any major disappointment, after a specific period if he wanted to return, it was going to rehire him. Ossie claimed that he knew his brother was not going to return to Trinidad, as he remembered that Ellie always told him whenever he left Trinidad “that was going to be it” (Ossie 1999)”. He was not coming back because of his level of frustration. Ellie had consistently stated that there should be no question about his love for Trinidad but he still found it difficult to understand the country’s non-acceptance of the Steelband. On his migration to the United States, he obtained employment with a shipping company before he began working on steelband projects in some of the more challenging areas of New York, including the Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn. In a relatively short period, he was instrumental in getting ten bands started in these areas. Then he directed his attention to the Public School System. It is reported that while working in a youth - programme in Flushing, New York, Queen’s College invited him to give a performance. This performance resulted in Ellie giving a series of lectures and workshops in several states, and eventually extending to West Virginia University. Ellie’s programme subsequently expanded to over three hundred and fifty school projects. This pattern of growth quickly spread from the Public School System into the Universities. In 1969 he was already tuning pans for Howard University and other institutions even as far as Canada (Doyle-Marshall 14, 15). Ellie expressed his elation and satisfaction in his new ability to carry out one of his greatest desires over the years, to introduce steelband in a grand way into the school system and even into tertiary educational institutions in North America. This was a lifelong dream which was starting to become a reality. He was now financially free to continue many experiments to improve the instrument in an accommodating environment, while also spreading the art of playing pan. He also indicated plans to invite to the United States other top local steelband men to assist in the venture, since he was experiencing some challenges to service and manage all the numerous pan projects. However, there is no cogent evidence that this suggestion had ever fully materialised. Ellie obtained generous support for the steelband that he never received at home. He found that the type of reception given to Steelband music in the United States was so much different from that in Trinidad, and now he also had suitable tools that were effective in making his tuning job less laborious and had access to electronic tuners, automatic saws and other pieces of equipment which were almost impossible to obtain in Trinidad (Doyle-Marshall 1969: 15).

In the first two years, despite being extremely busy, Ellie still had his own band, the “Humming Birds Steelband”, with the members of his band coming from America and Canada. The name of his steelband confirmed his lingering attachment to his homeland. Ellie traveled a great deal in the metropolitan areas of New York, New Jersey, Boston, Washington, Baltimore, Montreal, and Toronto exposing both black and white American and Canadian children to the musical techniques of playing the steelband in order to produce a wide repertoire of enchanting melodies. He worked in the depressed areas and in the schools initially but later on he became involved in programs mainly in the universities. This aspect of the work eventually culminated in a significant arrangement with West Virginia University in 1991 which offered him a secured position to carry out a steelband music project. Nine years later, the same university invited him to become an Adjunct Professor in charge of Music Studies. When Ellie became Artist in Residence at West Virginia University, this institution assigned a whole wing for Steelband Studies. There is no question about the quality of missionary work Ellie did in relation to spreading interest in the steelband in North America. Von Martin, Organisation of American States journalist, explained that Ellie went far beyond what was expected, as he touched the lives of thousands of young children. “This instrument has done so much social good,” he commented. Although different groups embraced the steelband in various ways, undoubtedly the work of Mannette had a tremendous impact on the many individuals who came into contact with the instrument. Martin, appropriately, described the situation as “Two Worlds of Pan in the USA, A Black World and A White World.” In Florida alone there are three State Universities offering steelband related studies. Most of these tertiary educational programmes included music theory. The type of support and commitment that Ellie received from West Virginia University for such an extended period in pursuing his steelband project was proof of the value which universities placed on his steelband programmes. On the other hand, when Ellie went to work with the children in the black communities, such projects did not and still do not enjoy the same type of funding and support as the Universities obtained for their programmes. In most instances these bands were organised and operated in much the same ways as in Trinidad. They experienced difficulties in raising funds to purchase instruments. Weeks before Carnival celebrations in these North American cities, band members were required to practice for long periods as in Trinidad because a large number of players were not musically literate, although within recent times there has been a gradual paradigm shift as many of the younger players who now participate in these bands, are able to read and write music. Consideration should be given to those persons stay on in their bands for long hours back home, practicing their Panorama tunes although this is an aspect of the accepted cultural traditions associated with Panorama as a music event. However, in New York and other cities this custom was a challenging proposition for steelband members because of the issues relating to time as a valuable and scarce commodity, many steelband players encounter difficulties to juggle between work time and rehearsal schedules because they are unable to attend all six or seven days of practice for a week. Another big city problem involves residents in close proximity to pan yards who may view them as new noise pollutants in the environment. This perception often leads to the police becoming involved and restricting the operations of the bands. Ellie, as in his early days, never spent too much time concentrating on the various negatives or daunting challenges he encountered in North America. He focused mainly on spreading the exciting possibilities of steelband as a new musical option and its potential to offer youths opportunities to explore and develop many positive life skills, while providing short term employment as well as career options. In 1980–81, he was working almost exclusively with universities, although he serviced a few other external projects (Ellie/Power 102FM 1999). During this period, he developed over two hundred University programmes. His work with the Universities eventually culminated into a significant arrangement with West Virginia University in 1991, which offered him a secured position to carry out a Steelband music project. Since 1991, Ellie has been working with a team of researchers carrying out a

series of experiments to develop a steel pan that would keep its tuning longer than present pans. Ellie’s research team comprised metallurgists, chemists and two nuclear physicists who have been trying to develop new metals and alloys that would make that possible. This new development would reduce the cost of maintenance since there will be less retuning and blending of pans when they are in regular use especially by novice players. Nine years after he had started the project, Mannette was still working with his team of Scientists at WVU where he secured promotion to become an Adjunct Professor in charge of the Steelband Music Studies. He was responsible for coordinating and developing this programme, which exposed participants to indepth tuning and steelband construction. Students also had options to become members of the Steelband ensembles, and to participate in their live performances. WVU also offered a course of studies for arrangers as an integral part of the programme (Ellie/Power 102 FM, 1999). Although Ellie was based in West Virginia, he still had significant impact on the tuning of steel pans not just in the United States but in many other quarters including Trinidad and Tobago. Patrick Arnold, a steelband tuner and the then President of Pan Trinbago, the National Association for Steelbands in Trinidad and Tobago, in April 1999 expressed great concerns about the success of Ellie’s programme, by alluding to the type of displacement it was causing for Pan Trinbago members, as he mentioned that: “Already we have problems in North America, with Ellie (Mannette) turning out tuners like crazy at West Virginia University”, he further stated “… and customers saying that you can not tell the difference between their pans and ours” (Joseph 1999). Arnold’s statement indicated the type of recognition the tuning project of Ellie at the WVU was enjoying. It was something that Ellie always had to defend and explain, as he repeatedly expressed the view that what he was doing was for the good of pan as an instrument. The quality of his instruments was challenging the other tuners and producers to match or better the production of his musical instruments. Some panmen continued to use the departure of Ellie from Trinidad as an opportunity to attack him as being unpatriotic. However, careful examination of the situation revealed that most of these same panmen displayed a great deal of jealousy toward him, while he was living in Trinidad. Sydney Mannette admitted that he never felt his son would get the recognition he deserved because he was living in the United States, and moreover, it was generally suggested by many persons that Ellie’s acceptance of citizenship of another country could have been another major factor why he had never received the type of recognition in his homeland that he truly deserved. Ellie persisted in expressing his love for his people and country but still preferred living in America, because of the many opportunities he now had to promote his first love, the steelband. He expressed his disgust with Trinidadians displaying a myopic vision and not having a world view of things. He entertained the thought of one day working again in his country of birth but he was adamant in declaring that as a panman, he would have to be respected and treated as any other member of society. He continued, “I will not say that I won’t live in Trinidad again but as long as the so-called middle class people continue to refuse to change their attitude towards the Steelband, I will stay away from them” (Doyle- Marshall 1969:15). This was a promise he kept for thirty-three years before returning to visit his homeland, in 2000. Careful investigation into the type of work that Ellie did in his first five years in North America indicated that he appeared to be a man possessed with the spirit of the steelband; maybe the spirit of Ogun, the keeper of the steelband, as Rawle Gibbons confers in his play, “Ogun Iyan as in Pan”. Ellie assumed the role of a missionary, his major focus being to disperse to the many different corners of that continent what Leroy Clarke refers to as “the obeah” of the steelband. He worked in the ivory towers of the Universities but he also ventured into the neglected streets of the depressed urban areas. The significance of the type of missionary work that Ellie Mannette did in relation to the spreading of the Steelband culture was of immense importance to youth and community development in various locations in North America. The American authorities did not allow this tremendous contribution of Ellie to go unrecognised. On Tuesday September 28, 1999 the National Endowment for the Arts bestowed the Heritage Fellowship Award upon Ellie Mannette along

with twelve other nominees. The ceremony took place at the Gold Room of the Rayburn Building in Washington. “It was a moment to behold,” is how Von Martin, UN journalist, described the scene at the awards presentation. At that time, Ellie was one of only nine persons born outside of America to receive this prestigious award since its inception in 1925. Duke Ellington and Count Basie, two musical luminaries, were also previous recipients of this award. The selection of these exalted performers confirmed the esteem with which many persons regarded this award. Based on the comments from Ellie, the pinnacle of his achievements appeared to be his nomination for a National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Fellowship Award in September, 1999. Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Committee, Mr. Bill Ixey, identified the following specific reasons as justification for the selection of Ellie Mannette: 1. His early contribution as a young man to the development of the steelpan and his continued contribution in helping to create the modern version of the pan. 2. His continued advancing of the Science of his instrument. 3. His spreading of the traditions of the steel instrument to hundreds of schools, communities and thousands of people throughout America and other parts of the world. 4. His work with young people as a form of commitment to the tradition, moving it forward into the present and future. 5. He is still considered an excellent performer, which makes him a significant user of the traditions. 6. His public performance, teaching, researching and creating, have had a tremendous impact on the cultural landscape of America. In recognition of this Trinidadian panman creating history in the USA, Radio Power 102 FM Trinidad broadcasted the ceremony live to its local listeners. In an interview with the station’s broadcasters, Jerome Lewis and Dale Enoch, Ellie indicated that he felt satisfied and proud to be able to demonstrate what the island has, the steelband. “It’s not only a step for Ellie Mannette but a step for the steelband,” he explained. Von Martin, best captured the significance and mood of this auspicious event in the following words, “To see people all over the world embracing the instrument is just fantastic. Words cannot describe my feelings and how all Trinidadians should feel. I considered one of the inventors being given recognition an excellent opportunity for pan, realising where it came from and where it is now.” He also explained that the nomination of Ellie for the award created a great deal of interest in pan from persons in Washington D.C. He further disclosed that although Trinidad and Tobago may have taken the event lightly, many persons in North America were asking about the instrument and there was a noticeable increase for pan music in Washington City, the U.S. capital. He insisted that Ellie has been able to do the unbelievable in his work with pan over the years, and concluded that the recipient “was being appreciated and treated like a god.” During the same afternoon, after the awards presentation, The State Department held a Benefit Banquet Reception in Benjamin Franklin Room of the Capital Building. Special guest of honour, United States first lady Hillary Clinton, congratulated all thirteen recipients and encouraged them to continue the roles they have played in the retention of their various cultures. She expressed her gratitude to them for valuing the essence of their cultural heritage and by sharing these cultural traditions from other parts with the American people. However, in Trinidad and Tobago, it was business as usual. Neither the Ministry of Culture nor Pan Trinbago held any significant celebrations to honour this major achievement of this son of the soil. This only confirmed the beliefs of Ellie’s father that his son would never get his just due in the land of the steelband and his birthplace. Only Pelham Goddard, a successful calypso and steelband musical composer, the arranger of the Panorama selections of Exodus Steelband and resident of St. James, recognised this memorable achievement by composing a special tune in honour of Ellie for Radio 102 Fm. Goddard, also mentioned that Invaders steelband was a significant inspiration in the development of his early love for pan music. He vividly remembered as a young boy that Ellie appeared such an influential character while playing his “iron”

