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Book 4. Concert Review From the Artists Point of View, Continued…
Book 4. Concert Review From the Artists Point of View, Continued…
Did I say no hanky panky at all? Well perhaps I’d better re-examine that policy. Because early “come le we goers” are arriving like crazy and they each seem to have the same idea as the first early bird. Apparently numbers of ladies have heard one or another of my recordings on the radio during the promotional blitz of this past week, and have confused me with Engelbert Humperdinck or something. Ladies are batting their eyes and asking if I have any CD’s for sale and before you know it, the sound check is no more, and I am signing CD’s instead. Now, in my view, all things considered, this is not a bad start.
The trick will be to keep the whole thing from going down hill from this point on…
Here come a number of ladies from the class of “64” who (although I did not graduate from high school) have claimed me as a member because we were classmates up to the point that I left High School, went to New York, and signed with Doc Pomus and Columbia Records.
I was just telling the great Marcellus (Tutsie’s son and volunteer sound man for the evening) that I have to get a new pair of glasses because recently everyone beyond the second row has fuzz where their faces used to be. When folks that I know or knew, show up. some, (as people often do, ) start with “whats my name? do you remember me?” If you remember me, then whats my name?” The last thing I want to say is “no, I’m sorry I don’t because in reality, I half remember everyone. But the deeper truth is, a number of these ladies look exactly like the irate parents that used to show up at school, raising triple heck about the science teacher who was regularly found passed out at the Normandy Bar at 2:30 in the afternoon when in fact he was supposed to be in the classroom tryin’ to larn us sumpin’.
It’s extraordinary to see the close camaraderie that still exists between these school girl lady girls, that they want me to be a part of what they share is exciting and really touching for me. However, I do wish that they had squeezed me as closely and for as long, when we were sixteen. But that’s another story.
The place is filling up and it’s just past five thirty, the show is scheduled to start at six. The Director of the Museum says to me, “Let’s get started” I say wait! Wait! Lee Carl is coming to film us, starting at six, and he isn’t here yet. We are spared an adrenalin fueled discussion because just then Lee pulls into the loading zone with his equipment.
We are now moments away from face the freakin’ music and dance time (which, on the chance that it hasn’t occurred to you, is certainly among the most stressful series of moments imaginable, moments in which the question “what in the flaming hell am I doing here” presents repeatedly, demanding an answer. Fortunately, “What am I doing here? What am I doing here? Leads nicely into “I’ll show you what I’m doing here! Oh Yeah? I’ll show you what I’m doing here! Which is a grand attitude to have when you suddenly find yourself propelled towards and then all alone at Center Stage.
In this case they gave me a fine hand just for showing up, which is again, a pretty good start. A start which in the past might have led to “well I guess I showed them” I’m outta here, (in spite of the fact that leaving at that point might have been just a little bit premature.)
Traditionally, there has (from time to time) been a little difficulty in getting me (or me getting my self) actually onto the stage. A fine example might be the night in 1966, that Mort Shuman brought George Martin (arranger/producer of the Beatles) to see, hear and hopefully sign me, at “The Scene” in New York. Just before “Show Time” I broke a string and spent the next hour and a half chasing all over the City looking for a replacement string, rather than just doing the performance without the missing string. One can only imagine what the good man thought as he left after sitting there waiting for me for an hour and a half, and then again, what he might have said during the period in which the Beatles were considering my album “South Atlantic Blues” to be their first release on Apple Records. “Oy Say, (he might have said) this bloke’s a flukin’ flufferin” Idiot! Ay Wot!” (Just joking, I know that George Martin doesn’t really talk like that, however having only shaken his hand once just before I was to play for him, but ran away to play “find the string” instead, I don’t really know which words he would choose to use in describing yours truly, but I think we can agree that, in general, the sentiment would be about the same.
And Ah yes, there were those occasions when in anticipation, too large a spill down the gullet, too many times in a row, may have led to yours truly making a staggering entrance from stage left and actually stumbling all the way across the stage and out the other side.
But not tonight….’cause I mean business…and here we go!
The Director has given me a nice intro, Tuts has asked me to do “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” before I start the program, and dedicate it to “Our Brothers and Sisters and all the lost souls in Haiti” it’s a beautiful song by a great writer and singer, Bobby Scott. I do a good and sincere rendition, hitting some nice notes and ending big. It warms the heart, and breaks the ice, and gets an appreciative response.
We move into my script and first up is “Annalee”
I will (for the first time) be utilizing my own pre-recorded music tracks for four of the tunes, because I think they will be more effective that way. I have had all kinds of philosophical problems with the idea, but the overriding fact is, I want the audience to experience the songs as closely as possible to the way that I so carefully recorded them, and holding out for absolute purity has shown it’s self to be counter productive and in my case, absolutely silly.
