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Continued..Book. 1 Favorite Singers and Rockaway Days
Book. 1 Favorite Singers and Rockaway Days
We lived in a “court” a collection of summer bungalows gathered around a concrete “court yard” maybe there were four or five bungalows on each side, with one or two across at the end.
Just outside and to the left was a movie theater, just outside and to the right was a custard and French fry stand, The French fries came in a little pointy bottomed Dixie cup and they were the real salty greasy greats. The custard was beyond language. Among the neighbors were a couple who were war refugees from Hungry. He was the ‘super” (a New York term for the superintendent. A representative of the land lord or management company, whose job is to fix any problems or breakdowns in the building or court) and she was a housewife. They had a little boy named Adam, who’s head looked a little misshapen, but who seemed nice otherwise.
Alas, his parents decided to make friends with me so Adam would have someone to play with. I swear to you I don’t know how I got “the come to me sign” tattooed across my forehead, but it is there. You may not be able to see it, but anyone who is dinged, danged, damaged, desperate or dub-doodled, sees it as clear as red flashing neon, and the message says..”come to me..I’ve got the cure, I’ve got the answer, that’s for sure!”
Dear Lord Amighty, You above all know how grateful I am for my unearned and undeserved gifts, but..but..but..but..
So I was encouraged to play with Adam and as I was/am a nice, sensitive, well-mannered boy, I was encouraged to come/go back again. One day pretty soon, Adam is insisting that I come up stairs with him because there is something that he has to show me up there..as we pass the bathroom he pushes me in, slams and locks the door, and produces a friggin’ butcher knife at least three feet long. (yes, yes, its like a pre-ja vu,) The boy is making the most horrible faces, speaking hysterically in some gutteral eastern European language, and indicating that he is about to stab me to death.
Between my own hysteri-ac-s I’m thinking “Mother, I please don’t ever make me go play with someone just to nice ever again,” I’m squeeking and yodeling at the top of my voice for his Mother’s help, while wondering if she may be part of the deal and busy readying the roasting pan. In my wonder thunks, I’m thinking “if you grown ups know he’s crazy why did you take your eyes off of us, am I sacrificed so you can pretend he’s ok? (Can you do that? think, wonder, yodel and screech all at once? It makes for a noisy noggin, I can tell you.)
Finally his mother responded to my caterwauling and came to the locked bathroom door. After God’s own eternity she was able to de-escalate him, open the door and get the knife. She wanted me to.stay and play some more but God bless her and him, I could not. I was out of there, I fled for my flerking life. When his father came home he came over to our bungalow to apologize and to give me a shiny penny to come back and play again tomorrow, but ah, dear God, I would not. I was sorry for him and for them, but good God awmighty.
At that time the song “Enjoy Your Self It’s Later Than You Think” was a big hit. That’s when it first occurred to me that songs could have real meaning. My earliest favorite female singers were Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Edith Piaf and Teresa Brewer. I think that you know about the emotion with the first three, but an additional reason is of course, phrasing, phrasing and phrasing. With Teresa Brewer, it was her spunk I loved her recording of “Music Music Music” (Put another Nickel in, in the Nickelodeon). It just jumps for joy. Later on I also loved “This Ol House” by Rosemary Clooney (and while we’re on records, “Blue Velvet” by Mr. Benedetto doing the once and for all rendition, of that once and for all song and Ella Fitzgerald singing “A Tisket A Tasket” a masterpiece)
In those Rockaway days, Gale and I each had our own very favorite song. The grownups made a big deal out of that, I guess they were reinforcing in us what we reinforced for them, the idea that songs are important. Gale’s song was “Dinah” It started out.. “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah, someone’s in the kitchen I know, oh oh oh , Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah strumming on the old Banjo” and then it went
“Fe Fi Fiddle de I oh, Fe Fi Fiddle de I oh oh oh oh , Fe Fi Fiddle de I oooh, Strummin’ on the old Banjo” .
And then It went “Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow your horn.. or.. ..orn Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow your horn.. or.. ..orn”
The song tangled up my poor noggin, there were so many sections that I didn’t know which went where and what went next,..But I loved my sister Gale. And I wanted to love her song too..
I just didn’t understand what the heck was goin’ on when we were singing it.. On the other hand, I had a favorite song that took about four seconds to sing before I’d got swept away and lost completely “Down by the station early in the morning, see the little puffer bellies all in a row” after “all in a row” I always found my self singing “Aluetta shantee alouetta” and then (even now) saying “Huh”? And starting all over again.
I listened to the music on the radio with great interest, I loved the singing and I loved the songs. They really touched me. I was interested in how I felt listening to them. “There’s A Small Hotel”, “The Tennesee Waltz”, “Three Coins In The Fountain” Even though I had not yet had the experiences being described or referenced, I was able to imagine my self in a same similar situation and be empathetic. And man, the harmonies in “Three Coins In The Fountain” were down right magical.
I remember being in a marshy sand dunes area at maybe Jones Beach, with Mud and Lea (and Lea’s boyfriend “Slope”) and Gale. It was fall. The car was parked and the top was down and although we were out walking around, the radio was on. Frankie Laine was singing “I Go Where The Wild Goose Goes” The power of the singing, the song and the imagery, eliciting an involuntary “wow” from me.
Incidently, for years I associated Frankie Laine with that record and related songs (like Rawhide) but Gale and I recently came across a CD of his Greatest Hits and we couldn’t stop listening. He did some really great work before (and after) being pigeonholed with “Wild Goose and Rawhide.” Listening to him sing through his catalog on that CD, One could make a really really good case for Frankie Laine being a White Rhythm and Blues or Rock And Roll singer.
Again, his phrasing is just beautiful. I recently saw his old hipster self singing “That’s My Desire” (a great tune) At ninety odd, on PBS, and then heard shortly after that he had passed away, God Bless Frankie Laine, he was the real McCoy.
The Rock and Roll singers that were my influences and favorites were Frankie Lymon, pre-army Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, Johnny Maestro (of the Crests, (“16 Candles” says it all,). Paul Anka, Jackie Wilson, Bobby Rydell, Ray Peterson, Ray Charles and most of all Ben E. King. Every one of them with a great and expressive voice but ultimately, masters of phrasing.
The Rock and Roll Girls (I have learned an awful lot from female singers, particularly in the area of dynamics and..yep, phrasing) Lavern Baker, Arlene Smith of the Chantels, (after “16 Candles”, “Maybe” says the rest). Timi Yuro, Connie Francis, Brenda Lee, The Shirells, Dusty Springfield and The Ronettes.
As I’ve noted earlier, down in the Islands we had an awful lot of Southern Gospel and Country and Western, and some of those singers were important influences for me. Gene Autry, Hank Williams, Jim Reeves and Marty Robbins (El Paso is a Masterpiece) and the Great Patsy Cline.
In addition, we had Calypsonians who were second to none in their Vocal technique and presentation. The Mighty Sparrow (still going strong) Lord Melody, Lord Kitchner and The Duke Of Iron every one a great phraser. Out of Puerto Rico there was the incomparable Ishmael Rivera, singer with El Magnificante, Cortijo Y Su Combo, The Trio Los Panchos (The greatest harmonies ever), and Lucho Gatica singing “El Camino Verde”,.
Now, having listed all of these favorites, I have to say that I learned more about singing from my own dear Fadder dear than anyone else. As a teenager I often found myself (for one reason or another) “on the road” with him. We traveled together on and off for years, drinking and singing..”It’s all in the phrasing Fidel, it’s all in the phrasing” (My father called me “Fidel the F##king bomb thrower from the islands” well..because,) he also said that my Mother had named me “Scott” after her army pilot “boyfriend” who had crashed his bomber into the Empire State Building, and she shoulda let him name me Claude like he wanted to.)