or car brake drum named “The Bell of St. Mary’s” after St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church on George Cabral Street, St. James. In May 1999, Ellie had the good fortune to perform for an audience of over forty million people playing on a BBC international broadcast. At the concert to honour the National Endowment Awards recipients, he “brought the house down” with his sterling performance. The British press described it as the highlight of all the performances from the awardees. “This is not as big for me as it is for pan”, Express journalist, Terry Joseph quoted Ellie, “Because it is the highest and most prestigious honour you can get in this country (USA) for any work of art and it is being given for steelband.” This was an outstanding achievement for a boy who was born in a small fishing and agrarian village in Toco, to conquer the hearts, minds and respect of persons from such a prestigious American Cultural Association and to gain their critical recognition while still remaining extremely humble. Ellie’s elevation in the North American musical community was not always a smooth ride. Ellie’s elevation in the North American musical community was not always a smooth ride. On numerous occasions Ellie Mannette had to remind his critics there and back in Trinidad and Tobago that he still loved his people and his country but he made the choice of living in America, although when he left Trinidad, some panmen expressed the opinion that he was selling out his birthright (Sydney 1999). The then Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago also strongly acknowledged this sentiment to indicate his great disappointment that one of the most creative sons of the country was migrating to a foreign land to give his talent to another country at that important stage of development when Trinidad and Tobago was such a young independent nation. This was at a period, when the political directorate was adopting the position that Carnival, Calypso and Steelband were iconic symbols of the national culture of the newly independent nation. So, Dr. Eric Williams regarded it as a significant development when Ellie decided to migrate to, of all places, America, a “country” the Prime Minister had publicly indicated his utter disdain for at that time. Ossie claimed that after Ellie had spent “some time” in the United States, a government official from Trinidad offered him a job but during their conversation made reference to two great masmen, Albert Bailey, Harold Saldenah and Ellie himself, as being underprivileged boys who received considerable assistance from the government. It is reported that Ellie was livid with rage at the official making a statement so far from the truth. Although Ellie is usually a very easy-going person that he found it necessary to direct abusive language at the official (Ossie 1999). Many prominent Trinidadians have identified other steelband men as more important contributors to the Steelband, although others believed Ellie had made more significant innovations than anyone to pan’s early development. This apparently indifferent attitude of those in authority in Trinidad and Tobago eventually led to the government of Trinidad and Tobago mistakenly but officially recognising and honouring Winston Spree Simon as being the inventor of the steelpan. Even the illustrious calypso composer Lord Kitchener got the facts wrong when he paid tribute to Spree Simon in song in 1975. Kitchener usually did not revisit his previous compositions, so he did not remember that in 1946, he had paid tribute to some of the pioneers in the early steelband movement based on his observations the previous year during the celebrations for VE Day and VJ Day. His composition, “Yes I Heard the Beat of a Steelband”. It became the forerunner for the scores of other selections he composed that related to the steelband. Norman Darway claimed he is the person who complained to Kitchener about his misinformation in that composition about Winston Spree, and influenced the decision of the Grandmaster to correct all the discrepancies, when the calypsonian wrote “Pan’s Birthday” in 1999, his last composition dealing with the steelband. “Kitch” did not get to render this song for Carnival 2000 because he was seriously ill and died early the same year, but his son Kernel Roberts performed it at the Revue Calypso Tent for that season. Ellie was not the first person to play a pan, but several persons who were around at the time of the birth of the steelband, challenged and condemned the folly of the Government in its major faux pas relating to the creators of the steelband. Most of these veterans confirmed that in the early development of the instrument, Ellie Mannette did introduce many lasting innovations and made

numerous contributions, so he did deserve more recognition from his countrymen than he had received. Ellie still called Trinidad his home after all those years and continued to emphasise that he was “doing it for Trinidad and Tobago” because that was the way he felt. He had indicated that copies of his documented discoveries would be made available to the people of Trinidad and Tobago through the relevant authorities. Although, he had enjoyed working in the USA for all these years, Mannette on several occasions expressed his disappointment that the government had never given extended adequate financial support for two of Trinidad’s leading steelband researchers, Anthony Williams and Bertie Marshall, to carry out their experiments in the steelband development at the University of the West Indies. Even today, he still continues to make the plea for the Trinidad and Tobago government to put more resources into the development of the steelband. He also questioned why this was not happening, whether it was because the upper class in Trinidad still attached a stigma to pan. Ellie was always upset about what he perceived as an indifferent attitude by the government to the Steelband and Steelband men. He felt like a prophet without honour in his own country, and his feelings were no secret. In his early years, he sometimes sensed the disappointment of his father who felt that he was not treading the normal paths. He had to endure the painful blows of rejection from the middle class, who had tremendous influence on the things that were accepted as cultural in the society, and the high level of indifference if not open antagonism which the authorities sometimes displayed to the young steelband movement. Some of these early experiences did have a lasting effect on Ellie’s outlook on life, but he used that inner hurt as one of the major driving forces for him to excel in taking the steelpan to greater heights In late 1999, Ellie held discussions with the Honourable Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Basdeo Panday and senior Cabinet member Brian Kuei Tung, Minister of Finance, about a working visit to Trinidad in the year 2000, where his team of eighteen scientists and students would spend one month carrying out workshops at the local University of the West Indies Campus in St. Augustine. He wanted to use this opportunity to share with the local community the projects they had been carrying out over the years at West Virginia University. Before he arrived in the country, many persons wondered if his visit would ever materialised, since there was another occasion when Invaders had planned a week long fully funded visit in the early 1990s but Ellie eventually could not take up the offer. This proposed visit generated a great deal of speculation, as many persons conjectured if it would ever materialise. Although, he did make the trip to Trinidad, it did not happen in the way he had originally envisaged it. Ellie returned to Trinidad in October 2000, thirty-three years after he had migrated to the United States. The University of the West Indies bestowed on him an Honourary Doctor of Letters. The Mayor of Port of Spain also gave him the key to the city at a function at City Hall. Pan Trinbago also paid tribute to his sterling contribution to the steelband movement by presenting him with a special award and inviting him to be their guest of honour at the World Steelband Music Festival being held in Trinidad during the same period. British West Indian Airways (BWIA), the National Airline of Trinidad and Tobago, the proud sponsor of the Invaders Steelband at that particular time, also awarded him a special life time travel pass. His itinerary also included lectures at the University of the West Indies and discussions with students and other members of the pan fraternity. The media in Trinidad and Tobago did treat his visit as a famous prodigal son now returning home after many years who deserved to be recognised and honoured for his gigantic contributions to the creation and development of the National Instrument. Over this one week visit, the country of his birth, finally honoured him with some significant accolades. Sydney Pappy Mannette, after enduring the disappointment and pain for thirty-three years associated with the type of limited recognition Ellie received locally, died a very satisfied and happy parent at the reported age of over 106 years, months after the return of his world renowned son. He had lived to see his son finally receive the type of recognition he deserved from his native country. It appeared that Pappy was just waiting to see his son one last time, perhaps to reflect with him on the many demanding and exciting times of the early days of the evolution of the steelband, and to hear directly about

Ellie’s successes since then. “People migrate for different reasons, need, urgency or seeking opportunities,” was how Von Martin described the justification for Ellie’s migration. The international honour bestowed on Ellie Mannette is a serious act of vindication of his departure from Trinidad and Tobago, where he was just a frustrated pan prophet toiling in the wilderness, trying to sow seeds on the hard rocky ground of national neglect. Today, He is not only recognised as a musical prophet and pan crusader internally, but he is considered as the father of the modern day steelpan. Ellie still remains one of the iconic cultural figures of the last century who have impacted significantly on the creative sphere of Trinidad and Tobago and has vividly demonstrated the unlimited scope of the bountiful creativity of this blessed land. .

Chapter Eight Birdie, Heir of the Mannette Dynasty. “When Ellie left Birdie in charge of the band, that boy worked. He used to tune fifty to sixty pans alone, tuning from day until night. Carnival time, he not sleeping at all, but is one thing he was a little self-opinionated. So some people did not like him …”. (Sidney “Pappy” Mannette, 1999). Some persons questioned the leadership style of Birdie, and concluded that he was not a good leader, but closer examination of his tenure at the helm of

Invaders confirms that he made a tremendous contribution to the Invaders legacy. Nervin “Teach” Saunders shared an extremely good relationship with Birdie for many of those difficult years and held him in high esteem as a band leader, because of the specific things Birdie was able to accomplish: I feel that Birdie deserved more recognition than he got. When Ellie was band leader from the 1940s to 1960s, the band was community based and he got a lot of support from his father, mother, brothers, sisters and others. In the late 1960s family situations changed due to employment opportunities and migration. When Ellie left for the United States, Birdie had to manage that difficult transition period through the lean years. While he was captaining, tuning and doing everything, people were still singing praises to Ellie, but we must consider the person who carried the baton in the hard days. When Ellie migrated, he never sent back anything for the band, nor sent for the band (2008). When elder brother Ellie migrated from Trinidad and Tobago for the USA, last brother, Birdie, accepted the responsibility of becoming the leader of the Invaders. This was a tremendous responsibility for the relatively young Birdie to accept at the time. He performed this onerous task for 25 years and made a significant input to the continued development of Invaders. He was multitalented and performed creditably in different areas besides being one of the best tuners of his era. Many persons are unaware that Birdie was one of the first to compose tunes for the steelband; his “Birdie’s Mambo” and “Leave Meh Daughter” were pioneering efforts in that creative musical field. He was also a talented masman, his mas production even surpassing what George Bailey presented when he first left Invaders. He also worked in tandem with Dr. Ashton “Doc” Paris, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, in managing the operations of the band. Birdie was a jack of all trades, including pan tuner, masman, protector of band members, barber and welder. He was considered as “Mr. Invaders”, although he depended on “Doc” who operated as financial adviser or business man in the band, during this period. In order to be a successful band leader during the 1960s to the1980s, the individual had to be a strong, fearless and aggressive person, along with the other specific qualities that were considered as necessary leadership requirements. It is easy for persons to condemn the management style that Birdie employed in trying to keep the Invaders’ family together and to continue the legacy of his famous brother. Charisma was one of the necessary qualities of an effective leader in the steelband’s world at the time. While there is a general feeling that Birdie was not a charismatic leader, his contribution to the continued existence of Invaders should not be diminished. In matters of management of the band, he was the man in charge. Pan historian, Selwyn Taradath, described this period as “Birdie kept Invaders alive, he was tuner until he became a burden in 1991, his era had gone, the autocratic leader, one man situation, times had changed” (1999). Birdie had difficulties making the necessary management adjustments that reflected how the world had become more complicated. Respected cultural writer and historian, Kim Johnson, and Rudy Piggot, a long standing educationist at Queen’s Royal College and member of Invaders, both described Birdie as “the Garfield Sobers of the steelband world”. Although he was considered a good multitalented phenomenon in steelband affairs, like Sir Garfield Sobers that famous West Indies allround cricketer, he had some serious flaws in his leadership style. As the days of steelband warfare was a thing of the past, he found it extremely difficult to make the necessary adjustments that were required for the new era. His tough autocratic style eventually led to his replacement in 1992, when the band held its first democratic elections. In addition to fabricating and tuning tenor pans he made the high quality cellos which were considered as a significant musical feature of the band from Woodbrook. Peter Blood, newspaper editor, at the funeral of Birdie, quoted Jim Innis, an outstanding long time member of Invaders, as emphasising, “The most remarkable thing about Birdie was the distinctive sound he succeeded in giving Invaders all through the years…[a] sound that was unique and easily recognizable” ( Blood 1999). Birdie, to his credit, kept up with the development and the improvements that were taking place in steelband tuning. His nephew, Lincoln Beckles, explained that late in his life, Birdie always enjoyed the discussions they had

on the tuning of the steelpans. He indicated that whenever Birdie played the tapes of music produced in Ellie’s era and compared them with the music performed during his reign; Birdie would display a big smile on his face although at the time, he was in great pain from his terminal illness. The same year of the displacement of Birdie in Invaders, 1992, Barbara Jenson, an expatriate and loyal supporter was destined to be a participant during perhaps one of the most successful but equally nerve-shattering periods in the history of the band. She explained: Invaders went through a very depressing period during the late 1980s, when the band experienced a steady decline in its membership resulting in equally disappointing musical achievements in various Steelband competitions. Some believed an inefficient management should also be held accountable. A great deal of resentment from many members including some of the pioneers and other stalwarts existed under the surface. During this time, Birdie was carrying the band virtually on his shoulders with some assistance from “Doc”. Both of them were running the band. At Carnival 1992, we had a terrible turnout for Panorama Preliminaries. I think we had something like forty-five players on stage. It was humiliating. When the band returned to the yard after J’ouvert that year, I dropped some of the players home, including Birdie, who was the last passenger. I remember turning to him before he got out of the car and saying, “Birdie something has got to give”, and he said “I know”. I drove back to the Yard to help put away the pans as usual, and was standing by a bar the band had set up just outside the Yard and tears were running down my face. Richard DeLima, a businessman and fairly recent follower of the band saw the state I was in and said “I can change it, you know!” He did, becoming the Manager of the next Interim Committee. He and Trevor Cooper got some of us together and we set up a structure of shared responsibility and outreach to rebuild the band. Richard was confirmed as manager in that same year. It was a big battle that festered for months. The main concern was how to deal with Birdie, who had single-handedly struggled with the band after Ellie had left in frustration for the United States in 1967. This was a period when Birdie was Invaders and Invaders was Birdie. The new committee agonized painfully but finally came to the ultimate decision; Birdie could not be a part of the new thrust of the interim committee. However a possible way was found for Birdie to keep his connection with the band and for Invaders to retain his unmatched tuning skills. The committee offered Birdie the opportunity to continue as a tuner of the pans but his tuning work could not be done in the Yard, since we planned some heavy use of the space for development of a school side, fund raising events, improvements to the yard and other projects. Given his history and identification with the band, Birdie’s response was entirely understandable, “I am not going to tune the pans”. “Teach” arranger for his own band, Simple Song, and for Invaders, expressed his disappointment in looking for Invaders Steelband in Port of Spain on that Carnival Tuesday in 1992 but he could not find the band, through inquiry, he discovered the band was unable to come out on the road because players were not interested and the band had not prepared tunes to play on the road for that Carnival. This development was a serious indictment confirming the precarious situation that the band was in at the time. Trevor Cooper and Saunders agree that the sponsors were insisting that a committee had to be formed to manage the affairs of the band and that there would be no compromise on this position, as the sponsor was adamant that there was the need for dramatic changes in the management structure of the band. Birdie and his advisor, “Doc”, were stoutly resisting this request for months. “Teach” claimed he tried to convince Birdie to accept a negotiated position but he refused to budge. So this battle between Birdie and other members continued for months, until the election took place and the committee felt it was time to part ways with Birdie. Jenson indicated that she was the only one who insisted that there must be a place for him, but the other members on the committee all felt that if they allowed him access to the Yard, he and some of his old cronies would regroup and the committee would never be able to turn the band around. The new management committee on its assumption of office emphasised accountability and in a renewed