If you are offended by my use of my music tracks, I apologize, I am sincerely sorry. (please consider that this is a free concert, and I have no budget or bonaroos to rehearse and pay a band AND no band to play it for free AND that I have held out on this question for forty five years) That said, what a pleasure it is for me to sing against the music from “Annalee” and what an enthusiastic response it receives from the audience …
Next is two little pieces of poetry “A Kindness Here And A Kindness There” and “Do You Like My Color, Like I like Yours” they are well received.
Then I throw on the battle-axe and slide into “SOON” the theme of my Rock Opera (which happens to be the first Musical ever written by a Virgin Islander to be produced on Broadway) “SOON” is a powerful and passionate song speaking a commitment to justice, brotherhood and equality, that is the direct product of my own Virgin Islands childhood. I still feel it, and sing it that way. The folks are excited and stimulated and let loose with enthusiastic applause.
Off comes the guitar and I begin to read “The Girl With The Golden Skin”. The audience has never heard anything quite like it and they sit in anticipation waiting to see what will happen…zamo they erupt in laughter and seem to quickly realize that this piece will be going back and forth between humor, poetic language and strong sentiment. It ends with a truth about color ,often unspoken but true nevertheless. It gets a big hand… The people seem eager, for more, they like the songs and they like the poetry, so far so good!
I signal Marcel and he starts the track for the La Beiga Carosuel/Tutsie medley, a song that always gets ‘im regardless of who what when where and why. Tonight, its eliciting encouragement and whoops galore from the very start. When we get to the instrumental section, and I start to “wuk up” and shake my bum, they go a little wild, it’s wonderful.
We come back with a tender last verse and take it out in the joyous defiance that the song exemplifies. We get a rousing round of really enthusiastic applause. Next, is another spoken piece, “I Dreamed I Made A Record Called South Atlantic Blues” and then, on with the guitar and into the song “South Atlantic Blues”. This song has always been a unique and powerful experience for me as a writer and singer, it is now forty-five years old but (based on the content) it could have been written yesterday. It’s a pleasure to sing and play it, and hitting the high drama notes and the sweet dynamics passages is very satisfying for me, the audience seems to feel the same way and shows it.
That was the end of ACT l,
I went straight into the spoken introduction to ACT ll it’s called:
“SOOKIES WESTERN JAMBOREE”
“Some of you good people will remember that once upon a time we had one radio station in The Virgin Islands, 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 islands looked forward to a show hosted by a young Buckaroo from Frenchtown called “Sookiess Western Jamboree”. The show featured artists like the great Hank Williams, Gentleman Jim Reeves, Faron Young, Skeeter Davis and Patsy Cline and songs like “You’re Cheatin Heart” “Cold Cold Heart “Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On” “He’ll Have To Go” and many 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 sides, 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 desperadoes, certainly considered themselves to be the real deal also, and as romantic a figure as any other cowpoke anywhere and they were.
Anyway, as noted elsewhere, I 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, in the movies and in the Saturday morning Children’s stories so kindly broadcast for us by WSTA.
The next Virgin Islands song grew directly out of these parts of WSTA’s influence on our lives, an influence for which I will be eternally grateful.
So here we go. In remembrance of Sookie’s Western Jamboree and our very own Caribilly Cowboys. A little Caribilly Christmas Song for all the children in all of the warm weather places in the world, our very own “Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer”
(The audience remembered Sookies show and that wonderful time in our collective musical history right away and although they had never heard this spoken intro before, they actually began to echo my words as we went through it, and then gave a wonderfully warm reception to Sandy The Bluenosed Reindeer both before and after I sang it.
Can’t beat that.
This sweet momentum led us into “Captain Hookfoot” an eight minute piece of spoken Calypso humor about a character I created called “Buckra De Paehae” and Pirate Treasure and Jumbies. (Buckra means poor white. Paehae means white man, in French Creole) It is written and delivered in Calypso (the language of my childhood, an idiom which lends its self wonderfully well to broad, exaggerated and colorful Island humor) Hookfoot was the biggest hit of the night so far. I said to my self “Wow, So far so good, now for Gods sake, don’t choke on a mosquito or something.” I knew the next tune “Where My Lover has Gone” was pretty good, it’s been a hit for me for years. It’s a great tune to sing. On went the guitar and from the first C MAJ 7th we were in the groove.
Next up was another humorous spoken Calypso piece called “The Barracks Yad Bay And beach Club” about a (now gone) UPSTREET neighborhood fondly remembered by all, and the building of the waterfront drive. The folks loved it and… we were on to “Surrender To The Sun” this song is a definite hit for me and this time I sang it against a most beautiful new track produced for me by Warren Schatz. It was absolutely beautiful. The audience could not have been more receptive and I did what I could to sing the heck out of it. Very beautiful, very romantic very much a success.
Next was another spoken Calypso piece called “The Inheritance Box” about the History of the Illustrious often blusterous “House of Buckra De Paehae” it’s also quite funny. The people laughed it up and loved it too.