When he realized that he had sired another singer. he immediately auditioned me on one word and one word alone, “lemme hear you sing it Fidel, just lemme hear you sing it, cause I’ll know in a second if you can sing, jus lemme hear you sing it! Sing the word.. love”. The interesting thing was, with that particular word, I didn’t care what any body said, I knew with all the confidence in the world that I could sing and express love vocally.
Fortunately he agreed and we got busy singing every kind of song under the sun including every Irish tune ever written or imagined… There were many a nerve-racking midnight performance (the first one especially) for women in sentimental settings when he would say, “Ah, Fidel, sing Danny Boy for me Fidel, sing Danny Boy for me”
One of the proudest moments of my life, was the first time I sang it through for him. Opening the song with just the right phrasing and dynamics, coming up to and hitting those high notes just right, hanging there just long enough and singing it through ever so tenderly and beautifully with just enough hope just enough cry.., just the way he had sung it for me. Yep..this singing is a good thing, an I like it…
Book. 2 Scott it’s gonna be rough, you sing too good and..
I’ve been working on sets and tunes most of the day and decided to design sets in different genres. I love to sing and the song is the thing. Who cares which genre it is? The criteria for these songs is “Do you like to sing it”?There are so many beautiful songs that I like to sing. I guess I ought to accept and confess that I like beautiful songs and I like to sing them. Not only, but also.
In 1964, on my first day in New York City, I went up to Doc Pomus’s room at the Forrest Hotel on 49th Street and Broadway, to sing for him. In the conversation that occurred immediately after I had sung, and he had announced to me that “he was going to sign me,” Doc said “Scottie, it’s gonna be rough, you sing too good.” That is most certainly still among the very nicest things any one has ever said to me…
It meant that my efforts to beat back my shyness, sharpen my ear, master dynamics, phrase the phrasing, control my emotions and gather, focus and direct these elements towards producing a vocal sound that accurately expressed the depth of my feelings, had been realized. I could have stood up right then and there, shaken his hand, left the room and gone back to the islands, because I had been successful at doing what I had hoped with all my heart and soul to someday be able to do. Sing how I felt, sing what I was feeling.
However, I didn’t go back home because there were two more very important aspects of my intention that had not yet been realized. People, specifically you, had not yet received what I was sending, so the circuit was not yet complete, and, my family was depending on me to bring home at least a calabash full of cash… The welfare (social services) had taken my little brothers Larry and Lonnie. They were in foster care hoping and waiting for me to get them out, Mud was on her way to becoming a homeless alcoholic woman in Miami, my dear fadder dear was living in a skeeter riven rust bucket semi-collapsed trailer at the concentric center of swamp central hell in Dipso Swampo, La Florida. My beautiful big sister Gale was traveling the country is a grass skirt as a Hawaiian Dancer. Aka Lelanie, aka Edie Isle, and I of course, before sailing two Thousand miles as a bilge rat on a woodchip with a name, had most recently been residing in the bushes on the airport runway side of “Sarah Hill” down in the Bongo Isles.
And therein lay the root of my soul splitting conflict for the next forty seven years. “Art or commerce” (which meant to me, “to be an honest or a dis-honest artist” “to be real or be phony” “to maintain your integrity or lose your soul” “to hold the line at any costs or sell out.” I chose to hold the line, because I believed that it really mattered. I thought that if I were sincere in my art, we would be alright materially, as a just and fair by-product of a cosmic karmic preference for truth and justice and the Amer-artisti-can way.
However, while I am a “true believer” the “possibility” has become a possibility that possibility is indifferent to our subjective anthromorphic projections about justice, artistic compromise, and all that…further, I realize more completely than ever, that it’s the artist (her or him self) that gets to decide how they wish to express themselves, certainly not the self appointed experts who earn their attention by sitting on the sidelines being cruely (though sometimes cleverly) critical of artists and their efforts.
Still, whatever the cosmic yin yan, I love to sing and the song is still not completed, the circuit is still not satisfied until the song is received by you…until you hear it. SoI’m a singing, I’m a sending….
Book. 1 Favorite Singers and Rockaway Days
People ask me from time to time who my favorite singers are or were, they expect a fairly simple and direct answer. Generally, I shift the subject away to something easy like the recipe for Kalaloo or Quantum Physics, but we have a moment here in which I can try to answer what I view as a relatively complicated but fair musical question, somewhat seriously. My early musical exposure was across the board, so naturally my musical influences are across the board.
My first favorite singer was one of the greatest master phrasers of all, and the little one’sdelight, Jimmy Durante. I loved him and what a lesson in phraseing he is. “Ink..ka..dink..ka..dink..” Then came Gene Autry, he had a warm, really reassuring quality to his singing that seemed completely effortless. He, is who I was going to be when I grew up, (if not Johnny Appleseed.) A little later came Johnny Ray, I loved his quasi-hysterical presentation, his wonderful phrasing and the powerful emotion in his voice. I loved his songs too, especially “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud That Cried” they captured some of each of the worlds that I was bridging at the time A child’s anthromorphic cartoon world and heartbreak. Clearly a guy that spoke (or sang) for me. (incidently, I think one could argue successfully that Johnny Ray (like Johnny Ace and believe it or not Frankie Laine before the “Wild Goose Goes” and “Rawhide” stuff) was a Rock and Roll Singer, but that’s another story.)
I loved the warm full reassurance of “Nat King Cole” the Popular singer, (although I was already familiar with the “Nat Cole Trio” from my Mother’s Jazz records,) the expanded arrangements and back ground singers of his hit records, like “Answer Me My Love” “Mona Lisa” and “Nature Boy” were just beautiful and inspirational to me.
I was familiar with Billy Eckstein and Al Hibbler from Mud’s records but the Billy Eckstein vibrato seemed too wobbly for me and Al Hibbler was maybe too romantically adult. So the other on my list of favorites from that time is Anthony Bennideto. What a beautiful singer. We were some how connected to him through “Johnny The Greek” a dear friend of both Mud’s and Frankie’s who had a little Greek restaurant and Hotel in Rockaway, New York.
Just before Mud and Aunt Lea moved to the islands we were living on beach 16th street in Rockaway Park, Just in from the boardwalk and the sand. I have a number of interesting memories from that time, but a big one was a hit record (by Nat King Cole) called “Calypso Blues” (Sittin’ by de ocean oh how I feel so bad, ain’t got the money to take me back to Trinidad, Wa oh oh wa oh oh wa oh wa oh oh oh wa ay) Spoke (or should I say sang) my language right off the bat. It’s interesting how things work out…
There are a number of Calypso Singers that had a direct Influence as well. Among them are Lord Melody,The Mighty Sparrow, Lord Kitchner, and Yes Harry Belafonte, he sang beautifully Lord Burgess was the writer of many of Harry’s songs and he certanly was an influence as well. Lucho Gatica, The Trio Los Panchos and Ishmael Rivera were also quite influential. I loved the anonymous Jibarito singers and will try to honor them always.
Another powerful Rockaway image is of a freighter, washed ashore after a tremendous Gale. There it was, “shipwrecked” completely aground, rusty and wind blown, tilted on its side but gigantically romantic, especially for a lad of four, born with a head full of wild imaginings.
A third is walking along the Boardwalk in the fall with a little friend and his father. The father pointing to a hotel and saying “that’s where the Jews stay, they have/keep snakes on the floor in the lobby” When I asked why? He said “I don’t know, It’s because they like to do that, because that’s the way they are” That didn’t feel right to me, it felt like the kind of thing that you call “A big fat stinkin’ lie” but why would someone’s father tell us little kids to believe a big fat stinkin’ lie like that? That didn’t make any sense to me. When I told my Mother what he had said, she confirmed that it was a big fat stinkin’ lie.
Mud arranged that I never saw them again or I might have asked him (in my naïve way) why he would make up a big fat mean stinkin’ lie, and tell us sweet little kids a big fat stinkin’ lie like that.