effort to energise band members and players, it decided to participate in the Steelband Music Festival. Trevor brilliantly secured the services of Supt. Anthony Prospect, the Musical Director of the Police Band, as their arranger for the Steelband Music Festival in October-November 1992. This was a significant development in the band, because Invaders had not entered nor even discussed participation in the biennial steelband music festivals or any other opportunities to enter Pan Trinbago events outside Panorama for a number of years. However, some close family members of Birdie found it traumatic to deal with what they saw as his banishment from the band. Seven years after the incident, Sidney “Pappy” Mannette became extremely emotional revisiting the incident and he explicitly expressed his views, as he described his displeasure with the expulsion of his son from the Invaders: When Ellie left Birdie in charge of the band, that boy worked. He used to tune fifty to sixty pans alone, tuning from day until night. Carnival time, he not sleeping at all, but is one thing he was a little self-opinionated. So some people did not like him. When he started to get sick, everybody voted against him. They changed the whole set up. When he was old and mash up, he started to get sick, sick. His sister Phyllis used to take him to the doctor. “Pappy” actually cried, while he recalled how he felt the members of the band had badly treated his son who had given the best years of his life to the organisation. There is no question that Birdie made a significant and lasting contribution to the Invaders’ legacy. Therefore, it must have been a heartrending experience for him when the band replaced him as leader, after twentyfive challenging years of leadership. He was involved in the birth, the infancy and adolescence of this band, but on the attainment of its adulthood, he was forced to give up the management of the band, although, he had made several personal sacrifices to ensure the growth and development of Invaders. While many of the early pioneers left Trinidad to seek greener pastures in North America and Europe, Birdie remained patriotic, continuously refusing several enticing offers made to him to leave this country. Therefore, it was an agonising experience for Birdie to part ways with Invaders. It felt like a committed loving parent being compelled to give up parental claim to a child. Although, Birdie never complained publicly about his banishment from the band, his father was convinced that his son never recovered from being forced to give up his leadership role in Invaders. Deep wounds persisted between some members of the Mannette clan and the band. Barry Mannette, son of Birdie, emerged as Manager and Captain of Starlift Steelband in later years, and he and his band, Starlift, did not always enjoyed a close relationship with Invaders. However in 2008, he returned to the band that his uncles and father had contributed significantly to establish and develop. Appropriately, Barry assumed a position on the management team of this steelband institution, thereby continuing the important legacy of the Mannette family and Invaders. In 2010, he obtained his BA in Musical Arts from The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. As of writing May 2013, he was about to earn his Master’s Degree in Music from Northern Illinois University and should go on to a great future in the musical world. Despite the removal of Birdie as the leader of Invaders in1992, his contribution to the development of this band will never be surpassed, but will always remain an everlasting cultural legacy to the evolution of not just this band but also the entire steelband movement.

Chapter Nine Panorama Blues

Some of the best steelband arrangers in the history of Panorama Competition, including Junior Pouchet, Pelham Goddard, Steve Achaiba, Ray Holman, “Guppy” Brown, Beverly Griffith, Len (Boogsie) Sharpe, Ken (Professor) Philmore and Earl Brooks (Sr.) have all arranged various compositions for Invaders, but were unable to bring home the top prize.

Invaders and the Casablanca are usually recognised as two of the most famous steelbands that have never won the prestigious Panorama Steelband Competition. This unfulfilled accomplishment has remained one of the unsatisfactory aspects of the Invaders Story. Despite its creditable showing in the first edition of Panorama and placing third in 1970 and 1971, different schools of thought have advocated various reasons why the band has not been able to transform the illusive dream of winning the championship into a reality. This situation has remained a very intriguing phenomenon in the band’s existence as numerous members and supporters have cited diverse agents as being responsible for this underachievement, ranging from sheer hard-luck, judges’ biases, mismanagement, questionable choices including changing arrangers too often, and loyalty of arrangers, to the inability to attract and retain youthful members and talented players in the band. The truth is that all of these varied factors have impacted negatively in numerous ways on Invaders’ inability to fulfil its true potential in the Panorama competitions over the years. In-depth analysis of the reasons why the band is still crying “Panorama Blues”, confirms that some of the previously identified challenges have hindered the preparation and performances of the band at the Panorama steelband championships. The discussion of some of these major obstacles will lead to the exploration of how they have contributed to the band not attaining its true potential in these competitions over the years. The number and pedigree of the arrangers that the band has utilised over the years have been major aspects of the history of Invaders in Panorama competitions. This band has employed roughly twenty five arrangers since it entered the first Panorama competition in 1963 and every successive one through 2013. Some of the best steelband arrangers in the history of Panorama Competition, including Junior Pouchet, Pelham Goddard, Steve Achaiba, Ray Holman, “Guppy” Brown, Beverly Griffith, Len (Boogsie) Sharpe, Ken (Professor) Philmore and Earl Brooks (Sr.) have all arranged various compositions for Invaders without success. This situation regarding the arrangers, therefore confirms that the causes for the less than winning performances in this competition were not just related to the choice of inexperienced arrangers and lack of physical resources but to other deep-seated negative conditions or factors. There is a strong perception that many unfavourable conditions emerged mainly through inadequate management of the band for a significant part of its existence, so mismanagement could be accepted as a major causative agent of the

underachievement of the band in Panorama Competitions.

Judges’ Blues. Poor judging of steelband competition was identified as one of the contributing factors for steelband violence in the 1940s. Many members and supporters of some of the early steelbands regularly expressed dissatisfaction with the results of the competitions and displayed their displeasure by attacking members from other bands in the most violent manner. When Oval Boys placed second to Alexander Ragtime Band in a competition described as a “Tamboo Bamboo Competition” in the Press, its young members felt the wrath of Hell Yard who came third. Hell Yard’s disagreement with the judges’ adjudication influenced their decision to beat up the young members of Oval Boys. It is the intervention of the winning band that protected the youths from this attack. This situation of dissatisfied band members reacting violently to the results of steelband competitions eventually influenced the banning of competitions in 1950. Most old timers in this band insisted that the judges over the years have not been very kind to their band and that this is the main bugbear affecting the performance of the band in Panorama competitions, from the inception of Panorama competition to the present day. An interesting part of steelband’s folklore is that Invaders Steelband, playing in the inaugural Panorama competition in 1963, had the unpleasant experience of being the first band on stage to render its selection for the judges, but one judge did not hear the band because of the late arrival of that judge, who was coming from the American Base in Chaguaramas. It would be instructive to see the late judge’s score sheet! The band placed fifth in this first outing at the competition. This experience was the genesis for some of the old timers still believing that for fifty-five or more years, adjudicators have never judged the band fairly in competitions. Years later, the band had another interesting experience with the judges at a Panorama competition, when at the conclusion of one of the early editions of that event; the Master of Ceremonies announced that Invaders was the winner. Darway recounted that members of Desperadoes were already congratulating their Invaders colleagues, when the situation morphed into a bad dream. Another member recalled that Ellie and Invaders members were also celebrating as the “alcoholic beverages just started to flow”. The announcer then reversed the original announcement after George Goddard approached the judges’ table and had a discussion with them. This was followed by a “reannouncement, that they had made a mistake” (Wickham 1999). The officials clarified that Invaders had been winners but only for the Best Dressed Band category of the overall competition. Francis Wickham has a different take on the situation. He recalled George Goddard telling him that he could not allow Invaders to win the competition because some people would accuse him of “curry favour” since Goddard was the leader of the national steelband body and he was also a member of Invaders. What was the true story? We will never know, since George Goddard had long departed. “Teach” confirmed that the announcer made a mistake because his enthusiasm got the better of him, but the official explanation was accepted. There are many other interesting stories about the performance of the adjudicators in the Panorama folklore. Wickham insisted that on one occasion a business man demanded that his band should be brought into the final stages of the competition or he will take back the stage he had sponsored for the competition. This incident, if true, can be used to demonstrate the level of influence some sponsors may have had on the judging of the competition. It is in this context, that Wickham also shared another anecdote, in which he recollected Ronald Williams, Chairman of the then Carnival Development Committee, at a function held by the Steelband Association at Williams Bay, told him in the presence of George Goddard, “All you could never win a Panorama. If you go to the Savannah at Carnival season, around Panorama time, you will never see a Shell sign; you will see all different companies”. Although Wickham agreed with the lack of sponsorship Shell Trinidad Limited gave to Carnival, he claimed

that he questioned Williams about why this should affect the band’s performance in the competition. He indicated that Williams laughed, explaining that Shell Company did not contribute to the Panorama and that was an important factor. This claim could not be verified, because both George Goddard and Williams were long deceased when this interview took place. Wickham also alleged that Invaders received many offers and proposals that were going to ensure that the band obtain success in Panorama and Music Festival but he claimed Ellie always resisted the temptation and turned down these offers because he did not want to win anything in this way. Even as late as 2002, Wickham was still stressing that the quality of the judging of Panorama was one of the significant factors why the band was not scoring as well as its supporters felt it deserved. In validating his claim, he explained that some supporters usually placed tremendous pressure on David Waddell (“Splag”), who had played with Invaders in his early days and became a judge of Panorama for many years. Supporters expected him to award high points to both Starlift and Invaders, bands he was previously associated with. Wickham alleged that “Splag” sometimes overcompensated by giving low points to both bands. Reviewing the issues related to the judging of Panorama, it is very difficult to verify some of the charges that Wickham has made about the adjudication of the competition. However, in today’s context, the judging of Panorama has evolved into a respected, technical and precise exercise of adjudication of this music event. Pan Trinbago now utilises a judging system in which the highest and the lowest points allocated by the panel to each band are discarded, to eliminate the possibility of a skewed result caused by one judge’s marks being extremely high. Alternate judges are also in place to prevent an occurrence of a judge being absent or late for the start of the event. Even today, it is still a challenging proposition to convince the old-timers that the judges’ personal preferences are not the main reason why the band has not scored higher in Panorama. This belief is by no means limited to Invaders but some of the other bands. Trevor Cooper, captain, during the period of 1989 and 1991–1995, has been more objective in his analysis of the band’s Panorama Blues. He identified serious deficiencies in the management of the band throughout its existence as the overriding factor for the inadequate performance of the band in the Panorama competitions. These issues ranged from the selection of arrangers for the competitions, to the more mundane matter of acquisition and distribution of jerseys to members. He identified in details, several instances in which the inefficiency of the management worked against the band. This former captain explained: When I joined in 1983, Invaders was not the best, they were just mediocre. They changed arrangers every year or two … which is not a good idea. I remember in 1984 Panorama Geraldine Connor arranged for the band, and we came last. I told them that was going to happen because the band was not playing with any substance from the middle range instruments. From experience I would recognise certain deficiencies in a Panorama arrangement. The members wanted to protest the last position placing of the band, but protest ‘what’? This selection of Geraldine Connor in 1984, offered her a second opportunity to arrange a composition for the Panorama competition; on this occasion the choice and arrangement of “Lucy in the Savannah”, a tune composed by Blue Boy, proved to be even more disappointing than the results from her first attempt in 1978, when she co-arranged with Nervin Saunders a Kitchener’s composition, “The Dog”, for the competition. Edric Connor, the famous father of Geraldine, had close ties to the Woodbrook community, and his daughter was a committed music teacher at one of the outstanding Secondary schools in Port of Spain, so Birdie and company assessed it was a good gesture to offer this young female musician the scope to create some notable musical achievement in the steelband Panorama. Ms. Connor, a highly qualified musician, was relatively familiar with the true potential of the various instruments in the steelband ensemble, but there were severe limitations in her arrangement. Despite, her disconcerting performances in the arrangements for the competitions in 1978 and 1984, Invaders was successful in establishing her involvement as one of the first female arrangers in Steelband Panorama Competitions.