Which brought us to a poetic little piece called “The Reason We Sing” which doubled as an introduction to “The Virgin Islands Song” which is the theme and the finale.
We utilized the musical track featuring Jeff Medina’s beautiful guitar work., I sang the heck out of it and it was a smash. The applause was so effusive that I was frankly, a little embarrassed…I bid the good folks good night and told them truthfully that they had been my favorite audience of all time ever anywhere.
We got back to signing CDs, and getting to the Kalaloo.
All in all it was simply wonderful; I really do wish you were here.
Book 1. Saturday Market and Book 4. Concert Review
Book 1. Saturday Market and Book 4. Concert Review, From The Artists Point Of View
Book 1. Saturday Market
While living “UPSTREET”my big sister Gale (all of eight and a half) decided that she and I would get up very early (around five thirty) on Saturday mornings so that we could participate in the local Saturday morning custom of going to “de market”.
De Market was an Old Danish West Indian design cast iron structure that once had housed the slave market; it occupied an elongated rectangle in a central, if not center part of town. Charlotte Amalie (or Amalia, both are correct) is built along a shore line running (depending on where you’re standing) east to west, or west to east.
There was a main street that approximately paralleled the shore line. On the south side of the street was a long row of rubble masonry warehouses and red and yellow brick alleys (The red brick arrived as ballast from England and the British Isles, the Yellow brick as ballast from the Mother Country, Denmark) The warehouses ran from Main Street town to the water’s edge. The North Side of the street were mercantile establishments, with second story balconies above and beyond them, fine and even grand homes began to climb the hill sides, their large windows and verandas catching the trade winds while looking down upon ships of every nation rocking gently in perhaps the most beautiful harbor in the world.
This magical place was made even more magical by the refreshing dewy cool of morning and the golden early morning light. The market square was magical in its own right; ancient mahogany’s lining its cobblestone perimeters. On the west side, the venerable stone and wrought iron of the centuries old “National Bank” and “Christ Church” a Grand old world Methodist Church right out of a dansk dream of Devonshire, and on the north the original Jewish ghetto, now “long row wood houses” and coal pot, communal “yad” heaven for struggling laborers and their families, the rough and tough streets of “Savan”.
To the East, dirt floor and plank barrel bar rooms for the likes of Ben and Raffie dem, who were always drinking rum again, Scruffy customers who would look at home on any skid row in the world, but were certainly too wild, unconstrained and uncontainable for most.
These desperately dinged and damaged men wore a steady path to and from the dungeon cells of Fort Christian. Cursing, shaking their fists (and other parts) and yelling in tongues not known to devil or man. (One hundred and fifty-one proof cane rum, mixed with and chased by the hot hot blazing hot sun will do that to a fellow, no matter what his original religion or disposition)
On the South side of the market square, towards the sea and the breeze, was the emporium most favored by children, a dark cave like interior appropriately called “The Igloo”. While not a one of us had any idea of the kind of cold that would necessitate crawling inside a house of ice cubes to get warm, we did appreciate the miraculously cool blessing of vanilla and chocolate honest to goodness ice cream.
However long before we would get to the Igloo, Gale and I first had to make our way past those things that make these kinds of memory so heady and transporting. We would walk down “Pave Street” past the First Moravian Church, the Park Shoppe, and then the park that the Shoppe was named after Roosevelt Park which in turn was named after Franklin.
It was a kind gesture of remembrance but this little park, originally “Coconut Square” had as much to do with Franklin Roosevelt and his world as it did the King of Siam.
It was a very old fashioned little city block park surrounded by old black iron gating and planted with Coconut, Baobab, Tamarind, Mahogany and the tallest slenderest (like something out of Dr. Suess) Palms, there was a big elevated lily pond in the middle and winding walkways with actual old round armed park benches scattered here and there. I loved it; it was like Mary Poppins London via Dr. Suess meets the Belgian Congo. (‘course we had no Dr. Suess back then but I guess that’s why I felt as if I’d been waiting for him for a long long time when he finally did came along)
Just past Coconut Square the road rose up to the old British Cable Office and divided, the left going directly to the foot of the hill topped by Fort Christian (1691), while straight ahead took us past the Grand Hotel and the very first Church on the Island, The Frederick Lutheran Church
The British Cable Office was quite an important place in those days run, by a very stiff and important fellow with a pencil thin moustache and a most clipped British air and attitude… He was Mr. Alfred Evelyn, the Grand father to be of my first wife Patricia, and Great Grand father to my Bix “little Scott”
If Mr. Evelyn could have seen this in his future as he spied Gale and I pogoing alone down the street at six o’clock in the morning, I don’t doubt for a moment that he would have wrapped us both up in a proper brown paper package, tied it up with string, and sent us off to far freakin’ Calcutta.
Just along past the Grand Hotel we came to Post Office Square, another absolute treat for the eyes and imagination, up on the right on Government Hill sat the Beautiful Pink, Hotel 1829, birth place of the Arts Colony that had intrigued and brought Mud and Lea and Mud’s boyfriend Justin, to Charlotte Amalia, in the first place.