There are a few other Rockaway memories that I suspect were powerful in shaping my alter ego “Sad Glad Lad”,
This beautiful angel girl, my special “friend” was no more. She had choked on a little rubber “jacks” ball and died. To this day, I still can’t believe it… Continued…
Book 2. Give Love A Chance…
In the Summer of 1966 I was living on East 60th street (just down from a wonderful little shop called “Serendipity”) under the wing of my extraordinary friend Roberta Wolfe, Roberta, was a high fashion, artist girl living on the top floor of, a classy three story Brownstone, owned by the Shubert family when she fell in with me.
She provided shelter, hugs and human kindness (as well as the brown paper bag that I wrote “Give Love A Chance” on.)We met at Steve Paul’s “The Scene” where I had become the house singer, and she was one of a number of hip New York artist chicks that looked amazing and created magic and excitement (like some pixie dust back draft) every where they went. The Scene was an exciting and very cool environment, full of young up and coming graduates of “Music and Art” (the New York City High School that “FAME” was based on) and hip cool creative folks from every discipline and inclination from London, LA. And everywhere in between. I was ahead of most of the up and comers, in that I had already been signed by Columbia Records, and was being managed by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, two living legends of Rock And Roll.
I was also an anomaly in that I was obviously a ruffian with no formal education who “sang like an angel” a hundred and twenty pounds of passionate pretty white boy from de Islands “who come tu change de worl mon!”
The extraordinary Roberta and I had a “best of pals” or “sweet pally hearts” or some such, or another “it’s complicated” kind of arrangement.
The primary complicating factor was that I was “in love” with four other girls, all of whom thought they felt the same about me. (One of them was”Pixie” the beautiful dreamer that was the inspiration for “Give Love A Chance”) Did I mention it was the summer of ’66?. …You can imagine the complications.
However, Roberta was also a kind of business partner, I was being managed and produced by Mort Shuman, (who along with Doc Pomus had written (among many others) “Teenager In Love” “Hushabye” “Sweets For My Sweet” “This Magic Moment” and “Save The Last Dance For Me” and yes, “Viva Las Vegas”) Roberta had taken on the “social secretary responsibility” for him of making sure that every thing relating to me and music and business, got done on time. Ah…the dear thing had her hands full.
As noted, I had written “Give Love A Chance” on a brown paper bag at Roberta’s pad and now we were about to record it along with “Tutsie” a song that I had written in honor of my good friend back in the Islands.
I was ultra serioso about the songs and the upcoming recording session (which was being produced at Associated Studios in NYC, by Mort and the great Kookoolis.)
So, finally we were at the point where the session was scheduled for 7:00 PM the next evening, In order to be rested and well prepared, I insisted on going to bed around 8:00 PM with my noggin and throat all wrapped up like Caruso. I had jars of honey and slices of lemon all over the place, along with pots of steaming hot water, and countless wrapping towels and wash cloths. In addition, I wanted at least an hour and a half in advance of “Taxi time”, to “tune up the pipes”
When I opened my peepers the clock said 6:30, I looked out the window and saw it was getting dark, I freaked out. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my battle-axe, flew down the stairs and started hailing taxis, with Roberta steps behind. We jumped into the first one to stop and in a panic I asked the driver, “what time is it, what time is it” He looked back over his shoulder and said, “It’s 6:30 in the morning Bub, whadindahell time do you think it is? Ah..the poor girl. Thank you Roberta for your many kindnesses and please forgive me for my own stupidities. I am sorry.
I had already done two other singles sessions before” Give Love A Chance” (One for Columbia with Wes Farrel producing, and the other for Big Top Records, with Morty producing) and numerous demo sessions, so I was not a complete novice, however this session was especially important to me, in that these were my own tunes, I thought “Give Love A Chance” might make some difference in the world, and I knew very acutely that my Mother and younger brothers were depending on me to rescue them from want. I was determined that one way or the other, I would come through for them…and the world.
There were a few things that ping ponged my noggin about the recordings. First, the third (and wrap up) verse of “Give Love A Chance” was eleminated before the record was released because the record (at 3:15) was considered too long for radio play, the ideal time for a single was thought to be 2:15, (I was told that the time preference was based on how many commercials you could fit into the hour..pero yo no se) Also,while I was a relatively experienced singer, I was new at recording my own songs. This created an odd tension for me in that the singer wanted to be free to interpret the song, but the writer felt it was paramount to demonstrate the melody exactly and verbatim.
On “Tutsie” you can hear this conflict very clearly; I just didn’t know what to do about it. The same conflict shows up again here and there on South Atlantic Blues. The solution ultimately, is to do a fairly exact song demo which then allows one the freedom to “sing it like you wanna” there after.
The recordings got me signed to BANG Records by Bert Berns ((He wrote Twist and Shout, Hang On Sloopy and many others) Bert was a really hot up and coming writer/record company owner music business impressario, I was one of three singer songwriters that he signed to his label at once. The others were Neil Diamond, and Van Morrison. The others had their breakthrough, but during the week leading up to my first release, Bert Berns had a heart attack and died. It was a sad sad day in the music business; Bert was well liked, and highly regarded, people expected great things from him, as did I…
The songs went on to be big jukebox hits in the V.I. Here’s “Give Love A Chance” and below it is “Tutsie” as first recorded in the summer of 1966.
Give Love A Chance
I know just where you’re at and what you’re going through
I know uncertainty has won the best of you
I know you’re lost, and all your friends are too
And when your crying and you don’t know what to do
You ought to..
Give Love a Chance to make you happy
and it will and it will
Give love a chance to make you happy
and it will and it will
When your tomorrows are the same as yesterday
And your belief in live has slowly faded way
When there’s no laughing or..crying anymore
There’s only sleeping and.. news about the war
You ought to..
Give Love a Chance to make you happy
and it will and it will
Give love a chance to make you happy
and it will and it will
And if you could things would be so much more than right
Every cross you’re carrying would vanish overnight
And the days of laughter and tears would come again
And to your surprise you’d be a winner in the end…
You ought to…
Give Love a Chance to make you happy
And it will and it will
Give love a chance to make you happy
and it will and it will
Here’s “Tutsie
And a skinny little fellow looks a little bit like me,
Lives on an Island in the Caribbean sea
And he drinks straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord he really is a smash
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
He spends all his days cooling out in Trader Dan’s,
There’s no time for working in my friend Tutsie’s plans
He wears a pretty flower tucked up in an old straw hat
But if you should try to fight him, he’d show you where it’s at.
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
I wish I were like Tutsie and could do as I please,
then I’d be barefoot at the Foxes’ Tamarindo
And I’d drink straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord, I’d really be a smash
And I’d live off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
And have fun selling bags of cool Island breeze
I’d live high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
And someday I’d be a Pirate, you know someday I will.
After realizing what I had done, I wanted to give the song Tutsie another opportunity to be heard, so I stuck it in the middle of La Beiga Carousel. Here’s the most recent recording of the medley as it appears in “The Virgin Islands Songs”.
La Beiga Carousel (From Scott Fagan’s “The Virgin Islands Songs”)
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
And a skinny little fellow looks a little bit like me,
Lives on an Island in the Caribbean sea
And he drinks straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord he really is a smash
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
An’ I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Man I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
And he spends all his days cooling out in Trader Dan’s,
There’s no time for working in my friend Tutsie’s plans
He wears a pretty flower tucked up in an old straw hat
But if you should try to fight him, he’d show you where it’s at.
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
An’ I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Man I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
And I wish I were like Tutsie and could do as I please,
then I’d be barefoot at the Foxes’ Tamarindo
And I’d drink straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord, I’d really be a smash
And I’d live off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
And have fun selling bags of cool Island breeze
I’d live high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
And someday I’d be a Pirate, you know someday I will.