One year after that misadventure with Connor, the band managed one of its best results in Panorama when it secured the first place in the 1985 National Preliminaries, playing “Pan in Danger”, a Merchant’s composition, which was arranged by Steve Achaiba. However this achievement was short-lived as the band “ran out” in the Semi-Finals and did not qualify for the Finals. Achaiba from San Fernando (South Trinidad) performed this miraculous musical feat in the preliminaries but became ill and could not turn up for rehearsals with the band during the critical two-week interval between the Prelims and the Semi-Final at that time. Many players and supporters accepted this development as “bad luck showing her face”. James Innis, long time stalwart of the iron section, claimed when the band performed at the Panorama preliminaries, it produced an unintentional rhythmic part that most patrons thought was part of the original arrangement. This piece of music was not repeated in the semi-finals. Most members at the time felt this musical misstep could have also contributed to their eventual downgraded placing in the competition. To make matters worse, around this same period the administration or management of the band such as it was and the sponsor TRINTOC (formerly Shell Trinidad Ltd.) were having serious discussions relating to continued sponsorship. News of this no doubt filtered to the players, which would have been demoralizing. This time of uncertainty relating to the relationship of both parties even resulted in no jerseys being supplied for the band members and dedicated supporters. The irony is while the band was supposed to be at the top of the musical world due to its outstanding performance in the Panorama Preliminaries, it just could not build on that momentum, and played at the SemiFinals without any symbol of the members being a united group, not even wearing the same uniform. The level of uncertainty was too much for the band; the players just could not cope and gave a very poor performance. There were no proper systems in place to deal with the pressure. In the steelband world of today, most large bands have a system in place that will facilitate the proper preparation of their bands for competitions if something should go wrong with the original arranger or any other unexpected developments.

Chapter 10

Winds of Change

“In 1991, Invaders steelband could only muster about fifty-four players for the National Preliminaries of Panorama. … if there was a Small Band Competition in those days, as it is now, Invaders would have qualified. This development was a tragedy for a band with such a rich tradition and impressive status” Trevor Copper. According to Copper, The Invaders produced another significant performance in Panorama four years later after its landmark achievement of topping the Panorama Preliminaries in 1985: The next worthy performance of the Invaders steelband in Panorama was in 1989 when Ray Holman came in to arrange his composition, “Life is too Short”, a very good tune that captured the enthusiasm of the members. That year it had

activities in the yard. We came eighth in the National Finals. Although, the next year, he returned to Invaders, he was also very busy arranging for Tokyo steelband and Invaders got thrown out in the Semi-Finals. It is easy to understand the devastating impact the band’s disappointing performance of 1990 had on its members and players the following year. In 1991, Invaders steelband could only muster about fifty-four players for the National Preliminaries of Panorama. Trevor conceded that the rhythm section provided a significant part of this small group of players, which limited musical variation in the arrangement of the tune. This was a serious situation for the band since in those years the maximum number (100) was expected of large band entrants, as volume meant power which impacted the audience and judges. He indicated that if there was a Small Band Competition in those days, as it is now, Invaders would have qualified. This development was a tragedy for a band with such a rich tradition and impressive status. Over the years, one of the outstanding features of Invaders has always been its core supporters who have remained with the band regardless of the situation. Although it was going through this difficult period, loyal supporters still came out regularly to listen to the band’s rehearsals, and to offer moral support. Invaders Steelband was able to turn this difficult period which it was experiencing into a positive era, when some members took the decision to restructure the management of the band. The new Management Committee insisted that failure was not an option since Invaders Steel Orchestra was a cultural institution of Trinidad and Tobago, of over fifty-three years old at that time and it should not be allowed to die. It turned around the fortunes of the band by developing a strategic plan that included a short term plan for the period of October 1992- March 1993. This “1992-93 Programme of Activities” comprised Pan Under Moonlight, Pan Is Beautiful VI, New York City Tour, Annual Awards Night, Panorama 1993, Fetes and parties Performances, J’ouvert 1993 and Monday Night Mas 1993. These activities attempted to satisfy the needs of the players, supporters and sponsors of the band. The results of this programme proved to be successful and placed the band on a new growth path. The band also enjoyed tremendous success in the 1992 “Pan is Beautiful VI” Steelband Music Festival, because it was fortunate to enjoy the services of the famous Musical Director, Anthony Prospect, for its preparation and performances. The band gave an impressive performance of their tune of choice and received a standing ovation from the audience as confirmation that it should have been placed higher than third position overall. According to Cuffy, Trintoc Invaders was “… the Band that created the greatest excitement and won a standing ovation for its performance of Beethoven’s “Fourth Movement – Fifth Symphony – Finale,” its tune of choice” (David Cuffy1992). The band played the composition, “Governor’s Ball”, a calypso, which was Sparrow’s tribute to the musical proficiency of “Maestro” Prospect. The band gained increased points in every phase of the competition. The band was still on a high when Carnival 1993 arrived. Cooper claimed he was responsible for the selection of “Teach”, Nervin Saunders, as the arranger, since he had considered him “in tune” with the band and understood it very well because of his long relationship with the organisation. Although some supporters identified areas of weaknesses in the methodology that “Teach” utilised in his musical arrangements, the management wanted to give him the opportunity to arrange the tune, “De Mystery Band”, by Aldwin Roberts (Lord Kitchener), for Panorama 1993. The band won the award for The Best Playing Band on the Road that year, while defeating the formidable Renegades in the process, and securing $25,000 worth of recording time at the Amar’s Studio as the prize. This victory vindicated the trust that the management had placed in “Teach”. Interestingly, Invaders had 119 players for that Panorama competition, as players came from north, south, east, and west; they came from different parts of Trinidad to join the band. This welcome influx was greatly due to the success of the group at the Steelband Musical Festival the previous year. The positive momentum of the band continued into 1994 “Pan is Beautiful VII” Steelband Music Festival where it secured the second place overall. Invaders tied for first place with the popular the Trinidad All Stars in the category of Calypso and also took first position in the tune of choice. Again the inspiration of Musical Director Prospect proved to be a major influential

factor in this outstanding performance. However, in 1995, the band did experience another major incident at Panorama, which resulted from the distribution of jerseys for pan players and supporters. Although Trevor Copper, the captain, had ordered jerseys in adequate time before the finals, he only received them just a few minutes before the band went on stage to render its selection. This scenario is depicted through his description: I remember the disaster that day on the track (Panorama rehearsal area). I had ordered the jerseys for the finals, but we had problems getting the jerseys printed. Coincidently, our tune was “The Last Jump” by the Lord Kitchener. We had placed sixth in the semi-final, so we were looking forward to performing in the finals. We were supposed to play at position four and when the second band was on stage, I was still waiting on the printers to deliver the jerseys. So you could imagine stress. I was mad, that was pressure. I sit down because I don’t know what to do. It was like sabotage. How they could do that? I remember that Saturday, whole day I called, “it will be ready a little later”, was the reply I was getting all the time. When I got the jerseys, I drove through and let the police know I have the jerseys, I then drove straight into the band and started to give away jerseys and some persons who were not playing the Panorama tune obtained jerseys while some of the pan “beaters” [players] did not get any. This simple incident of the distribution of jerseys to the pan players and supporters caused a serious rift between the management and supporters. However, it was the band’s performance in that finals that became a major casualty of this serious distraction as it went on to place eight in that competition. Barbara Jenson remarked that “at the final night the band did not sound right and later I found out there was this big altercation”. “Teach” also supported the view that the management of the band was mainly responsible for the band not attaining its full potential in the Panorama competitions. He considered himself a good arranger and stated that various arrangers including Len Boogsie Sharpe, Professor Ken Philmore, Anise Hadeed and Earl Brooks have all worked with the band but there were other important factors which affected the band’s performance. He insisted that Invaders always had very good players; he identified Justin Jagassar and Edwin Pouchet as two of the best cello players, and others including Thomas, Anise Hadeed and Lio who formed his own band, Woodbrook Play Boyz, as some of the excellent players. “Teach” had always been one of the most dependable members of the old brigade in the Invaders band. There were numerous instances when he was invited at short notice to arrange for Invaders, when there was difficulty in getting the services of some other “top arranger”. “Teach” does not identify the individual by name but he mentioned at one time the band was unsuccessful in finalising a contract with a young organist, who could not play the pan but who had approached the band, and indicated an interest to do the Panorama arrangement. However, Wickham explained that the leaders in the band at the time felt that his fee was too exorbitant, so this opportunity for both parties to work together never materialised; this was decision that the members of the band always regretted. Barbara Jenson however recounted another version of this situation. She claimed that a member of the band told her that Birdie maintained his hard stance against drug use in the band and he refused to allow the young talented musician to enter the Yard because there were allegations of drug abuse. While the Invaders Steelband was unable or unwilling to pay the young Clive Bradley the type of fee he was demanding, Desperadoes, Nutones and other bands enjoyed tremendous success with this arranger years later. The band invited “Teach” as recent as 2003, once again very close to the actual Panorama competition, to arrange the tune, “Dr. Ellie Man”. This situation developed when negotiations with another arranger fell through at the last minute. Many commentators have described the band as lacking “the killer instinct” to finish the job of attaining the pinnacle of a steelband’s performance in the Panorama competition. From its embryonic days to the present, Invaders steelband has always produced excellent pannists including Clifford Alexis, Ray Holman, Anise Hadeed, Emmanuel Riley (Cobo Jack), and many others who have gone on to achieve various outstanding landmarks internationally. Cliff Alexis has been coordinating a significant steelband programme at Northern Illinois University that has provided educational opportunities for several young Trinidadian and Tobagonian pannists including the extremely talented Liam

Teague who developed into an outstanding musician and professor at the same institution. Barbara Jenson, ardent supporter and former Secretary / Treasurer of the band 1992-1995 Invaders, believes that Invaders never found the right arranger or perhaps no one was allowed to stay with the band long enough. Invaders plays well enough to win, it is not a matter of technique. They have sweet enough pans to win but they never had an arranger who fully used the musical strengths of the band. What is the killer instinct? You don’t have the killer instinct until you know that you have a tune; an arrangement that can kill everybody else. The killer instinct is also playing at your best, and Invaders can do that. Another major hindrance was the significant number of players whose only commitment was to the arranger who came and went with him or her, having no real allegiance to the band. Sponsors want a band they can brag about and may force almost yearly changes in arrangers whose fees they are paying for after all. Since there was a constant rotation of arrangers used in Invaders, the players did not develop a unique style of playing associated with a particular arranger, so players always had to adapt to each arranger’s style. Trevor pointed out that even the instruments in the band became a significant handicap in the late 1980s. He claimed he had a serious discussion with Ricardo “Bachac”, relating to change the sound of Invaders, since he felt the background pans were too weak, especially when compared to the front line pans tuned by Birdie with his passion for excellence, giving an unbalanced sound to the band. When “Bachac” became captain a few years later, he made the necessary changes. This may appear to be ironical that the unique sound that Invaders was famous for, and which was a big attraction at the annual J’ouvert mornings in the 1960s and 1970s, was considered a liability in the band’s quest for Panorama supremacy. A school principal once had a list of over fifty excuses collected from teachers indicating why teachers were late for school. In the same light, many supporters can identify other stories and reasons to explain why the top position of Panorama has remained an unattainable goal for this band. However, the previous information presented identified poor management as one of the most significant deterrents to the attempts of the Invaders steelband to attain glory in this steelband championship. Poor management must be held culpable for most of the challenges that the band has endured during its existence and its inability to realise its full potential. Today the Invaders steelband still regards the Panorama Championship as the great unfulfilled elusive musical dream. Surely every steelband that has never won knows the feeling.