By now shafts of sunlight would be lighting the odd elevated corners, creating splashes of intense color like an impressionist painter might do. And after all, this is where the father of impressionism Camille Pissarro was born and his sensibilities came of age. If you came upon the beautiful pink hued Hotel 1829 first thing in the morning, just as the rising sun is coming over the mountains that ring the town and the golden light has just come splashing into the square, I don’t doubt that you would be an impressionist too, it is simply too real to be real. Ecstatic overload spills back and loops around and around until you, head spinning, stagger on towards “de market”.
Exiting post office square you enter the narrow “commercial district” of main street crowded with shops on both sides, There on the left is Lockhart’s General store, Riieses Liquor Store, and Greaux’s hardware, on the right is 7 Queens Quarter, and The Center Theater where the marquee advertises a double feature featuring Gene Autry, and Jungle Jim, with episodes seven and eight of the serial “The Insidious Fu Man Chu” stuck in between,
There is the wonderful Apothecary Hall with its enormous bottles of blue, red, green, and gold elixir of the Gods or something, displayed invitingly in the windows. The most indefinable but soul satisfying and reassuring smells waft through it’s open doors reminding us all that no matter what, the Apothecary Hall has the cure.
On the side streets towards the Harbor, the butcher stalls belonging to butcher “White Pierre” and butcher “Black Pierre” are open, goat and pig, mutton and pork is the song being sung back and forth between the Pierres and their customers,
Ladies are setting out large baskets of fruit on the sidewalks crossing the gut, Soursap, Sugar Apple, Mango, and we aren’t even at the market yet. It didn’t take me long to realize that Gale had had another heck of a good idea, wonderful and exciting.
In that part of the early morning set aside for those people who conspire to be happy, cheery early risers are greeting one another, there is unspoken but palatable pity for those foolish or unfortunate enough to lie unconscious through this the most beautiful part of the day, these folks and Gale and I are in a magic time and we all know it.
As we walk in the shade of the old Mahogany and Tamarind trees, beyond “de gut” there by the Library, The Market is beginning to bustle, vendors have come from every part of the Island, many by donkey cart, or donkey, all have enormous baskets filled with fruits and vegetables or prepared goodies and delicacies, Mabi frothing up and out of it’s rum bottle containers, fresh fish of every color and description, Tanya, okra, hot pepper sauce that could ignite it’s self for spite, sugar cakes (that’s what Gale and I want more than anything) coconut and ginger sugar cakes, a penny apiece.. thyme, chibble, lemon grass, the herbs of Eden (or so they say) my sister Gale loved herbs so much that she developed the most famous herb garden in Pennsylvania when she grew up, benye, pate, papaya, cherries, conch, whelks, a crazy cacophonous cornucopia of calypso accents from up, down and all around the islands Tortola, Saint Kitts, Anagada, Antigua, Barbados, Culebra, Puerto Rico, smoke rising from the coal pots little samples of the ripest mango, sugar cane, and guava, “come Scottie, come Gale, wha yu doin up an out so early?’ Yu had yu breakfus? Me dear chile, come lemme gi yu sum ah dis”
I don’t recall ever having anything more than a very few pennies to spend, but it seems like we always came away with much treasure from the market. Some of the eating kind, some of the cooking herbs kind for Mother, but mostly the kindness kind which after all, was the kind that really mattered the most. Yep, my big sister Gale had some really good ideas.
Book 4. The Concert Review, From The Artists Point Of View
As promised, (but only because, even after forty seven years before the mast, I have been able to maintain the semi pristine purity of obscurity of one “unknown” to the music press), I will review the concert myself. However because I am the artist, and not eyes and ears in the audience, but eyes and ears backstage, and onstage, I will naturally review it from the artists point of view…
First, the synopsis, which is: “Simply wonderful, wish you were here!”
Then to the facts of the matter:
Our sound check was scheduled for 3:30 PM, however at 3:30 PM, I was bouncing along in the back of Tut’s truck, spiffed up to the max and trying to hold, balance and keep a seventy pound pot of steaming hot Kalaloo from spilling. (This because Tuts is, in addition to many other things, “The King Of Kalaloo” and he promised the Director of the Jarvis Museum that he would make and bring enough to feed everyone..so now he has been awake for fifty hours straight, cooking it, and is close to Kalaloo collapse as one can get)
We were rushing to pick up Tut’s Cousin Delia, who was coming in to Tortola wharf from Roadtown, also scheduled to arrive at 3:30 PM…Whoops, No Delia. The customs man said “you mean de schuppidy crazy woman wid de big black hat ana head wha cussin’ like a drunken sailah?, No man she done gan up de road” Up de road we zoom, Now Tuts is cussin’ Delia with his head turned to the back seat looking at the kalaloo, in fact and effect driving forwards backwards. It was not a good 10 minutes of driving or, rather let me say, it was the best 10 minutes of driving ever considering, that the only one looking at the road was me, and all I could do was steer with the hot pot, of steaming Kalaloo,whilst trying not to spill it.