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Book 3. Caribilly Continued, The Emperor of The North.
Book 3. Caribilly Continued, The Emperor of The North.
Around 1973, my friend Tutsie took me up to the North Side, to Estate Neljeteberg to meet his new guru “Roupe” and to sit a while at the Roupe’s bar. Roupe, was an old Creole fisherman, his Grand father was a German (Moolinar) who had owned the entire Estate, his Grand Mother was an ex slave from the British Island of Tortola. Roupe, had golden skin, wild wavy hair and green absolutely merry with mischief eyes,. He was dressed in kaki gurka shorts, a favorite ripped and faded shirt and a cowboy hat made of straw.
His bar/house was an unfinished two story concrete block construction with a dirt floor and no roof on the second floor.. The walls and window spaces up above gave the impression of a psychedelically lopsided medieval castle, while the drinking and living quarters was a menagerie for merrymaking madmen and wild chickens, and there were plenty of both.
The Roupe, or Calwin aka The Vampire aka The Emperor of The North, sang and played an old old very old rusty stringed Spanish guitar, tuned to a reference note that only he could hear. Or perhaps a note that existed on the equally ancient orchestral flute/pipe that only he could play. What a merry mix of madness the music was. It was Caribilly at the source.
Roupe, or Calwin, or The Emperor aka The Obeah Man, had a most extraordinary sweetheart living there with him, quite a daunt in her own right. “Doris” was a large, and very dark lady who had come down from Tortola many years before. She had twelve fingers, and twelve toes (demonstrating perhaps a genetic inclination to ultra naughty behavior amongst her immediate ancestral), but the extras came in mighty handy when referenced as “proof of things supernatural” by Calwin when he was in his (Voodoo) “Obeah Man” bag.
It turned out that Calwin had a deal with many of the superstitious north side French people, they would acknowledge him as the baddest of the baddest, the “Emperor of The North” and he would refrain from raining down Obeah, or Voodoo curses upon them.
Doris had married a local French man, and inherited his land, which included some rent paying properties. This meant that Doris was not only a wiggling and willing living twelve digit proof of The Emperor’s mastery of magic, but a lady of means, a lady with Monarchs! (Which may account for Doris’s monthly accusatory chorus of “Calwin yu stinkin’ one drawers ting yu, is only me f**kin’ Monarchs yu want!”)
The libation of choice at Calwin’s was the rankest of Gins, in fact the very same gin that had caused the London gin epidemic of 1760, it was vile. However, like everyone else, Doris drank double her share and then some.
Rough as they were, (and they were plenty rough) they were genuinely good souls, Many a Saturday night became Sunday morning at Calwin’s and that meant that we all switched from the profane to the insanely profane, or to drink addled hymns and the blitzed reading of everyone’s favorite passages from the good book.
Calwin is the good fellow that taught me the old Virgin Islands “folk song” La Beiga Carousel, which I fell in love with and stuck my song about my friend “Tutsie” right in the middle of, making a medley which I then recorded on “Many Sunny Places” aka “The Helsinki Album”
Here’s what it sounded like on the Helsinki Album Released on RCA as “Many Sunny Places”
La Beiga Carousel/Tutsie
Cho. 1)
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night, before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night, before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle, tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle, tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Ver. 1
And a skinny little fellow looks a little bit like me,
Lives on an Island in the Caribbean sea
And he drinks straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord he really is a smash
Cho.1
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
(La Beiga Cho. 2)
An’ I’ll walk and drink rum whole night, before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Man I’ll walk and drink rum whole night, before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Ver. 2
And he spends all his days cooling out in Trader Dan’s,
There’s no time for working in my friend Tutsie’s plans
He wears a pretty flower tucked up in an old straw hat
But if you should try to fight him, he’d show you where it’s at.
Cho.2
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
(La Beiga Cho. 3)
An’ I’ll walk and drink rum whole night, before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Man I’ll walk and drink rum whole night, before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Ver. 3
And I wish I were like Tutsie and could do as I please,
then I’d be barefoot at the Foxes’ Tamarindo
And I’d drink straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord, I’d really be a smash
Cho.3
And I’d live off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
And have fun selling bags of cool Island breeze
I’d live high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
And someday I’d be a Pirate, you know someday I will.
(La Beiga Cho. 4)
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night, before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night, before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle, tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle, tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel.
What an outrageous and colorful, multifaceted man and musician he was, and what fun we had spending time with him … Calwin, Roupe, The Vampire, The Obeah Man aka The Emperor of The North (just a few of his pseudonyms) was the wildest of the wildest, of our very own Caribilly Cowboys.
When he died, I was asked to sing at his grave side. I was deeply honored to do so. As we crowded around in the little family cemetery by the side of the road, directly across from Calwins Caribilly Bar, at the Top ‘O the World, Estate Neljteberg, Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands, I sang the song requested. “Home Home On The Range” it was the most natural thing in the world.
After he died, I wrote Captain Creole in remembrance of yet another side of him.
Captain Creole
The word spread through The Virgins, the Old Creole was dead
He died in the light of the full moon night, in a swordfight, in his bed
Some say he was crazy, he had a rum dream in his head
But I will tell you, in his words, what Captain Creole said…
He said “Old Pirates never die, dry your eyes we don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
The Dancing Senoritas, the Ghosts of Buried Gold
The German and The African that battled in his soul
The Jolly Jolly Rodger, The Treasure Ships of Spain
Called out to him and bid him come… back to The Spanish Main
Because “Old Pirates never die, dry your eyes they don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
The word spread through The Virgins, Like the ringing of an old ships bell
The Preacher turned to Heaven, most folks bet on Hell
The Old Creole was sinking, the Old Creole was gone
And we cried in the light of the full moon night, whispering his song
He said “Old Pirates never die, dry your eyes we don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
Old Pirates never die, dry your eyes we don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
Book 3. Caribilly
Jeff (Medina, worlds champeen guitar) was anxious to get back to Las Vegas as soon as possible, so having been told that reservation cancellations show up just after midnight in each time zone, I called American Airlines very early in the morning and by God a seat had opened up..I was able to get Jeff’s flight moved from Wednesday to Tuesday.
I picked him up at the boarding house and headed for the studio, knowing that all of our moolah for rent was gone, and he had no place to stay. I was able to cheer him up a bit with the news that I had managed to move his flight from Wednesday to Tuesday
We did “One World” and “When You Take it all Away” (recordings in process), Jeff did beautiful work..Derrick (the engineer) was very pleased and so was I.
It occurred to me to call Tuts’s son Marcel, about a place for Jeff to stay, so after the session, I did. I ran the sitch down to Marcel and he brightly piped up “Oh you’d like to know if he can stay in the cottage?” I said yes, and Marcel (God bless him coming and going) said Of COURSE! You could have knocked me down with a feather. His offer was such a perfect solution.
“Top O the World” is where Marcel lives. Straight up Crown Mountain, and right into the rain forest. Trees up to heaven with leaves as big as a couch and as cooling as a Fedders 1940 Frosty Boy Deluxe. The uppermost branches of these trees are what folks sit on while playing dominos in the sweet bye and bye. And right down amongst the parakeets, wind chimes and hummingbird feeders is the fairyland world of Marcel, his wife Lisa and their three daughters Simoneque, Nika and Jae. And now in the cottage, Jeff. What a perfect solution, what a beautiful Marcel.
The setting is just up the road from one of the birthplaces of Caribilly Music (the combination Of Country and WestIndian) as described in my (not yet recorded) song “Calwins Caribilly Bar”
“Calwins Caribilly Bar”
From the tip top of the mountain, rising like a crystal fountain
that Caribilly music drifts up to the sky
when it reaches bye and bye, you can hear the angels sigh
that Caribilly music makes me laugh and cry.