Chapter Ten (11???) Some Oval Boys and Invaders People “You have to call Tang’s name first as supporter of the band. He was an Alderman; who then became Mayor….” (Cecil “Coye” Forde, 2003). There are numerous persons who were involved in and very supportive of the development of Oval Boys and later Invaders Steelband; to list all the many contributors would easily comprise a book, so only a few of the major associates of the band are highlighted in this chapter. Some of the prominent supporters of the band during the early years of its existence were attorneys, Lennox Pierre, the Wooding family, Bruce Procope, Gaston Johnson, and others who living in the nearby Woodbrook or Newtown neighbourhoods. Lawyers, who associated with the band, were fortuitous, as many of the young panmen eventually transgressed the law either for unlawful assembly, disturbing the peace while playing their music or for a charge of violence while defending themselves or attacking members in another band. Johnson was one of the lawyers that did “pro bono” work for some of the youths. An interesting fact about these young lawyers who supported the band in its infancy is that all of them went on to become outstanding citizens and highly regarded attorneys, with Hugh Wooding becoming the first national to be confirmed as Chief Justice of the newly independent Trinidad and Tobago in 1962. There were other categories of supporters and members including the protectors of the band who were sometimes the best players, and in other instances some persons who only performed that function of “defenders of the realm”. Many prominent persons contributed and supported the band in various ways. UWI Lecturer, Ashton “Doc.” Parris, Richard DeLima, Rudy Piggot, Walton “Wally” James, and George Mathews, who became the Public Relations Officer of Shell /Trintoc, were not significant players in the band but they all made outstanding contributions to the fortunes of the band by assisting in its organisation and management. “Wally” James after a long career with Shell Trinidad Limited, he eventually gained promotion to the position of Chairman of its Board of Management. He always enjoyed himself in Invaders during J’ouvert celebrations for decades. Joseph Charles, the young entrepreneur and manufacturer of the famous Solo soft drink at the time was also a prominent supporter of the band, and two of his sons played with the band before he relocated his soft drink factory from its location in St. James to the San Juan area. While the factory was in St. James, the band sometimes played at that location. Later on, Charles became the sponsor of Solo Harmonites of Morvant Junction, a Panorama Champion. Patrick Arnold, the former President of Pan Trinbago, acknowledged in an interview that Invaders also had a significant influence on his early involvement in the steelband world. He revealed that while attending St. Mary’s College in Port of Spain, he spent a great deal of his spare time in the Invaders panyard, where he observed some of the techniques that are so important in quality tuning of steel pans. Years later, he became a tuner, band leader,

and steelband ambassador in the United States of America. On his return to Trinidad he became one of the most successful, and the longest serving president in Pan Trinbago’s history. James “Jim” Innis had been a tower of strength in the band since he became a member in the late 1950s and has remained one of the most important persons in the arrangement of tours for the band. Although, he qualified through his age to participate in the Invaders Elders Association, at almost seventy years, in 2010, he continued to be the oldest player in the band. Most researchers usually disregard or take for granted the significant support which Imelda Mannette and other parents gave to their children during the tumultuous years of the early days of the Invaders Steelband. Ossie recalled that his mother always tried to make extra bake or cook plenty food so she could share with some of the young boys when they had just started the band. Many parents experienced the trauma of their young children being locked up or injured because of their involvement in the evolution of the steelband movement. Sometimes, mothers and even elder sisters accepted the responsibility to make the various arrangements to secure the freedom of the young boys. This manuscript attempts to provide insights on just some of the many persons who made significant inputs to the development of the Invaders Steelband and the steelband world. Lennox Pierre Cultural researcher, Selwyn Taradath, described Lennox Pierre as a Socialist, who was branded a Communist because of his close association with C.L.R James. Pierre came from a family of musicians, his sisters Alma and Daphne were also trained musicians. He was a violinist, lawyer, Social Worker and a Woodbrook resident, who decided to adopt Invaders, offering to help its panmen in different ways. He was one of the band’s first arrangers. Ellie frequently visited the home of the Pierre’s family. Pierre was instrumental in forming the first Steelband Movement Association and also in the proposal to establish The All Steel Percussion Orchestra TASPO and later assisted Lt. Griffith in teaching the rudiments of music to the panmen who were selected for the TASPO adventure in England. Lennox Pierre was an avid supporter of Invaders at around the same time that he was Secretary of the National Youth Council (NYC). It was through his influence that he got the Youth Council to petition Albert Gomes, the then Chief Minister, about the unacceptable level of police brutality in dealing with the young panmen. The government established a ten- member committee in 1949, in response to the youth organisation raising its concerns about this despicable situation. This committee accepted the task to assess the situation existing among the Port of Spain bands and to come up with recommendations to solve the problems. Members of the committee were Max E. Farquahar (Chairman), Pearl Carter (Secretary), Lennox Pierre and Carlyle Kerr (N.Y.C.), George Mose, Beryl McBurnie, Charles Espinet, Mortimer Mitchell, Bertie Thompson and one other person. Lennox Pierre, through his involvement in the National Youth Council, played a leading role in mobilising the pan men from the various bands to attend a mass meeting at the Public Library in Port of Spain, and it is reported that it was at this meeting that discussion of the proposal for the formation of a steelband association to embrace all bands, took place. The contribution of Pierre to the early steelband remains a lasting legacy in the evolution of the instrument. The Chinese Man: Norman Tang Alderman, Mayor of Port of Spain 1948-50 “Sheriff”, an old Carnivalist, a veteran member of Starlift Steelband, and recognised designer of the collapsible stand for the steel pan, created an awareness of the tremendous contribution of “a Chinese man who used to really give the band a lot of help.” He indicated that the history of Invaders would be incomplete if the contributions of Norman Tang were not recorded (Sheriff, 2003). Both “Coye” and Wickham also supported this opinion, and described Norman Tang as “Mr. Woodbrook” and “Mr. St. James”.

Tang became Mayor of Port of Spain and a Minister of Government without losing his common touch. He was a very popular resident, proprietor / shopkeeper of the Woodbrook area who became a well-liked politician. Members of the early band were glowing in their tribute to the significant contribution he made to the band and the special relationship he had with all the members of the band. Cecil Forde and Francis Wickham described his accommodating attitude toward band members: Cecil “Coye” Forde: He was part of we. Francis Wickham: You have to call Tang’s name first as supporter of the band. He was an Alderman; who then became Mayor, he wasn’t a lawyer. C.F: Norman Tang, he was Lord Mayor. F.W: He was Mayor first, and then he became a Member of Parliament. In those days, it wasn’t any party. He was Mr. Woodbrook and Mr. St. James…. Tang, that man was so nice, that if I wanted something done, all I have to do, is go by him. If he in bed, he would say come up. His wife will not leave you or carry you in any kitchen. He would make you sit down on his bed to talk to him and if he could get up and come with you he would do so. He wasn’t doing that because he wanted to get votes. He was already a member of The House of Parliament. The two pioneers insisted that Mr. Tang, a classmate of Dr. Eric Williams at Queen’s Royal College, was always like a godfather to Invaders, and he was never too busy to listen to even their personal plight so that he could render some form of assistance. On a sad note, Mayor Tang is one of only three ex-Mayors whose pictures remain absent from the walls in the Meeting Room of the Port of Spain City Hall. Despite this neglect, his support for the members and Oval Boys / Invaders Steelband remains an everlasting foundation of the Woodbrook and St. James communities. Beryl McBurnie Beryl McBurnie provided several opportunities for the young Invaders players to perform in concert type settings at the Little Carib Theatre, while allowing these musicians to experiment with new arrangements of the music at that time. She felt the steelband was an important aspect of our emerging cultural traditions. At that time, Beryl was the leading female folk dancer in Trinidad. Like Lennox Pierre, she too adopted Invaders because she admired the work that Ellie was doing and considered the involvement of the youth of the Woodbrook area as a positive development. She invited the band to play at Little Carib Theatre, which was less than a block away from the Yard where they rehearsed. Whether she repeatedly approached the band to be a part of her productions because she was genuinely impressed with their musical prowess or concerned about their rehearsals being a distraction to hers, will never be known. Those that knew her well believe she saw the benefits to the community and to the individual pan players that this indigenous artform could bring. Her guiding philosophy was the need for society’s recognition of the value of artistic expression arising from the people, not being imported. She was very instrumental in convincing prominent persons to offer a foreign scholarship for Ellie to further his studies in music, but he did not take it up for personal reasons, as he thought such a major change would not allow his continued experiments with the early instrument. It is also reported that Ellie frequently visited her home to discuss plans for the band. The literature of the early development of the steelband described Beryl McBurnie as one of the main supporters of the Oval Boys. However, some of the pioneering members of the band did not always approve of her relationship with the band. Cecil “Coye” Forde and Francis “Peacock” Wickham shared some of these feelings in the following interview with: Wickham: Don’t mind people and what they say about Beryl McBurnie. “Coye”: Don’t mind people with their names. Wickham: People does talk things they don’t know. “Coye: Beryl, she was always involved in this cultural dance business. Wickham: Beryl, she was a sort of a forceful person. Beryl know, well

we from right round by she. She had she dance theatre and thing, she had she little shows. Beryl don’t care if we practicing for Panorama or not, she coming in the Yard…. “All yuh come now, now.” We used to vex but we used to go. What we used to get? “Coye”: We didn’t used to get nothing. Wickham: Don’t lie nah man. We used to get some grapefruit juice and sandwiches, and when she had an opportunity to carry we somewhere, she carry the offsprings of Red Army, Merry Makers, instead of carrying us. We playing for you anytime, you don’t paying us but when she have a chance to do some thing for the band, she take somebody else. “Coye”: I used to tell Ellie plain, I don’t want to do anything for her. Every minute she saying, “Ellie, Ellie!” She used to call me Cory. She telling him, “Ellie you and the boys”. Wickham: Is only sweet mouth she used to be giving, when she want we do something for she. “Coye”: She did feel she own the band. Wickham: Yea! When you hear we practicing for a Panorama, Beryl would come in just so. “Coye”: In the band, we had John William, Roy Rollock and all the others and she had Burie from Toco, Forde and all of them used to be dancing. Wickham: She not taking no for an answer, but what we getting from it. Beryl never used to help we. Despite these negative comments from both Invaders elders, who were pioneers of the original Oval Boys, there is overwhelming evidence in the related Literature which confirms Beryl McBurnie provided several opportunities for the young musicians to showcase the quality of the music the band performed at that time. These opportunities impacted the manner in which Ellie arranged his music to suit a concert setting. This valuable exposure provided the steelpan with the stamp of legitimacy in the eyes of the middle class for one of the first, if not the first time. Emmanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley Emmanuel Riley alias “Corbeau Jack” combined various musical influences and developed his own unique styling, so while the other players were playing straight calypso, he was improvising and playing different chord structures on his twenty-six notes tenor pan, so his music at the time sounded like jazz. “Cobo Jack” became one of the most proficient pan tuners in the 1950s and 1960s who developed into a player extraordinaire, mainly through hard work and his determination to continuously improve himself. According to Kim Johnson, Riley (Corbeau Jack) later played for two rival steelbands, Renegades and Invaders, and this caused a great deal of uneasiness between both bands. As a young boy, it appeared that like all the youth in the Woodbrook area he was interested in the fledgling steelband instrument. Riley and others collected milk tins including Klim tins and they tuned these small pans with hammer and nails trying to create their own version of the instruments that the older boys were producing. Everyone at the time was desperately trying to get three notes on their pans to play tunes like “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. Later, although still very young, Corbeau Jack became involved in a band called “Ezra Poppin” with the legendary Alick Springer (“Chic McGraw”) being the leader, tuner and main man in this band. A few years passed before Rolph Henry, Forsythe, Corbeau Jack and some other youths formed the band, Green Eyes. This band derived its name from the Green Eyes Club situated on Luis Street, close to the yard where the band members did their rehearsing. The members of the band decided to use the name of the club as it provided them with their first job and opportunity to play for the public. Riley claimed that in the late 1940s, he and his young compatriots repeatedly tried to become involved in Invaders band but they were always rebuffed because they were considered “little fellars and too miserable”. This

eventually changed in the early 1950s when he became a member of Invaders. He first began by “fixing pans” that Mikey was tuning for Renegades under the leadership of “Gold Teeth”, but he also started in earnest to learn the art of tuning when Gold Teeth advised him to attempt to make a pan from the beginning, and he did so. After this achievement, he returned to Invaders and became a player and an understudy to Ellie, learning a great deal about the tuning of the instrument. At that time, Ellie was always the main tuner in Invaders but he had other tuners including Kelvin Dove, Birdie and his cousin Herman Locario from Sans Souci. Over the years, Corbeau Jack became one of Ellie’s most trusted assistants working with him on many different projects including the outreach programmes to help establish new bands and to service some operating bands. His first big opportunity in tuning came in 1954, from a band in Speyside in Tobago from which he obtained the princely sum of $54.00, to tune the entire band. Bands from all over Trinidad and Tobago, were requesting his professional services to tune and make pans. It appeared as though everybody at the time was approaching him to work for these different bands. His tuning prowess took him to all parts of the country, even as far as Sans Souci, Toco. He eventually became one of the main tuners for Renegades and he established a workshop at Desperadoes in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He worked continuously with both bands before he migrated to the United States of America in 1967. Although, Riley never competed individually in the many steelband competitions in the 1950s, the first time he performed on stage with Invaders, the management of the band invited him to do the solo part in their performance, to improvise in a competition on Wrightson Road, with Dennison, a senior officer from the police band, being a judge. He was one of the youngest players of the band at the time, which comprised of several top notched performers like Forsythe who later migrated to England, Emman Thorpe from St. James and “Zuse” among others. Therefore to be given such significant responsibility on his debut performance, Ellie would have identified immense playing potential in this young man. Later his exquisite skills were captured on some of Invaders recordings. Today, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, world renowned pannist and musical director of Phase Two Pan Groove, still insists that to become a great pan player a person must listen to a wide repertoire of music. Interestingly, Riley knew this secret since the 1950s and credits the attentive approach he used in listening to some of the more accomplished players from other bands, including Patsy Haynes of Casablanca, Sonny Roach from Sun Valley in St. James and also “Fisheye”. He also paid close attention to “Sampson”, a trumpeter with a Brass Orchestra, and what Sel Duncan was playing on his saxophone at the time. Riley then put all these various musical influences together and developed his own unique styling, so while the other players were playing straight calypso, he was improvising and playing different chord structures on his twenty-six note tenor pan, so his music at the time sounded like jazz. He continued to ply his tuning skills in North America mainly in the New York area and was extremely busy during the summer when the various steelbands were preparing for the annual Panorama competitions. He maintained a close relationship with Ellie Mannette, and asserted that the new G Pans that were created in Trinidad in 2007 closely resembled a large pan which Ellie had constructed years ago. He claimed that he had one of those pans in his possession for some years. He was contented working with young members in the North American based bands, sharing his experiences and still endeavouring to perfect the art of tuning steelpans while biding his time. In reference to being one of the best tenor players to grace the Invaders panyard, Riley humbly replied, “I had my time”.