By the grace of what must be a Kalaloo (or perhaps innocent tourist) loving God, we arrive at the concert site with minimal spillage of soup or blood…Thank goodness we are finally able to get it inside and out of our hands.
At a quarter to four, I am able to start setting up for our sound check… at four fifteen the first lady (no not Mrs. Obama) the first concert goer/comer arrives, takes a seat right down in front and immediately begins to gaze adoringly up at yours truly. God bless her, she has come early because “she doesn’t want to miss a ting’”
She is a mighty Purdy lady, the color of spun honey, in a wonderfully low-cut yellow sun dress, with a bright and sunny face. (Did I mention that she is sitting right down front?) Fortunately, I am more than warmed up and ready to sing, so the sound check is not an embarrassment, in fact it turns into sort of a mini concert just for her, complete with little squeals of appreciation and charming effusive complements. In years past we might have called the concert “jazz” right then and there, and gone off together to make a life in Brazil or St. Croix, but I’m almost grown up now and I am here on serious business.
After all,this show and concert is part of “The Second Coming” and this time there will be no…well…a lot less…well.. a little less… hanky panky. But no hanky panky today.
This means a lot to me. I will be singing a one hour concert presentation of my new Musical, “The Virgin Islands Songs”, to and for an audience of local, honest to goodness Virgin Islanders, not a bar full of drunken visitors who think they’re in the Bahamas and want to hear “Who Let The Dogs Out” Or “Chiquita Cheeseburger”, nor a room full of wealthy white folks wintering in the Islands and wanting me to play those “steel pots ‘n pans or whatever you call them” but de real ting’ mon…and if I don’t do it right, right here, right now, t’will be best to leave the equipment behind and beat feet, straight for the airport… Continued…
Book 1. We From UPSTREET Continued…and De Barracks Yad Bay and Beach Club
Book 1. We From UPSTREET Continued… and De Barracks Yad Bay and Beach Club
In the days before the present waterfront drive was built, the waterfront from The West India Dock, to Carenage (French Town), was beach front property. True the beach front in the Upstreet area known as “Barracks Yard” was what you could kindly call “muckity muck” or perhaps describe more accurately by saying that mud and night soil in equal measure, equals muckity muck, (night soil from the big “gut” that emptied into the sea there) still, when ever they felt like it, the people of Barracks Yard could and would walk right into the water to cool off and refresh themselves.
By the time Tony and Joe went away to Mandahl, they had taken me into Barracks Yard sufficient times for me to feel (if not completely welcome) welcome enough to come and go as I pleased. The truth is, few if any people from outside Barracks Yard were welcome there, the folks that lived there were perhaps one step below destitute, and they were (as you would be) somewhat sensitive about it.
Apparently they recognized and accepted things about me that I was unaware of myself. They saw that my shoes were long overdue for the dungheap, that my clothing was unkempt, my hair unbrushed and uncombed. They may also have noticed that I didn’t notice any of that and if I did, it didn’t bother me a bit.
I was completely unaware that I too, might have reason to be embarrassed about my circumstances, or any thing else. Looking back, my time as a denizen of (what I like to call) “De Barracks Yad Bay and Beach Club”, may have been the final beats of that kind of innocence for me.
Somehow in that seventh summer, far away from the poverty of the barracks yard, I felt the beginnings of what it was to burn with embarrassment and shame for my color and for what my family didn’t have.
But before we get to all of that sort of thing, here (in the language of my childhood, known as calypso) is a little spoken piece with that exact title from “The Virgin Islands Songs”
“De Barracks Yad Bay An Beach Club”
It jus so happen dat one day roun de bay dere by de Barracks yad a big truck come an dump out a truck load a san.
Wha! Yeh meboy, (I se to meself) now yu talking boy, lemme go lay doun in it.
No sooner said dan done an I was de fus man dare. Boy, ah lay back an cross me leg an crass up me han dem behine me head like ah contemplating de clouds in de clear blue sky.
De nex second, ah jump up ana run back home to de head a pave street for me Muddah towel ana umbrella fo style, den ah grab up a can a sardine, two French bread ana red soda ana fly back to de beautiful new san at wha I kno gon soon be “De Barracks Yad Bay an Beach Club” Yeh meboy, ah se to meself now yu talking now yu talking.
By de time ah reach back, three o fo touris had done fin de spot, but ah tro doun me self right in de middle ah dem, put an me shades ana open me sardine.
Jus den a big hard face man se “Hey Buckra, wha de hell yu tink yu doin, yu can’ see we come tu mix up concrete an cement?”