On an Island in the moonlight, driftwood fire burning bright
were gonna keep on singing til we get it right
bongos banjos and guitars Caribilly cane rum in an old fruit jar
the closest thing to heaven, Calwins Caribilly Bar
When Caribilly plays you hear the people say
it’s the craziest confusion but we like it ay?
They say, Howdy mon y’all, no problem have a ball
Melodies so pretty I just fly away
On an Island in the moonlight, driftwood fire burning bright
were gonna keep on singing if we sing all night
bongos banjos and guitars Caribilly cane rum in an old fruit jar
the closest thing to heaven, Calwins Caribilly Bar.
I’ll be there tonight, driftwood fire burning bright
were gonna keep on singing til we git it right
bongos banjos and guitars Caribilly cane rum in an old fruit jar
the closest thing to heaven, Calwins Caribilly Bar
From the tip-top of the Mountain raising like a crystal fountain
a Caribilly symphony sweeps up to the sky
when it reaches bye and bye you can hear the Angles sigh
that Caribilly music makes me laugh and cry
I’ll be there tonight, driftwood fire burning bright
were gonna keep on singing til we git it right
bongos banjos and guitars Caribilly cane rum in an old fruit jar
the closest thing to heaven, Calwins Caribilly Bar….
Calwin Martin Mullenar was a one and only. However, he was also one among many in the Virgins and West Indies, who loved and tried to play Country and Western Music, but wound up inventing “Caribilly” instead..
Here is a passage from my new Musical “The Virgin Island Songs” called “Sookies Western Jamboree” that throws a little light on the genesis of this Country and Western “Cowboy ideation” in The Virgin Islands (and the West Indies in general).
SOOKIES WESTERN JAMBOREE
Some of you good people will remember that once upon a time we had one radio station in The Virgin Islands, called WSTA.
A wonderful station that did it’s best to play something for everyone. This meant that we were all exposed to every kind of music.
Believing in music as I do, I believe that this wide exposure had a very positive effect on us all. Among the varieties that we enjoyed was good old Southern Gospel and what they called back then, Country and Western.
At 3 O’clock in the afternoon the Virgin Islands looked forward to a show hosted by a young Buckaroo from Frenchtown called “Sookiess Western Jamboree”. The show featured artists like Hank Williams, Gentleman Jim Reeves, Faron Young, Skeeter Davis and Patsy Cline and songs like “Your cheating Heart” “Cold Cold Heart “Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On” “He’ll Have To Go” and many others.
In those days as you know we here in The Virgin Islands had a number of our own “home-grown cowboys” young (and old) rough and ready hombres who worked and lived out in the wild wild East, West, North and South Side and rode their horses all over the place and once a year in the big carnival parades.
In addition to the working cowboys, there were a number of fellows in town who had perhaps been too strongly influenced by the Western Movies that played at The Apollo, The Alexander, and The Center Theater what seemed like every day and night of every week of every month of every year for many years running.
These home-grown hombres certainly considered themselves to be the real deal also, and as romantic a figure as any other cowpoke anywhere and they were.
As noted elsewhere in “The Virgin Islands Songs”, I fully intended to grow up to be Gene Autry the singing cowboy. So naturally I was very interested in learning how to “make up” songs like those that we heard, on Sookies Western Jamboree, and in the cowboy movies.
Here is one of my own Caribilly influenced songs, (written with the brilliant McCauley Brothers) reflecting the influence of and my love for “Country and Westindian” or Caribilly. So here we go..in rememberance of Sookie’s Western Jamboree and our very own Caribilly Cowboys.
“Sweet Cheyenne”
I’m going to tell you a story
about Sweet Cheyenne
it’s been, a hell of a life, but she’s always done
the best that she can
There is a girl called Sweet Cheyenne
she comes from down Texas way
she needs someone who understands
she’s spending the night in Santa Fe
A cowboy came south from Alberta
To leave his past behind
it’s been a hell of a life, but he never gave up,
he’s just not that kind
There is a girl called Sweet Cheyenne
She comes from down Texas way
She needs someone who ‘ll understand
He’s spending the night in Santa Fe
There on St. Francis street
these two travelers meet
God Blessed the girl called Sweet Cheyenne
The girl from down Texas way
And the Calgary cowboy they call Dan
Spending the night in Santa Fe
God Blessed a girl called Sweet Cheyenne
who does the best she can
And a kind gentle cowboy they call Dan
Cause he’s found his woman, and she’s found her man…
Book 3. The Vigil… Conclusion.
Book 3. The Vigil… Conclusion.
Remarkably, along the long zig zaggy journey to uncovering and discovering “who yu tink yu is?” or more precisely, “Who is you is you is?” these good folks have for the most part, found their way to being themselves.
It is long past time that we stop telling people who they should be, (based on the old racist models, or the newer racist bullying of the “who’s blacker than who prison gang model”) and allow people to decide for themselves who they are, and how they wish to be..and further, to welcome them there
You might think that I’ve been on some kind of a socio/religiological dig, or vigiling for reasons to rant and rave, but I’ve been thinking about these things long and hard since my own childhood and particularly since I (as a young white boy) became the older brother to one and then another younger brother of color.Trying my big brother best to help each of them find their way in the world; as children of color and young men of color and then, as men of color, with children of their own, of color.
In addition to these thoughts and concerns swirling in and out of my head and around and through the solemnity of the occasion, I confess that I have also been holding close, a secret hope, to see a certain smile.
I am watching and waiting for the one who inspired my poem “The Girl With The Golden Skin”
“The Girl With The Golden Skin”
When I was a boy I fell in love with the girl with the golden skin
Gold dust is her face, she glowed as if she were little sister to the sun
I whispered her name to the moon, I sang, she was music to me
Can you imagine?.. A girl with golden skin..
She fought in the street for me when another girl said, “he’s mine”
And again when her Mother said “he will never do”
he is too Splotchy and blotchy and pink and red and foolish
to think of you,
the girl with the golden skin.
You are our pride and our joy
You are our prized possession
the peak of perfection
he will never do, he is not for you.
The sky was blue in those days,
The air like frangipangi soup
the world a ruckus of color and sound
my head pounded to think of her,
I could never catch my breath
You are not for him, her father said
We have suffered for centuries to make you as you are
denied our destiny from Africa to Colon
slaved in increments of a hundred, hundred years
To make you
You are not for him
I was a hero in those days, a little one but still..macho
A splotchi-ty blotchi-ty pink and red, 85 pound macho man
A hero for justice and equality, a fly weight street fighting “doun de road” boy
Against the drunken U.S. Navy. Once, twice three times a week
“But he’s good Mam’ere and he’s a hero” she said, “I love him”
“He is not for you,” said her Grand Mother “he is nothing but a ragamuffin pae-hae
his Mother is a drunken white woman married to a drunken black man
life will trample him, time will explode his illusions
like balloons on a string
bang, bang, bang, in his empty and presumptuous big head
You are our triumph, our future story. We vanquished Portugal and Spain,
Africa and the Aztec. the Dutch and Dane, the Carib and the Ciboney
All are in you, the girl with the golden skin, the apex of our intention
the vessel of our arrival, the dawn of our day, the virgin saint of our freedom come
There were trade winds in those days, and I would put my face in them
I knew that they came from Sahara,
I knew that they carried truth across time
to those that cared to listen.
and so I came to know my place..
Still, a lifetime later,
I can never catch my breath
my temples pound
I will love forever, the girl with the golden skin
Gold dust is her face, little sister to the sun
I whisper her name to the moon, I sing, she is music to me
The apex of perfection, the virgin saint of freedom come, the girl with the golden skin
The one that they would bless for you, could never be me.
because he must never be… less than golden too…
I had been at the vigil for over an hour, and had promised my friend Nicky Russel (The Mighty Whitey) that I would come and do some tunes at his open mike night at “Tickles”, a bar and restaurant in the Crown Bay Marina. I was beginning to go back and forth between the idea that it was time to go home to start tuning up the pipes for the performance, and staying right where I was, to hear the service and especially the singing of the old spirituals. (And yes, I’ve confessed that a certain lady girl was on my mind).