Nervin “Teach” Saunders “Teach” as Nervin Saunders was popularly known, was born on January 27th 1937 in the vicinity of the Red Hill in D’abadie. He had always been considered as “the old faithful servant” of Invaders band, because on numerous occasions the management of the band approached him at very short notice to arrange the tunes for Panorama Competitions, as there were sometimes difficulties in finalising terms with another arranger. He had been a player from the 1960s, coming through the ranks to become an arranger of this illustrious band. Teach recalled that although most youth during the 1950s and 1960s experienced tremendous hostility from their parents for their involvement in the steelband, his family gave him a lot of support because his two uncles, Errol and Ralph Williams, were also involved in Starline, a steelband in which the Mighty Striker was the most accomplished musician. Striker later won the Calypso King of Trinidad and Tobago Competitions in 1959 and 1960. At the age of eight or nine, Teach was fascinated with music. Church music, and music performed in school were major attractions to which he sometimes added “mouth bass”. Later, his family obtained a Phillip’s Radio that used battery power and this provided a wider repertoire of popular music for the young Saunders. Not yet a teenager, in the late 1940s Teach began arranging tunes for the steelband, where some adults began admired his ability and acknowledged that he had a bright future in the pan world. At about fifteen years, while attending Pamphillian High School, which operated in the Heart and Hand Society Lodge in Tunapuna, he joined the Eastern Syncopators. He played with this band from Tunapuna for “J’ouvert” mornings and on Carnival Tuesdays members of the band went into Port of Spain and performed with the famous Invaders. So he was fortunate that his parents allowed him to be involved in two steelbands while attending a Secondary School. He was a dedicated student while pursuing his educational goals but he indicated that his main motivation at the time was seeing the type of laborious work that the persons were engaging in during the Lock Joint Project of laying pipes in the Port of Spain area. He admitted that he was very uncomfortable with the thought that he could have to perform this same task in a few years, if he did not attempt to do his best in his studies, so he was determined to succeed at his education because he wanted to qualify for a more satisfying job. He vividly remembered as a very young boy visiting Port of Spain with his mother on a Discovery Day, August 1st, when a big steelband jamboree took place annually with most of the established bands parading the streets of the capital. As fate would have it, on their arrival in Port of Spain, the Invaders Steelband was the first band they saw. From that moment he made a vow that he would become a member of that illustrious band. Another significant event in Teach’s musical development occurred when a youth from D’Abadie found a pan that someone had thrown out of the bus while a fight was taking place during the return trip of Invaders to Port of Spain, after having an excursion. For a few days the youths in the area were afraid to play the instrument because they did not know if the owner was going to come back for it and they were actually scared of the badjohn reputation of the members of Invaders. Eventually playing the instrument, the youths in the area discovered that this instrument seemed like a new world to the young pannists, because of the advanced stage of tuning and the overall quality of the instrument. Teach claims that his exposure to this version of the instrument reinforced his interest in and fed his desire to continue to play the instrument. Teach was basically self-taught in music and created a sensational impact when at the Blanchisseuse Government Primary School, he used the steel pans to accompany his students as they performed the new national songs and the National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago in 1962 on the attainment of the country’s

independence from Britain. The next year he carried the instruments on a permanent basis to the school, therefore making him the first person to introduce the steelband for use in a school in Trinidad in 1963. As a youth, Nervin always harboured a strong desire to become a member of Invaders, which was considered one of the more attractive bands in the 1950s and 1960s. At that period the instruments of Invaders were considered superior to those of many of the other steelbands. When he started to play in this band, he considered it a major achievement in his life, although, panmen were generally regarded, in his words as “old niggers and some persons were afraid of them, while others tried to buy their company”. He focused on his study because he associated with older men who became his biggest influence in life. He was transferred back to the suburban area in 1966 and he became more involved in the steelband. When he was teaching in Blanchisseuse, he had been tuning pans with Aldwyn Jordan (“Madman”), who was a better tuner than he was. Sometimes they eve went to Tobago to tune pans. During this period, Teach enjoyed a part-time relationship with Invaders, going to play with them mainly at Carnival time. The real big opportunity in arranging came when “Madman” took Teach to Arima to be his assistant to arrange a tune for Bescrete Symphonettes. After they had completed part of the arrangement, on the third night “Madman” told him they would finish the song on the following night. On his arrival in the panyard the next night, he discovered that he was now in charge of the completion of the arrangement, as “Madman” had gone to Venezuela. This incident was the beginning of his long relationship with Arima bands. He eventually left this band because he was dissatisfied with the casual attitude and lack of commitment of the members of the band, and he was also very impressed with the performance of Desperadoes during the “Meet the Steelbands Tour” that Dr. Eric Williams was engaged in at the time. He felt that he was selling himself short, so he decided to become more seriously involved in the steelband world and enrolled in a formal course in music that the Ministry of Education and Culture offered to panmen while he was still with Bestcrete Symphonettes. During this programme he discovered that he was doing a lot of correct things previously without knowing the musical rationale. He acknowledged that he acquired a great deal of inspiration from listening to a wide range of music including classical music and analysing the outstanding steelband musical arrangements of Clive Bradley, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and Ray Holman. Over the years he continued his formal musical education in an effort to broaden his musical horizon. For some strange reason Birdie did not recognise that “Teach” had some arranging skills and previous experience in that area, and only discovered so quite accidentally one day when Teach was playing around with the different pans and he started to give music to the other members of the band. On his return to the Yard, Birdie remarked, “You there and we all about looking for an arranger. You should ah tell we.” “Teach” humbly replied “nobody asked” him. So Birdie insisted that he should arrange a Sparrow tune, “Bad John” (1974) for the Panorama competition with the limited time they had at their disposal. “Teach” considers the following year as his true debut in Panorama as he had adequate time to do the arrangement. It was an “acid test” because that year, nine out of the ten steelband finalists played “ Tribute to Spree Simon” (1975), so it was virtually all the bands playing “a test piece” for a Panorama competition. On this debut at the Big Yard (Queen’s Park Savannah), “Teach” fared fairly well as Invaders placed 6th in the Finals. In 1976, roughly ten years after becoming a member of the Invaders steelband, Teach fell out with Birdie on Carnival Sunday because Birdie chastised him for returning late to the Yard, after they had played at different fetes and other functions the night before. So he went to Arima Angel Harps as their arranger for the next three years and then to Arima Simple Song. However, in 1978 Birdie tried to encourage him to return to the Yard the following year and gave him the information that Geraldine Connor, who was back home from England for the Christmas season was going to be his co-arranger for the next Panorama competition. He was not very enthused about this arrangement but reluctantly went along with it. Sometimes many persons overlook the name of Nervin Saunders when considering the musical arrangements of one of the most successful schools in Junior Panorama. Saunders was mainly responsible for the numerous victories of

the St. Augustine Senior Comprehensive School in this competition. He was the invisible driving force behind the unique steelband tradition that this institution has built up over the years. He has lectured in many different courses associated with the steelband at the University of the West Indies including Pan Literature, Steelband Arrangement and Qualities of an Arranger, and the techniques of playing of the instrument. He had also arranged the winning selection for the University of the West Indies Steel Ensemble in the World Steelband Music Festival in 2006. He still smiles when he identified one of his greatest achievements as his joint first place for the best performance of a Calypso with “Trinidad All Stars” in the 1994 Steelband Music Festival with Invaders performing his arrangement of “Music Sweet”, and his band also securing joint third position with the formidable Desperadoes, another giant in the steelband world, in a North Zone Panorama Preliminary. He also listed Invaders performing his arrangement of “De Mystery Band” at the Queen Park Savannah on Carnival Tuesday 1993 in an “on the Track Competition”, when they defeated the mighty Renegades to cop the $25,000 of recording time that the Amar Group of Companies had offered as the first prize and which the band never received.. There is possibly one anecdote that demonstrated the real character of Mr. Saunders. One day, sometime in the late 1970s, he became extremely depressed while passing in a taxi, when he heard a small steelband in the yard of the Church of Scotland playing an awful piece of music. He immediately disembarked from the vehicle he was traveling in and offered his assistance to this group of mostly young female players, including the Rampersad sisters. He arranged a donation of pans from Angel Harps in Arima, as that band was changing its pans around the same time. Thirty odd years later, Mr. Saunders is still the musical director of this church. After his retirement from the teaching service, “Teach” continued to impart his knowledge of music to many youths at the Arouca Church of Scotland, where he had established the Eastern School of Pan Music since 1991. He exposes these youths to the rudiments of music and the techniques involved in playing the steelpans as musical instruments. He remained a gentleman and persons should always remember him as the first person to introduce the steelband in the school system, the almost unbeatable arranger for St. Augustine Senior Comprehensive School in the Junior Steelband Competitions and for the unselfish sterling contribution he made to the evolution of Invaders and the pan movement in general. He continues to enjoy his work of sharing the music with both youths and senior church members. In the steelband world, enthusiasts will always regard him as the most dependable arranger that has ever worked with Invaders. .

Ray Holman Ray Anthony Holman was always an extremely talented musician with a strong desire for musical experimentation, which resulted in his creation of the first musical piece composed for a steelband to be played at the Panorama Competition. His exposure to a wide repertoire of music from an early age provided him with the creative stimulus to explore various genres of music from his early teens. While still attending Queens Royal College (QRC), the same school in which the illustrious Dr. Eric Williams and Nobel Prize Winning Author, Sir Vidia Naipaul, pursued their secondary education. Ray joined Invaders when he was thirteen years, and at the age of sixteen he attempted his

first two classical arrangements, “Dream of Olwen” and “Etude” for the band. In 1962, Ray and his friends left Invaders and joined the break-away, youthful Starlift Steelband, as these young musicians felt the choice of musical selections in Invaders’ repertoire at the time were restricting their musical talent and creativity. Ray became the arranger for Starlift and almost instantly became very popular with his arrangement of “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. Around this period, he also became a member of the teaching profession, decades later retiring as a Spanish Master at Fatima College. Ray developed his own unique style with a lot of emphasis on his early innovation of a “Jazzy three beats to the bar”. In 1964, at the age of twenty, he was acclaimed the most outstanding Ping Pong Soloist at the National Steelband Competition. He has been a prolific composer and arranger ever since. One of his most notable compositions was the pioneering musical piece, “Pan on the Move” in 1972, when he composed and arranged this tune to take Starlift into third position in the Panorama Finals. Although the band won the preliminary, there is the perception that maybe the composition did not go on to win the competition because of the novelty of the idea of a tune specifically being composed for the steelband for this competition. However his musical score for the stage production of Black Orpheus for the Crossroads Theatre Company is probably his most recognisable international compositions. He has also composed music for and worked with many universities and other music groups all over the world. Ray arranged both tunes, “The Bull” (Lord Kitchener) in 1969 and “Queen of the Band” (Sparrow) in 1971, when Starlift won two Panorama titles. Thirty-four years later, he was the drill master for Phase II Pan Groove when it won this competition. The next year, 2006, he made a valiant attempt with Starlift to wrest the title from the band he had worked with the previous year but he could only muster second place. The Trinidad and Tobago Folk Art Institute, a Brooklyn based organisation, at a New York gala, on 22 April 2001 honoured Ray Holman and eleven other pan legends from Trinidad who made significant contributions to the development of steelband music. This illustrious group of honourees included Clive Bradley, Jit Samaroo, Neville Jules, Junior Pouchet, Curtis Pierre, Hermon Johnson, Bertie Marshall, Wallace Austin and other old Invaders players, Emmanuel “Cobo Jack” Riley and Cliff Alexis. Steelband supporters mobbed these musical giants on this night of recognition. In recent times, he has been referred to as “Mr. Woodbrook” based on his residency in that area for all his life and his relationship with all major steelbands in that locality for over fifty years. Although, many music critics have recognised Ray as one of the outstanding steelband arrangers in Trinidad and Tobago, in his two attempts at arranging music for Invaders at the Panorama Competition, the band fared no better than any of the other arrangers over the years. Barbara Jenson Barbara was the spouse of an expatriate working with Shell Trinidad Ltd. in the petroleum industry in Point Fortin in the 1960s. On J’ouvert morning in 1967, this Caucasian woman dressed with her conspicuous white hand bag as a tourist came into Port of Spain in the company of a group of Trinidadian friends, husbands and wives who were living and working in the same southern area of the Oil Fields. As fate would have it, the first steelband they encountered in the city was Shell Invaders. She immediately left her friends and gravitated to the music because this was her first experience of hearing a large steelband, since what she had seen and heard before were small sides of less than ten members. One she remembers particularly was “Sun Valley”. This was a love relationship based on first sight and first sound. Decades after, she was still regarding Invaders as her family. On her return to Trinidad in 1974 after finalising her divorce, she became a fanatic supporter of this band; she played mas, jumped up with the members, and pushed pans every year. She adopted the Yard as her second home and spent a