Ah se “wha? Yu crazy? Wha yu commin’ to de beach tu mix up concrete and cement” De man se “Is you is de one who crazy, who de hell tell you dis is a beach, we makin’ a watahfront fo bigtruck cou pass here” Ah se “wha? Is YOU is de one who crazy, look de beautiful blue watah de, look de san here, look de people in de middle. We here in de Barracks Yad waitin’ bocoups an many years plus fo somebody to bring de san fo de beach. Man de people dem been laydin doun in de mud full a crab hole an rock stone an badein’ in de watah wha de bottom fulla broke shell an beer can. De chrirren dem billin san calsel outtah mud an don’ talk abou when de gut runnin and de nightsoil commin’ doun, den dey makin mud pie outta dat!
No man, we waitin’ two hundred years an mo for dis san tu come (an fo somebody to plug up de gut) We ain’ wan no concrete and cement fo de beach, how de people dem gon lay doun on concrete and cement?, why yu wan tu have to jump up wid yu coal pot an yu fry fish and yu mabi an yu blanket an everyting, everytime some schupid muddah skunk ina bigtruck want tu pass. Yu crazy? No man, bring mo san!
Dis is de place right here me boy, in fac we should exten de beach all de way from Wes Indian dock to Cha Cha Ta…ah.. ah mean French Toun! Yu kno de beach belongs to de people dem and dat way every day will be like Christmas Mahnin fo de whole ah Charlotte Amalia me boy. Man sellin fraco an jumbi bead lef an right, woman sellin pate an benye by de poun. Touris frum all ovah de place commin to see de most beautiful town in de wurl, wid de bigges an de bes and de most beautiful beach in de wurl, rite in de middle ait. An de people dem will own de whole ting!. Man ah tell yu bring mo san! Bring mo san!..
Back at the very beginning of the blook I said that, from time to time we would be talking about “so called race” in ways that most so called white folks were not accustomed to, (and for that matter many people of color might find novel).
Gale and I were little white children in the West Indies, which (in those days) would automatically suggest that we were children of privilege and a certain social status…
Hmm, let me come at this in a different way… there are/ were shades of color all along a continuum from darkest to lightest from blue black to the paleest white and every incremental degree of brown, red, yellow and gold along the spectrum.
In the isolated island world of Euro/Afro/Caribbean society those families who were descendent of wealthy white plantation masters or masters of the mercantile, generally enjoyed the most favored status. This is not news to anyone; however a fine complication arose when white (and black) Americans entered the mix. Neither rich or poor white nor black Americans were programmed or inclined to kowtow to the self important “old families” at the top of the fairly rigid local hierarchy.
This of course made those folks that were about to lose “most favored status” resentful and angry and their often spoiled children (who of course were not as even tempered as their often spoiled adults) were too often surprisingly cruel. Alas for the guiless “poor yankee girl or boy” who comes pogo sticking into view, as unsuspecting and trusting as a tail-wagging puppy dog. Yaaiiiee!
Of course if I knew then what I know now…
But even then I knew that most people all round the color wheel, were people of good heart and good will.
What I didn’t know was that among them, (us) often indistinguishable from the rest, lurked miseries who were mean, resentful and vindictive and chomping at the bit to act on it. Not to lift their hands “mano a mano” to do battle (thereby running the risk of being exposed, embarrassing themselves, and getting the good “assing” they deserved) but to whisper, conspire to hurt, diminish, undermine and humiliate the object of their affliction. Permanently and forever, as often as possible. Tragically, these kinds of miserable poisonous wretches have succeeded many times in many places, many times more than once.
These days we all know that the point of all that crazy action is to put you down or diminish you, in an effort to elevate or feel better about themselves, but what kid of any color comes into the picture armed with that information. What a different world it would be if kids were armed early on with that info. If the bad guys and bullys were immediately identified for what they really are and why they do what they do.
Anyway, aside from having the seeds of shame planted by wacko shame propagator types, and unfortunately, having the idea that we were less than, and beyond pitiful somewhat watered and reinforced by the fact that all we had to eat at home was green pea soup for literally weeks at a time, We (Gale and I) had the wildest, warmest, and most wonderful fun while we lived UPSTREET. Tomorrow (Sunday Jan 31.) I will be doing a concert in the new Jarvis Museum the UPSTREET part of Charlotte Amalia…I am filled with emotion about the whole thing and I will sing like crazy. Yep. Continued…
Book 4. and Book 2. The Second Coming..Continued. and Cover, South Atlantic Blues
Book 4. and Book 2. The Second Coming… Continued. And Cover, South Atlantic Blues
But that‘s all beside the point and neither here nor there…The point is that I am on my way back to “Babylon” ah..I mean the states, to try and “do it right” this time, against exactly the kind of odds that it takes to stimulate a fellow like me, a freakin’ trillion million to one.