I struggled back and forth and finally, my sense of artistic responsibility won. I got up and excused my self along the pew and headed out.
When I got to the foyer, I ran right into the girl with the golden skin.
She looked at me with her aquamarine eyes and said in a melodious voice that moves me like a Philharmonic “I heard your new song (Surrender To The Sun) on the radio this morning” My dear friends,..can you imagine what those words mean and meant to me? As I cooly stammered out “Yee ya yo ya yu did?” my shoulder was grabbed from the other side by my old friend Freddie, the Chief of the Carib/Arawak Federation, and in that moment she was gone.
I stared in amazement as the crowd that I had just come through, closed around her.
Friends, I have loved this girl for over fifty years. That’s a long time for a boy of thirteen to hold on to that kind of feeling, but there it is. In all that time, in all the years that I have known her, we have not exchanged more than a hundred words with one another, and sixteen of the best of them were spoken and sputtered just moments ago.
I would like you to know, that I know that she is a married Lady, (and unbelievably, a mother and grand mother even) and that I would never intentionally disrupt her situation in any way (well in ultra-truth, I would hope that she still holds at least a sparkle of affection (if not a raging wildfire) for me, but I will not be disrespectful of her situation or her sweetheart, and will behave appropriately..(This despite my dear friend and long time advisor in matters of relationships and the heart, (who shall remain anonymous,) insisting over and again that clearlyI should have grabbed her and pulled her into the room where they keep the frozen dead people, and given her a big fat smooch)
Anyway..I struggled with the irony and a cascade of ephemeral but insistent emotions and concluded that the Great God almighty was saving at least two of his star-crossed children from further heartbreak and mayhem, and that my shoulder grabbing friend Freddy, Attorney at Law, Chief Of The Carib and Arawak Federation, ultimate Wazam of The Knights of The Mysterioso, was used this day by the divine as an interventionary angel. I wondered if Freddie had felt the gentle hand of the Eternal directing him as he reached out and distracted me from pursuing what might have become (and still could be) a disasterous and dastardly destiny.
Whatever else, “The girl with the golden skin” has always been an inspiration to me and will be forever. I do hope that she knows or at least suspects how grateful I am to her, for her…
Book 3. The Vigil…
I went to the viewing for a “much-loved by the community” friend this afternoon, at the Davis Funeral Home. The paper said that the viewing was scheduled from four to six PM, I got there a little early, and parked between the Western Cemetery #1 and #2. The Western Cemetery is over three hundred years old and is one of a number of very old burial grounds in Charlotte Amalia and on the Island of St. Thomas.
The Western Cemetery was in two sections (#1 and #2) for many years and has now become three. It’s very reminiscent of New Orleans with the above ground (always picturesque some time quite fancy) vaults. Within the old stone walls and beneath ancient mahogany trees, time stands still.
I have been affected by the powerful emotional impact of this place since I first saw it up close, as a boy of five. All of us children from Nisky School were here standing sadly around a little white coffin, poised to go deep deep into the ground. We were burying “Peggy” a beautiful little brown skin girl with a bright and smiling face and a heart of gold. After school yesterday, or the day before, Peggy fell off one of the children’s play things (a rusty old dump truck) in the communal “yard” in the Nisky community atop “Chinaman Hill” She fell and broke her neck. And just that quickly Peggy was gone, and every one that she had ever known was forever changed because Peggy was beyond any doubt, as pure and as good as they come, she was an absolute innocent.
Why the good and loving God at the center of the Nisky School, Nisky community and Nisky Moravian Church Universe would break Peggy’s neck and take her away from us, is a question that hangs in the still air of the Western Cemetery, and will for us, be there forever.
That she would be followed soon after by “Augustine” the most perfect and beautiful golden boy child that the hardscrabble community of “French Town” had ever produced, furthered the idea for some that the God that the children of Nisky were trying to understand and obey, did not make any sense.
Still to this hallowed ground where cries and questions and prayers, hang in the air like blue smoke, we came and come again and again.
Today it’s another golden boy, as innocent and loved as any before. Chronologically, no longer a child, still he was his Mothers baby boy, and the youngest of the brothers.
This is a “Creole” family, children of children of Scotland and Africa, with some of every other sweet sop of the earth thrown in for good measure and there is “plenty of good” to be measured.
As I walk towards the door of the funeral parlor someone says to me “You look like Jesus Christ” a quick glance at my reflection in a car window confirms that he’s right. I’m all spiffed up and when I’m all spiffed up, I do tend to look a bit like Jesu Christo. Conversely, when I’m not spiffeled, I look more like a Tasmanian devil. (Could be some kind of cosmokarmic, Yin Yan bipolaric impression disorder? who knows.) The observation comes from a brother of the deceased, he then says “if you’re here for the viewing you’re an hour early, from four to five is for family only..I don’t want you to be embarrassed”
It occurs to me to say (a whole day later it’s true but..) “Yes, but if I look so much like Jesus Christ, the family might be overjoyed to see me, and that I have come for the dear departed” (and then to my self) “and perhaps I could steal a kiss or two from one or more of those beautiful Afro-Celtic daughters”. Instead I say “Well, thanks for telling me, it could have been very uncomfortable for them, I’ll be back in an hour”
So I walk back up the road between Western Cemetery #1 and #2 and as always the power of the setting captures my attention. Section #2 had been closed to burials for 100 years because of the terror of Cholera. 1867 was a very difficult year for the people of St. Thomas. There were two Hurricanes, a Yellow Fever epidemic, a Cholera Epidemic, an Earth quake and a Tidal Wave
They put the people (over 1200 men, women and children) who died of Cholera in Section #2 and declared that no soil was to be turned here for 100 years. And they stuck to it. All through childhood we wondered and worried, could it come back up from the ground to get us all?
Just across (on the North side of the street) from The Western Cemetery #1 and #2 is the Old Moravian Cemetery and next to that, The Old Jewish Cemetery. Each very interesting and colorful in their own right, many generations of my son Scott’s maternal line, are in The Old Jewish Cemetery)
The Danish West Indies were a welcoming and tolerant society and St. Thomas is the home of the second oldest Synagogue in the new world. Jewish families of every hue have been a part of these Islands since shortly after the last ship load of their ancestors (fleeing the inquisition), left Palos Spain on the exact same tide that Columbus did on his first voyage of discovery. My boy’s people (the Trepuks and Levin’s) went first to France and then came here to the Danish West Indies. Of course “My Boy’s people” are his beautiful Mother’s people, and she and he are a natural-born part of the Creole society that I am holding vigil with today.
While waiting for four to become five, I drove over to the Old Villa Olga, in French Town. The Villa Olga has been many things over the past three hundred years, and I am drawn to it’s beauty, history and cool breezes. Villa Olga sits on a little point, in fact the very point from which the coal carriers of old (all female) would cross the slippery marshy coral bridge to Hassel Island every morning and evening, going to and from their work. These coal carrier ladies, balancing precariously on sagging steeply angled narrow gangplanks, loaded and unloaded (in baskets balanced on their heads) every rock, nugget, sliver, and dust particle of the coal that fired the furnaces of the great transatlantic steam ships of the time.
After carefully removing and folding my spiffy jacket and leaving it in the car, I sit on the rocks and think about them and a hundred other things that are a part of the history of the area. The entire economy of the people of Charlotte Amalia (apart from the merchant class) were dependent on the work of these women and their paltry hard-earned incomes. The old photos show lines of ragged coal blackened women that appear to be caricatures of human beings. No one could be that ragged, that dirty, that disheveled, that exhausted. The impression is that they aren’t photos of people, rather they’re paintings exaggerated to make a point about suffering.