prodigious amount of time there, whether day and night. She considered the Yard as a Cathedral but she always found it was a perplexing irony that Birdie was extremely serious against the use of any hard drugs in the panyard while alcohol was acceptable. She even selected one of the members of the band to be her livein partner during this period. It was her unquestionable devotion to the band for numerous years that influenced Birdie to invite her to be the first female to become a member of his management team. A few years later she was the only person trying to oppose the decision to ask Birdie to sever ties with the band in 1992. She became the Secretary/ Treasurer of the band during this phase of restructuring, and worked very diligently with Trevor Cooper, Richard De Lima, Roxanne Christian, Desiree Myers and Ricardo “Bachac” Herbert and others to re-establish the band on a new growth path. Barbara was one of the main protagonists in suggesting that the choice of “Governor’s Ball” with the musical hook line “Shake your baton like Mr. Prospect” should be the Calypso that Anthony “Maestro” Prospect should arrange for the festival of 1992. When the band performed this composition, it brought the house down by defeating most of the top steelbands in the land of steelbands. By 1995, she was the main repository of the records and information relating to the organisation, saving every newspaper clipping, draft plans for the future, financial reports, score sheets from judges and other information relating to the band. She appeared to be extremely happy recalling her earlier youthful experiences in Invaders Steelband. It has always been a difficult question for Barbara whether she loved Trinidad or steelband more, but she has remained very contented in the thought that she is prepared to spend the remaining days of her life in this beautiful land, still enjoying the scintillating steelband music, and the great memories of her involvement in the Invaders of 1965 through the 1990s.

Trevor Cooper “Teach” once remarked that the History of Invaders could never be written without the proper recognition of the tremendous contribution that Trevor Cooper made to this band when it was experiencing the most depressing time of its existence. He insisted that although there were other persons working very diligently during this period, it was mainly the leadership of Trevor that harnessed the involvement of the other committed individuals and ultimately secured the survival and resurgence of the band during the early 1990s. Trevor grew up on the Oxford Street area of Port of Spain, in close proximity to the Casablanca Steelband. His mother, as a single parent discharged the responsibilities of ensuring she took good care of him, so she was very surprised when she discovered in 1965 that he was playing music in Casablanca, when he informed her that he was going to play with this steelband in a competition. She was disturbed and told him he was “playing man” but he insisted that he had to go with the band, and he went. His mother never knew that her son, who was a form four student in Fatima College, had been secretly going to rehearsals with the steelband two years previously while “pretending just to go down the road”. He left Casablanca in 1983, because he disagreed with various management arrangements in that group and went to Invaders which was very close to where he was then living at Carlos Street, Woodbrook, at the time. He decided to choose Invaders instead of the two other popular bands, Starlift and Phase Two, because he felt that it had a steelband culture similar to what he was familiar with in Casablanca Many of his peers in the Invaders family have described him as an honest, forthright, resourceful and diligent leader in that organisation over the years. These same qualities, although they are positive attributes, were mainly responsible for Trevor encountering severe difficulties, while attempting to

operate efficiently in both environments of the Casablanca and later Invaders. He first became captain of Invaders in 1989, only six years after becoming an ordinary member of the band. His elevation to this position in such short time demonstrated his organisational skills and his previous experiences which influenced “Doc” Parris and Birdie in selecting him for the leadership position. Trevor realised that after six months, he was not going to have any say in the decisions of the management of the band, so he gave up the position to return to being just an ordinary player. In 1991, he accepted the captaincy once again, but this time the band was experiencing several difficulties with low morale, wavering sponsorship and inefficient management. Although Richard De Lima became the manager during this perilous period of the band’s existence, when the committee banished Birdie from the band in order for the organisation to move forward, Trevor was the main person spearheading many of the different projects to get the band back on sound footing. He used his training and experience as a senior official with a prominent Insurance Company to institute new approaches in dealing with different activities and issues in the band. However, his suggestion that the band should explore the sale of T shirts or “jerseys” as a means to cut cost and to generate greatly needed additional funds was not very popular. The old establishment did not accept this proposal and questioned the motives for his approach. However, he identified Ricardo “Bachac” Herbert, policeman Cuthbert George, Desiree Myers, Roxanne Christian and other young females as being exceedingly excited and committed to the various fund raising events the band staged at the time. He credits Barbara Jenson as one of the persons who also displayed tremendous enthusiasm working together with the other members to make every venture a successful one. Trevor was instrumental in acquiring the services of the top musical director, Mr. Anthony Prospect, to prepare his band for the 1992 Steelband Musical Festival and the following festival in 1994, in which the band gave an outstanding performance, being beaten by the famous Trinidad All Stars into second position by the smallest of margins (a matter of only ------------points) (for the test piece). He worked together with Prospect in arranging a twenty–eight member tour to New York in 1992. Although, the band encountered transportation problems with its instruments in the earlier part of this tour, this venture proved to be very successful. This event was a major morale booster for the band members who had not gone on tour for many years and it also helped to maintain the momentum gained from the excellent performance in the music festival. This period ushered in not only one of the most exciting but also most contentious eras of Invaders. Some members of the old guard were not receptive to the idea that Birdie had to leave the band, and some of them resisted this decision for years, in their own ways trying different tactics to deal with this situation. Eventually, Trevor had to make some crucial decisions relating to his safety and the welfare of his family, so finally, he went into a self-imposed exile from the band. After over a decade from direct involvement in major steelband affairs, and also experiencing some extremely challenging family issues, Trevor returned to the management team of Invaders in 2007. Once more he became the assistant manager of the youthful members trying to take the band forward and perhaps one day to even achieve the ultimate glory in the steelband world of conquering the championship of the Panorama competition for large steelbands in Trinidad and Tobago. There were also many other professional persons who placed their faith in the youth who were involved in this exciting but potentially dangerous musical pastime. They interceded on behalf of the youth and eventually made recommendations for the youth to be provided with other options to express their creative talents in a more receptive and peaceful environment. However, there must be adequate recognition of and salutation to family members who displayed love, support, and made special sacrifices as essential contributions to the sustenance and survival of the steelband movement. Credit should also be given to the other supporters who played critical roles in the development of such an important cultural heritage. The most fascinating aspect of the birth of this steelband remains the

teenage boys who were creating this new sound, which symbolised the dynamic youth movement reflected in the various bands, where the youths employed their creativity to play a pivotal role in the invention and development of the steelband. Now over eighty years later, despite the advances in technology, and the outstanding visible assertiveness of the young females in various fields in the society, the present youth generation in Trinidad and Tobago appears to be lost and a significant percent does not know very much about the rich cultural heritage of the country and mimics the negative destructive cultures of some developed countries. Annually for Carnival, most of the steelbands including the most prominent bands in the steelband world showcase the talents of thousands of young people, predominantly female, in their ensemble as they perform their Panorama renditions, but there are limited sustainable programmes to maintain the year round interest of these youths. Although, there are many benefits to be derived from the utilisation of the steelband as a mechanism for social transformation and human development, the society of Trinidad and Tobago continues to neglect the steelband and to treat with it as a bastard child. The country still embraces the outdated attitude that rejects the potential for the development of an effective programme that will contain the required resources to positively affect the lives of thousands of young people in this country through steelband driven projects. As the world shrinks through globalisation there is the dire need for Caribbean countries and small states to establish a strong cultural foundation through their education system, cultural activities and celebration of various festivals so their citizens can develop a positive sense of self and show more appreciation for their national culture. Therefore, this arrangement necessitates some independent states retaining significant features of their cultural heritage. Development associated with the steelband continues to be neglected, despite the national icon, Lloyd Best, a world renowned Economist, advancing his theory of “Schools in Pan”, in which he described in great details how the society can utilise the pan yards and spaces used by the steelbands as essential learning resource centres in the development of various programmes to offer a plethora of training opportunities to the steelband members and by extension their respective communities. He insisted that Academic, Technical and Vocational skills courses should be offered to participants. Some of these skill courses including welding can enable some members of the various steelbands to become self-employed while ensuring that a significant amount of revenue circulate within the steelband fraternity. In Trinidad and Tobago, there is the deficient sense of a nationalism that encourages the practice of the population still embracing foreign validation of our culture as tacit approval before showing appreciation for the local culture. This attitude continues to be a major challenge for cultural practitioners. The society has not yet recognised the sacrifices that the youth made when they placed their lives on the line and shed their blood, sweat and tears for the development of steelband, one of the iconic cultural symbols of creativity and freedom of the last century. Steelband still suffers from tremendous disrespect from many segments of the society including the political directorate and occasionally, even from the myopic vision of the mother organisation representing the various steelbands in Trinidad and Tobago. Sometimes, some persons question the national attitude displayed toward the steelband where most citizens still view it as a nuisance throughout the year and which they must tolerate in a restricted manner during the Carnival period. It is a challenging endeavour to identify all the persons who contributed to the evolution of Caribbean Airlines Invaders; however we must recognise that numerous persons contributed in various ways to the development of this musical institution. Retired Superintendent of the Police Service, Theophilus Tomkin, recalled the involvement of numerous other youths who participated in the band during the 1950s and 1960s. These members included Beresford Dove (Barman at the Oval), Kelvin Dove, Lloyd, Langston Brothers, Captain Stanley Hunte, “Vats” Duncan, Rudolph Williams (“Cairo Man”), “Bajan” John (Boysie Singh’s associate), Hermos Robinson, Oscar Best, Evans Turpin

(“Chunks”), Leonard Joseph and the Blackhead brothers. This list of persons included persons who brought leadership to the organisation, others who contributed musically to the band, while some were the protectors of the band. Several names were mentioned in other parts of this manuscript, but the love and support of hundreds of unmentioned members and well-wishers during the challenging times and in the good times, played a significant role in the evolution of Oval Boys to Invaders.

Epilogue In 2008, a photograph of the Invaders Panyard showed the old brown lifeless trunk of the famous breadfruit tree but emerging from the side of this dead tree was a young green trunk with luscious leaves towering over the old trunk. This picture was symbolic of the present state of the band as it has been transformed into a young vibrant entity exploring a new lease of life. The management of the band, although comprising some experienced persons also includes some youthful members, while the majority of the members in the band are young and enthusiastic with a significant number of female players. The future appears to be very promising for the band, as Government had initiated the process of declaring the Invaders Panyard a “heritage site”, a long standing goal of the band and had started the legal procedure to acquire the lands in the name of the band. The band was first evicted from this location, #147 Tragarete Road; on 7 December 1979. After prolonged court proceedings, and lobbying by the steelband and cultural fraternities, in September 2007 the government through the intervention of the then sinister of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs, Joan Yuille-Williams, accepted the idea that the property should be recommended to be a heritage site. The band is sitting on a potential gold mine, as this is the site on which Ellie Mannette created a number of innovations in the development of the steel pans as musical instruments. The band has plans to establish a museum and to cater for the tourism industry by operating a live demonstration of some of the basic activities of the traditional pan yards. Musically, the management of the band continues to place their faith in the abilities of their relatively youthful musical arranger Ardin Herbert, who became a player in the same band at the age of nine. Although, Ardin had not enjoyed any major success with the band in the various local steelband competitions up to 2008, he has won the Panorama Competition in New York on different occasions. In 2009 Caribbean Airlines Invaders won a Caribbean Steelband Panorama Competition, “Pan in The Oval” in Barbados, and this performance once again confirmed the band’s ability to achieve at the highest level. However, in 2011 Ardin’s arrangement of “Doh Be On Dat”, the tune he co-composed with R. Jones, which was performed by Roland “Remy” Yearwood, also known as “Rembunction”, propelled the band into 4 th place, tied with Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove in the National Panorama Finals for large bands. This was the highest position the band has achieved since its 3 rd place positions in 1970 and 1971.