I’m 36,000 feet up in the air and believe me we are going like a bat out of hell. Heading straight for the heart and brains and soul of Babylon, Washington DC. (Hmmm, well perhaps it would be more accurate to say “nerve center” instead, because the heart and brains and soul of America are..in my experience, certainly not concentrated in Washington DC. Those with pathology for power are concentrated in the district but it seems pretty clear that the heart, brains and soul are everywhere, anywhere but there)
Least ye take offence thinking that I have no right to speak frankly about the USA, you’ll be relieved to hear that my direct ancestry (on me dear Mudders side) arrived in Virginia before the revolution, And my Great Great Great Grandfather fought for the Union in the battles of Shiloh, Hatchie, Vicksburg, Jackson, The Red River Campaign, Kennesaw Mountain and The battle of Atlanta as a member of Third Regiment, IOWA Infantry. He (Edwin B. Slatterley) was wounded, left for kaput, “caught himself” got up and survived to fight on to the bitter end. Eventually dying (years later in Grass Valley Ca.) as a result of his Civil War wounds.
Other Great Great Grand Parents crossed the plains (it took six months) to California in a covered wagon (leaving Terre Haute, Indiana) in April 1852 and as a result of moolah made during the Gold Rush, were able to purchase (and have been working) a thousand acre ranch outside of “Rough and Ready” “Wheatland” and “Spencerville”, Nevada County, California, ever since. I would add that I voted for Margret Mead and James Baldwin for President and Vice President respectively, in 1968. And ask that you don’t discount my paternal’s history in a Convent’s Garden in New Orleans and eight children and a candy store in Hells Kitchen and the death of Pater dears Mater dear (Sally the orphan girl from Scotland in the TB wards of Welfare Island in New York City’s East River) all of which (though very much a partial history) establishes the right of their descendent to fight with wit and pen (and light sword as available) against “schupidness” and the sick and twisted forces of aggressive ignorance and repression.
Forces so well represented in recent years in the actions and intentions of those that would weld bars across the Golden door and bomb the beggars with the audacity to hope for a better life in the welcoming arms of the land of the free…
In Washington, I will de train from de plane and hop on a puddle jumper which will take me to my destination, Middletown, Pa. Of Three Mile Island fame. There I will take a, make a, stand along side The MAAC (The Middletown Area Arts Collective) in pursuit of the Second Coming…We shall see what we shall see.
A few days ago, I got back to the pad to discover a bootleg copy of “South Atlantic Blues” in digital format (A bootleg CD) was waiting in the mailbox…
Looking at the quality of the Joel Brodsky photograph that is the South Atlantic Blues cover, shrunk down to CD size, it occurred to me that CD Covers miniaturized an art form that was better maximized. We would have been better served making records and album covers the size and weight of a locomotive drive wheel.
In fact, if this photograph were to reflect the fun that we had making it, it would have to be the size of a barn door.no…a double barn door. Mort (Mort Shuman) picked Roberta and I up in his little MG first thing in the morning and took us to an extremely upscale hair salon.(keep in mind that I was a semi savage) where in (maybe after spritzing me once or twice with the perfumed “eu de knock out drops” reserved for biting, scratching, screaming and kicking children) we got me (in 1964) a mighty fancy (so fancy and subtle that it’s probable that they didn’t do anything at all) hundred-dollar haircut.
Then we headed down to Joel Brodsky’s studio in the garment district, where we broke out the Guitars and the Rum and Coca-Cola, and proceeded to sing in English, Spanish Calypso, and “Rum tongues”. A medley for the ages. Merrily bashing guitars stopping only to splash and resplash “Cuba Libres” down the screech pipe.
While directing the Don Q to where we thought it would do the most good, we had migrated/fallen out onto the roof of the building, within moments the musica brought hundreds of seamstresses and garment workers to their windows all around and above to cheer us on, Mort and I were both fluent en espaniol at the time and sang every verse of Morty and Doc’s song “Sweets For My Sweet”, every “Trio Los Pancho’s” and Ishmael Rivera tune we could, along with much extemporaneous and highly complementary improvisation dedicated to the ladies in the windows above and around. It was the greatest great fun. I don’t know how in the world Joel wound up with such a serioso shot, however as ultra serioso was my natural state of being; I suppose it was by natural default.
What a great photographer and great good fellow he was. And what a great writer, producer and friend Mort was. Unfortunately our best musical work together drifted up and into the air, here there and everywhere but the recording studio, but good lord, what a great and beautiful spirit he was and what great and beautiful joy he brought to me and to us all with his music.
Another interesting element of the South Atlantic Blues cover is the black and white design done by a company called the “Graffiteria” their clever concept allows the boy’s name and his hundred-dollar hair “cut” to coexist and complement one another. Further, I personally was thrilled to bits to see the little ATCO logo on a recording of mine because Ben E. King was on ATCO and Ben E. King was my man!
Album covers were fascinating and often full of content. It’s now fairly well accepted that the music business went to the CD format for purely moneymaking reasons. And they made a fortune with it, however not only did their decisions impact every associated art, distribution wholesale and retail business, they destroyed almost every element of an entire industry. Anyway, my bootlegger friend Tony has been more kind and more supportive of me and my music in the three years that I have known him, than ATCO/Atlantic has been in the forty two years that they have sat on and then buried (and now lost the master tapes of) my first album. “South Atlantic Blues”.