For years the community response was “Thank God that’s not me, thank God that we’re not like that. But in reality, they are, we are like that. These are the Grand Mothers and Aunties of many of our loved ones and friends. The heroic “Coal carriers” the hard pressed ladies that changed the history of the DWI when they organized themselves and struck from insult and rage and defiance when the twice removed decided to pay them for their hard work with (of all things) Mexican Pesos.
Mexican Pesos worth even less then, than now. But to the twice removed the caricatures that carried the coal were worth less than a worthless Peso. When it became clear to the ladies that their labors were rewarded with currency that they could not use to buy food for their children and families, they struck. And in so doing, earned their place in history.
The slippery coral bridge is long gone now the US Navy blasted it to kingdom come when they bought the Islands from Denmark in 1917 for 25 Million Dollars and no sense. (a small local joke) They blasted the bridge to give boat traffic improved passage from one anchorage to another. It was a good thing, sea water got stagnant in this little corner of the harbor, and Yellow Fever is rumored to have had a ball concocting it’s self among the flotsam and jetsam of three hundred years of naughty goings on here.
Before our town was given the name of the beautiful Queen Charlotte Amalia, it was known throughout the West Indies as “Tap Hus” which means of course “The Drinking House”. Many more than one drunken sailor was swept by time and tide into this corner of the harbor to wind up as a rum poisoned feast for fish and mosquitoes. You can imagine what a God awful stew of stink and pestilence this quaint little corner must have been. This may be one of those rare instances in which three bombs and a bazooka “done good”.
This afternoon, Passenger Boats of every possible color combination, inbound from or out bound to St. John, St. Croix, Tortola and Puerto Rico, are zipping through the passage on their way in and out of the Harbor. Sea planes are splashing down and splashing up every few minutes and fishing dinghys and inflatables are zipping by every where.
This is quite a busy quiet spot. Over there are the remains of the concrete walls that was the huge salt water swimming pool of my childhood, and here (floating across the harbor from the West Indian Dock), comes a basso profundo rendition of “When You Wish Upon A Star” played by “Captain and foghorn” as the Disney cruise ship announces it’s imminent departure to one and all. As It slips out to sea I can’t help but notice what a remarkably classically beautiful ship it is, and think how extraordinary it must be, for little ones to take a cruise on her.
It’s ten to five, time to get back to the Vigil.
Book 3. Sula, The Mountain Dove
Book 3. Sula, The Mountain Dove
I had an unusually enjoyable visit with Sula this morning, I put three of my last six dollars in the tank so that I could go up to see her. It was a beautiful morning and the views round this that and the next corner were crystal clear. The” surf was up” outside Hull Bay, Tortola, Jos Van Dyke and islands of the Thatch Key archipelago were a majestic blue in the distance, and the”Plums were up” in Sulas “Hog Plum” tree too. The shutters are flung open in her little wooden house and the voices of the choir at the Cathedral of Saints. Peter and Paul come pouring out of her little radio, each utterance aspiring to sanctity and sounding like they are hitting awfully close to the mark, to me.
I have come to love the shaky but sincere leads and rough harmonies of one singer after the next and one Choir after the other. Sula’s sister the long departed “Tantan Bertha’s” son, Ashford is in the other room, with his radio also tuned to WSTA and he is playing his alto saxophone along with the music. He plays in the old “Quelbay” style, a high wavering vibrato, a full beautiful tone. He is one of the very best but does not play in public, he is very shy and is waiting until he becomes a better player. He is really very good already, and I very much delight in listening to him play.
Ashford and I connect through the music and we have interesting music related conversations just about every Sunday. Conversations about music books that he orders through the mail, scales and intervals, theory and improvisations. He honors me by presenting thoughtful questions about these things as though I were (because I am a recording artist) a knowledgeable maestro. God bless him, I’ve actually been able to answer a few of his questions and even add a little info on top of that, but it’s a fluke, small bits of knowledge I’ve picked up by osmosis. My storehouse/library of academic information in this area is embarrassingly sketchy, my own musical gifts are more like a wild rolling eyed confidence, married to a series of semi spontaneous heartfelt polyphonic outbursts through an instrument that continually surprises (among others) me, with it’s power and purdyness.
What the heck that has to do with knowing anything, is a great mystery. But if Ashford (or anyone else) wishes to be kind to me because of it, I’ll take it and try my best to return the same.
The music of sincere people in reverential worship fills Sulas world every Sunday and it is a beautiful thing
Sula’s Hog Plum Tree is weighed down with golden-yellow and soo very sweet plums. She was hoping that I would be able to pick a bag full for her “other” boy friend Desooka” (really Desouza but Sula has decided to call him Desooka and so it is)
My first question to Sula is always “Sula have you been behaving your self?” and she answers sweetly in a proper lilting creole, “Yes Scott, I am always well-behaved” My second question is “But Sula, how can a woman who has not one or two or even three or four but maybe five or six or more boyfriends at the same time, claim to be behaving herself?” And she will throw her head back and laugh out loud..
I ask her if she has gotten all dressed up for me this morning, because she looks so sharp.. She denys it, but her dress was especially pretty, a royal blue with little heart wreaths filled with flowers all over. She looked very pretty and I told her so. She had a red kerchief on, but took it off to re-tie, as she did I noticed her hair, a wild confusion of snow-white curls with perfect little plaits and braids. I said “Sula, don’t you ever leave the kerchief off? Your hair looks so pretty and the kerchief must be so hot.
To my surprise she did leave it off..she looked great and comfortable and cool.
Breaking into a more colloquial calypso accent, she said, “Scott, Ah wan yu tu git me ting dem frum de box dare fo me, ah want a candy, because my mout is soo dry, an ah wan yu put me oy drop dem in me oy”
I teasingly say “Sula yu wan me put yu oy drop dem in yu oy? In yu oy? She laughed at my exaggeration of oy, then I said “but Sula yu have tu open yu oy so I cou put in de drops” She said “But, What do yu mean? I thought they were wide open already? Yu know yu poor girlfren is as bline as a bat, de poor ol girl kee-an see a ting!
“Scott yu know what I heard on de radio? Some boys who went to college say that there is no God, Who de hell dey tink made the heavens and de Eart, de moon and de stars? Dey mus-ee tink red pea soup could cook it self. How de hell dey could tink there is no God?
Sula then spoke a loud the sequence of the angel of the lord visiting a young virgin Mary and God placing his only begotten son in her womb, to grow there like every one else. She recounted the angel of the lord coming to Joseph in his sleep to explain what was happening with Mary, and she noted that in those days for a young man to be engaged to be married and discovering that his young bride to be was having a baby, was a difficult thing, but Joseph over came that and they had the little baby Jesus. And the little boy grew up playing and going to school just like all the rest, but then gave himself so that the rest of us could have life everlasting, could be relieved of our sins..”Oh yes!” she said “I know there is a God and I know my God is a good God.”
“Didn’t God save me when I was only twelve years old and I had the Typhoid Fever? Scott, Doctor Knud Hansen was right here, he was white yu know, and He told Mama Lovie (Sula’s Mother) that he was going, and coming back that afternoon. Then he told Old Uncle George (one of the original of the three Moolenar brothers), he told him that he didn’t believe that it would be possible for me to live out the day, and George came down and told Mama Lovie what the Doctor had said”. “Sula” I asked, “Were you in the hospital in town whe you had typhoid fever or were you out here?” “Right here” she said “I was right here, and Knud Hansen called me his little girl and took care of me” “Sula” I said, “How did Knud Hansen come out? Did he ride on a horse or a carrage”? “No, Scott, No,” she said “Knud Hansen walked, he walked all the way from town. Knud Hansen came out here ten times to see me, and when he came back that afternoon and saw that I was still alive..he said it was a miracle. He told Mama Lovie that if he could, he would give her a Gold Star for how extra specially good she took care of me. It was God that saved me, my God is a good God. How else could I have lived when I gave birth two different times, to two little dead babies?”