CAL Invaders attained 273 points, five points less than the winner Neal and Massy All Stars’ 278. This was a major advancement in destroying the myths of the “Panorama Blues”, which haunted the band for several decades. Many observers opined that this All Stars’ victory in 2011 was not as convincing as some of its previous winning Panorama performances. Caribbean Airline Invaders definitely won the heart of a large segment of the audience who attended this edition. At the end of the scintillating performance from the Invaders, thousands of persons in the North Stand and the newly reconstructed Grand Stand demonstrated their acknowledgement for the high quality of music by standing and lustily applauding. Although, Ardin is a very experienced and qualified musician, it has been a roller coaster ride since he has been with the band. The idea of allowing him to have an extended period with the youthful members in the band is a good strategy as it affords him the opportunity to properly establish his style of playing with the players and to develop their musical skills. This continuity is essential for the band to improve in its performances and possibly to conquer the title of Champion Panorama steelband one day. Recent results in the Panorama Finals give hope that in the near future the members of Invaders will be able to sing “Champs at last! Champs at last! Who knows? With the return of Shell as its main sponsor this may be a good omen for the future.

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Appendix Some Significant Achievements

1941: the press. 1943-44: different

At the Queen’s Park Oval, Oval Boys placed second to Alexander Ragtime Band at a competition described as Tamboo Bamboo Competition in

1946: 1946: create

Ellie introduced pan sticks with rubber after experimenting with materials. Ellie accidentally discovered the use of heat in tuning the pans. Ellie sank the 55 gallon drum to concave from convex, in an effort to

a new drum and better sound. 1947: Invaders placed second to their arch rival, Casablanca, in a competition for Steelbands at the Oval. 1947: Invaders’ “Chic” McGraw, a member of Invaders, playing with both hands beat Ellie into second position for the Ping Pong Solo champion. 1948: At carnival competitions in the Queen’s Park Savannah and in Belmont, the Sailor band of Invaders placed second to Casablanca and S.S Sun Valley respectively. 1948: Invaders played at the opening ceremony of Beryl McBurnie’s Little Carib Theatre. 1949: Sunday night, February 26th, Invaders won first prize in the Steelband Competition at the Queen’s Park Savannah. May 15th, Invaders won an island – wide competition in San Fernando. 1950: April 20th, Tour to Aruba. 1951: TASPO Tour to Great Britain, Ellie Mannette, the representative of Invaders, is selected as main tuner for the orchestra. 1952: Ellie is involved in major introduction of chromatic pans in the band 1958: The double second introduced in Invaders. 1959: Ellie develops the double guitar pan. Invaders obtains a major recording contract with Columbia Records, for the tune “Lieberstrum”. 1960: Ellie involved in introduction of the triple cello. 1963: Invaders was one of the original twenty-four bands that participated in the first Panorama competition, eventually placing 5th in the Finals. 1970: Invaders played “Margie”, a Kitchener’s composition, arranged by Arthur Carroll for 3 rd place in Panorama Finals. 1971: Invaders retained 3 rd place in Panorama Finals with a Mackie Boyce’s arrangement of the Kitchener’s composition Mas in Madison Square Garden” 1978 Geraldine Connor first woman to arrange a Panorama tune for a steelband, jointly arranged with “Teach” a Kitchener’s selection, “The Dog”. 1980s: Performed on the world famous Green Peace Ship on its visit to Trinidad. 1985: Invaders placed first in the National Preliminaries with a Steve Achaiba’s arrangement of ‘Pan in Danger”, a Merchant’s composition. 1992: Steelband Music Festival, Invaders secured third place in the Steelband Music Festival Finals, being beaten by Trinidad All Stars. 1992: New York City Tour, USA, invitation from National Council of Steelbands. Musical Director, Anthony Prospect. 1994: Invaders placed second in the Steelband Music Festival Finals Pan is

Beautiful

VII. First place -Tune of Choice and tied with Trinidad All Stars for first place in Calypso. 1995: First place - Flour Mills Monday Night Competition. 1995: Tied for second place with Phase II Pan Grove – Adam Smith Square. 1996: Awarded the Chaconia Medal of Gold for its contribution to Culture in Trinidad and Tobago. 2009: Caribbean Airlines Invaders won a Caribbean Steelband Panorama Competition, “Pan in The Oval” in Barbados. 2011: 4 th place, Invaders tied with Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove in the National Panorama Finals for large bands with Ardin Herbert’s arrangement of “Doh Be On Dat”, the tune he co-composed with R. Jones, which was performed by Roland “Remy” Yearwood “Rembunction”. 2018: Shell Company returns as the main sponsor of Invaders Steelband, replacing Caribbean Airlines Limited.

Bibliography Books/Magazines

1. Anthony, Michael. Historical Dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago. Maryland: Scare Crow Press, 1997. 2. Brereton, Bridget. A History of Modern Trinidad 1783-1962. 1981. New Hampshire: Heineman, 1989. 3. Elder, J.D. From Congo Drum to Steelband: A Socio-Historical Account of the Emergence and Evolution of the Trinidad Steel Orchestra. St. Augustine; University of the West Indies, 1969. 4. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York; Grove Press, 1968. 1963. 5. Goddard, George. Forty Years in the Steelband 1939-1979. London: Karia Press, 1991. 6. Lange, Bernard. Vincent De Souza’s Story of the Earliest Beginnings of the Steelband. Published by NEM Limited. 7. Maxine, Gideon. Pan Through The Years 1952-1995 8. Medgar Evers College. International Caribbean Carnival Conference And Development Seminar- A Special Tribute To Len “Boogsie” Sharpe and Despers USA Steel Orchestra. New York: Medga Evers College, 1998. 9. Smith, Angela. Steel Drums and Steelbands: A History. Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2012. 10. Steumpfle, Stephen. The Steelband Movement: The Forging of a National Art in Trinidad. Pennsylvania; University of Pennsylvania, 1995. 11. Aiyejina, Funso and Rawle Gibbons. Orisa (Orisha) Tradition in Trinidad, Published by Faculty of Social Sciences, UWI, 2000.

12. Gibbons, Rawle. “Ogun Iyan as in Pan.” (Play).

Newspaper Articles

1. Evening News. Monday February 5,1940. 2. Evening News. Monday February 24, 1941. 3. Trinidad Guardian. “Record entry for Participants Carnival 1946”; March 4, 1946. 4. Trinidad Guardian. “Calypso, Steelband Competitions- Mucurapo Stadium; March5, 1946:1. 5. Sunday Guardian. “Play Clean Carnival: Carnival Guidelines”. February 16, 1947: 6. 6. Evening News (Trinidad). Article of Invaders placing first in a competition. Tuesday March 1, 1949. 7. Trinidad Guardian. Article about steelband members charged before the courts. Thursday February 16, 1950:3. 8. Doyle- Marshall, William. “Ellie Mannette.” Sunday Express (Trinidad) September 14, 1969: 14. 9. Narine, Dalton. “The Road from Panman to Panist”. Sunday Guardian, February 17, 1980:13. 10. Taradath, Selwyn. “Standardization almost a reality.” Trinidad Guardian, September 15, 1989:14. 11. Cuffy, David. “Despers Makes It 3”. Trinidad Guardian, November 2, 1992:3 12. Johnson, Kim. “Man from the hill- From dead end kid to Desperado.” Sunday Express, Trinidad -2. January 5, 1997: 3. 13. Pickford- Gordon, Lara, “Ellie Mannette’s dad is 105 years old today.” Newsday (Trinidad) May 8, 1998:14. 14. Joseph, Terry. “Japanese to stage World Panorama.” Express- 2 (Trinidad) April 16, 1000:1. 15. Smith, Vicki. “Ellie Mannette” Trinidad Guardian April 17, 1999:1. 16. Joseph, Terry. “Highest U.S. arts award for pan pioneer”. Trinidad Express General (Interest) June 4, 1999. 17. Johnson, Kim. “Birth of Steelband Association: Pan Trinbago Honours Sydney Gallop’s Contribution to Pan.” Sunday Express- 2 (Trinidad) August 29, 1999:4. 18. Joseph, Terry. “U.S. Senate congratulates Mannette on award.” Express (Trinidad) September 13, 1999:7. 19. Express, “U.S First Lady to present Ellie Mannette with arts award today.” Express (Trinidad) September 28, 1999:10. 20. Smith Keith. “Of men and metal.” Express (Trinidad) September 29, 1999:13. 21. Joseph, Terry. “Ellie Mannette” Government must play greater role in pan.” Express (Trinidad) September 29, 1999: 53. 22. Trinidad Guardian. “Presidential Pan.” October 8, 1999:2. 23. Johnson, Kim. “After Hiroshima, Tokyo thought they were next.” Express (Trinidad) November 14, 1999: 10. 24. Johnson, Kim. “Bye Bye, Blackbird” Sunday Express (Trinidad) November 21, 1999: 42, 43. 25. Blood, Peter Ray. “Pan Elite turn out to bury ‘Birdie’.” Trinidad Guardian November18, 1999: 2. 26. Joseph, Terry. “Ellie invents new pan for soloists.” Sunday Express (Trinidad) June 4, 2000: 27. Express. “Duprey, Mannette to receive UWI honorary degrees” Express (Trinidad) October 11, 2000: 24

Internet http://www.trinbagoan.com. The Early History of Steelpan in Trinidad and Tobago. “The Great Bonaparte”. Kim Johnson October 22, 2000. When Steel Talks: “The History of Steel Pan”, Timeline.

Published

Interviews

1. Blood, Peter and Narell, Andy. “The Good Old Days” The story of pan. As told by Ellie Mannette to Narell, edited by Blood.” The Sun (Trinidad) March 21, 1986: 8, 9. 2. Joseph, Terry, ‘Interview with Von Martin of OAS Radio, Washington.” Express (Trinidad) September 29, 1999 3. Radio Power 102 FM (Trinidad) Live Broadcast Interview at National Endowment of the Arts Award Function. Washington. Ellie Mannette and Von Martin were interviewed by Dale Enoch and Jerome Lewis, October, 1999. 4. Radio Power 102FM (Trinidad). Live interview with Pelham Goddard, October 3, 1999. 5. Paolo Kernahan, Interview with Ellie Mannette, TV6, October 30, 2000.

All Interviews Personally Conducted

1. Locario, Lio.

Sans

Souci, Toco.

April 10, 1999.

2. Mannette, Vernon Birdie. Agra Street, St. James. May 8, 1999. 3. Locario, Lio. Sans Souci, Toco. June 25, 1999. 4. Mannette, Vernon Birdie. Agra Street, St. James. September 3, 1999. 5. Tardath, Selwyn. Petit Valley. October 5, 1999. 6. Mannette, Ossie. Maloney. November 11, 1999. 7. Darway, Norman. St. James. November 17, 1999. 8. Mannette, Sydney. Petra Street, Woodbrook. November 28, 1999. 9. Mannette, Ossie. Petra Street, Woodbrook. Nov 28, 1999. 10. Locario, Lio. Petra Street, Woodbrook. Nov. 28. 1999. 11. Beckles, Lincoln. Petra Street, Woodbrook. Nov 28. 1999. 12. Mannette, Ossie Maloney, December 4, 1999. Arnold, Patrick. (President of Pan Trinbago). Pan Trinbago Office, Victoria Suites, 2000. 13. Saunders, Nervin “Teach”. Church of Scotland, Arouca, 2000. 14. Wickham, Francis and Cecil “Coye” Forde. Haig Street. March 03, 2003. 15. “Sheriff”. UWI, St. Augustine. April 16, 2003. 16. Jenson, Barbara. Signal Hill, Fort George. July 23, 2004. 17. Cooper, Trevor. Port of Spain. July 28, 2004. 18. Riley, Emmanuel “Cobo Jack”. Brooklyn, New York, August17, 2007. 19. Bailey, Albert. Buller Street, Woodbrook. April 2, 2008. 20. Saunders, Nervin « Teach ». Church of Scotland, Arouca. April 22, 2008. 21. Darway, Norman. St. James. April 28, 2008. 21. Rampersad-Hosein, Brenda. Arouca. May 24, 2008. 22. Wickham, Francis. Haig Street, Carenage. June 1, 2008. 23. Innis, James “Jim”. San Juan. June 6, 2008. 24. Tomkin, Theophilus, “Diego”. Picton Street, Port of Spain. September, 2009.