“Knud Hansen took care of me then too you know, even though I was a big and old and grown up woman, he still called me his little girl, and said that he would never let anything happen to me”. “How big where you then Sula”, I asked “any bigger than you are now? I don’t think you were ever big Sula, I don’t think you were ever any bigger than a Mountain Dove. And Sula, tell me, how old were you then?” “I was tutty one, tutty-two, tutty-three,” ” Wow Sula” I said, “all things considered that doesn’t sound very old either. Big and old?” She laughed..”You’re right, anyway, How can they think there is no God when God has always been so good to me?”
As she spoke..I thought to my self, just listen Scott.. she doesn’t need, nor will she benefit from hearing your cockamamie comments on the old or new testaments, or you recounting current theories on self-organization. you don’t really know any more than she does, or Knud Hansen did, about what came before or lies beyond the stars..you don’t need to show off how smart you are, at the expense of her comfort and beliefs, you don’t need to upset her and make her sad. She’s a good soul and a wonder in the world. Just dig it and be present..listen to the love in her and in the music all around.
I asked her if she knew my friend PK Hansen, (related to the Christiansens, a family that she has mentioned often) she ruminated a bit searching through a vast net of direct and tangentialy connected names and relations, and then said..”But Scott, our friend Jowers said he was going to bring Noreen to see me, but Alric says the house is too old and run down for visitors, that we should paint it first.
I said “Sula, we all love your old wood house, it doesn’t need to be painted before anyone comes to see you, we all expect to see, we want to see, we love to see the old house just the way it is, it’s like a national historic site, and you, Sula, you are a national treasure”
Her face always lights up when I remind her of these things, her eldest son Alric has just moved back to the island after spending fifty-five years in the states, working mostly as a prison guard. He is a good and decent fellow, but he’s impacted by a stateside mentality that has not yet been recalibrated to the local culture. Further, he would prefer that Sula left her old house and moved into his brand new house, with he and his wife Florence, on the other side of Crown.
Perhaps enough people expressed their shock and dismay with that idea, voicing their opinion that that would be the end of Sula, to have gotten his attention. However, He is still unfortunately quite verbal in his disapproval of her “old-time” environment as it is. at 107, Sula really is a national treasure. The shame is that more people are not aware of her, and have the opportunity to spend time in her home and company. She is a National Treasure is every way imaginable.
Book 3.TINY…
Here is another little “Witch Crik” story, from the point of view of my (then) seven year old daughter Twinkle (Lelia).
My name is Lily,
My Mother, my Father, My twin brother and I live on a farm way up in the mountains in California, where my Great Grand Father planted peaches and plums and grapes a long long time ago.
He built a pond too
And in the summertime it gets very full of froggies and fish…and little taddy-poles.
Last summer it got very very hot, and the pond became a puddle. We didn’t know what to do..
Everyday after day it got smaller and smaller and the fish got crowded, some froggies just hopped out and watched.
The puddle got so small that some fishes began to die,then lots of fish began to die
and then one day, there wasn’t any puddle anymore,and they were ALL going to die.
We didn’t know WHAT to do.
Then my Brother or me, I don’t remember who, said “Let’s put some in the sink”. And then my brother or me said “Yeah! An let’s put some in the bathtub”.
Then our Dada said ” Ooh my Babies, I’m so sorry, We can’t do that, we have to use those places!”
Then my Brother or me, I don’t remember who, said “What about the bucket? We could put some water in the bucket; an’ they could live in there.”
Our Dada looked like he was gonna cry and he said, “Ooh my sweethearts, I’m so sorry, I’m afraid these little fishies are done for.”
And we said, “Ooh Dada, Can’t we try”? And he said “Ooh my Duckies, do you REALLY want to?”
And we said “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”
So our Dada said, “Ok Duckies..then we will!”
So we ran around and found all the buckets we could find and Dada got his snake swakin’ shovel, and off we went to the fishies.
Man oh boy, it was a sad thing.
There were hundreds of fishes, and none of them were moving or anything, and millions of taddy-poles..
Then my Brother or me, I don’t remember who, said ” Look! Somethin’s flopping around over there!” And we ran over there and Dada scooped it up with the shovel and plopped it in the bucket. Right away it started breathing and swimming around in the water.
“Oh boy Oh boy Oh boy!” We said. And Dada said “Holy Smokes”.
Then we saw another one move and another one and another one.
We ran all over the place, plopping them in the buckets as fast as we could. And taddy-poles too!
We FILLED up our buckets with FISH,
Dada said they were CAT Fish. Soon we had so many Catfish, we didn’t know WHAT to do.
So we dumped them in the rain barrel that Mama uses to wash her hair, And ran back to get some more!
We got every single one of them that was still alive, And ALL of our buckets and rain barrels were full of Cat fish, and taddy-poles too.
Then Dada said “Yes my Duckies, If you really want to name them, we could try..
We tried to name them all…there was Moby and Tina and Moby maybe..and Tina Two and Sharky the first, and lots and lots of names. That’s when we discovered that we were naming some of them two and three times in a row and that we couldn’t tell who was who, except the littlest one..We named her Tiny.
And Dada said “Oh my Duckies, they might not live very long in the buckets and in the rain barrels” but that “at least we tried, and that is what’s important”.
Every morning around 8 O’clock and every afternoon around three, all the catfish would come up to the top of the barrels and go “Turp Turp Turp” all at the same time.
Boy, there was a lot of them.. We gave them bread crumbs to eat.
The bread crumbs made the water funny and they didn’t like the bread crumbs anyway, so we went to the fishin’ store in town.
We got cartons of big fat and juicy worms, which my brother and me didn’t want to touch and our Mother didn’t like to have in the refrigerator.
Maybe the Cat fish didn’t like them either because, like Dada said, “lot’s of them are beginning to give up the ghost” Until they were mostly all gone.
We didn’t know WHAT to do.
Finally, there were only two left, Tiny and another guy…and then School started and we didn’t see the Catfish much, then Mama’s calico cat that we called Meep!, might have gotten the catfish in the rain barrel out by the clothesline.
There was no sign of Tiny, but the taddies in her bucket were real big so we hoped maybe she was still ok.
Finally, the rains came, and we watched the puddle become the pond again
And we said, Oh boy! “Maybe we can put Tiny back in the water soon” And Dada said ” Oh my Duckies..if she’s still alive..”
We wondered if she was, it was such a long long time.
Then today, my brother or me, I don’t remember who, said “Dada, Dada, lets put the fish back in the water!”
And Da Da said “Ooh my babies, we don’t know if their even still alive at all” and we said “Ooh Dada Can’t we try”? And Dada said “Ok my Duckies, if you really really want to, and we said “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!
So Dada carefully poured the water from Tiny’s big bucket into a smaller one with a handle on it and we watched for Tiny, and looked out for taddys that might spill on the ground.
My brother didn’t know if he saw her or not or maybe it was a leaf but we did see three taddys fall out. Dada picked them up and put them in the handle bucket and off we went.
When we got down to the pond it was still very small, But much bigger than when it was dry.
The water was so clean and so clear and so quiet.
Then Dada poured the bucket into the pond and the water got all rippled and muddy and we just waited..
Then my brother or me or my Dada, I think it was ALL of us said “LOOK LOOK, There she is! There’s TINY!
And I felt so happy that I cried. And I know my brother and our Dada felt the same way too.
As we stood by the pond we had a feeling that we won’t ever forget, even when today and tomorrow, go to be a long long time ago.
The End
Scott Fagan's Mem.wa? 