I could go on about this stuff and perhaps I will elsewhere in the blook, but for the moment, Tony cleaned up the “pops and clicks” and “South Atlantic Blues” sounds really good. I can’t send you a copy, ATCO/Atlantic won’t sell you a copy, but Tony might know where you can get one…I will post his webaddress in the near future so that you may go and contact him there.
My friend Tony is a full on ttrriipp! Fully functional in at least four dimensions at a time. He contacted me through the internet wanting to help in which ever way he could because he is moved by my music and thinks it’s a shame that more people have not been exposed to it. Tony had spent a number of years living in St. Croix (Virgin Islands) And was a refreshingly enthusiastic action oriented gent. I traveled to New York in a beautifully snowy March, and we spent two round the clock days and nights attempting to get the live California recordings of “SOON” to a listenable state. We will be able (with just a little more work) to release “SOON” on CD early this year (2010) thanks to Tony and his beautiful work AND the warm hospitality of his sweet sweetie the lady Pola.
I am back in the states and pursuing the second coming. This night, I am carrying my guitar and slowly walking back to my little pad after performing at the MAAC space, www.middletownarts.com I’m walking between and through red brick walls, dark alleyways and bitterly cold, gritty streets of an old swept aside industrial age railroad town,
I’m remembering my sainted sister Gale, who after the high drama and excitement of the life we shared as “kids in chaos” chose to make a life for herself in this little town on the banks of the Susquehanna. For years, (although I would visit her here regularly), I just didn’t get why she would do that. Good lord a’ mighty, I didn’t get it.
Now I think I understand, it has to do with the human relationships that are possible in the “wings of life” away from center stage. The low key, rather than the screech of life above high C. Good straight forward uncomplicated people. Gale was the President of the local “Friends of the Library” for 25 years. When she died we gave most of her book collection to the library for their annual book sale and Gale’s Cook Books and Mysteries alone, raised close to seven thousand dollars for them (at fifty cents and a dollar apiece) can you imagine?
I love my sister Gale and I walk past her Beautiful old three story red brick house (now owned by the bank) coming and going to and from The MAAC (The Collective). Every time I do I am filled with missing her and the times that we had together many of them in this very house, in this very town. In any case, this cold night, these sporadicly placed misty street lights, the weight of time in the air, the guitar on my arm, the lingering excitement and heightened awareness of the just done performance, are like dejavu all over again. I have walked this way in a thousand places. They come tumbling back this still night This time I hope to do it right.
Book 4. The Second Coming. Continued..
And and and.. there fore from and by, my success as an artist at the uber ripe and pleasantly plump age of ..well…sixty four. (and beyond, heck yes, and beyond too, don’t forget that part) Empty-handed except for the git-fiddle on my knee, and with nothing more than a mumbled mantra and the continued amusement of the almighty, to assure my success. (The mumbled mantra part requiring that I never forget to close each set of my ‘umble musical offerings, with the sobriquet “Goodnight Mrs. Pennyfeathers, where ever you may be.”)
As far back as 1963, my fadder dear was convinced and tried to convince me that if I didn’t maker it by 18, or 19 or at the latest 20, it would be too late, I would be too old. I think (and thought) that his prospective was singed by bitterness about his own career in music, and the deep resentment that he and many other older musicians harbored about Rock and Roll, displacing their cherished genres and rudely shoving their sophisticated romantic, melodic dreams aside, in favor of greasy haired vulgarians gyrating while emitting farmyard noises, and singing lyrics like “Uh Huh Uh Huh Uh Huh” and Uh Huh Uh Huh Oh Baby” (which was of course exactly what I aspired to be, do and sing..which flipped him out even further)
Poor father dear, he sired (when he realized he had) in his words, a “young prince” who rather than aspiring to become “William The Wonderful”, and someday purchasing a likely bar in a good drinking locale for the beautiful and beneficent retired king “Fadder Dear the First” was instead “Fidel The F%*kin’ Bomb thrower from the Islands” who appeared to imagine himself as Elvis The Pelvis’s misplaced twin “Enis The Pe*is” but who (by decree of King Fadder Dear) was hence forth to be known instead as “William The Helpless” (except of course when he was singing “Danny Boy”, “Galway Bay” or “The Rose Of Tralee.”…Continued
Book 3. and 1. and 3. Caribair and The Second Coming
I watched it climbing and banking south then east. Immediately after, a second one took off. The sound of a DC 3 is such a comforting reassuring sound from my childhood, I love them.
Further, it was the aircraft of the greatest airline ever “Caribair.” Caribair’s DC 3s were painted a cool white with a golden stripe running along the side where the windows were (so the windows looked like little jewels set in a golden band or bracelet) the tail featured a classic image of “El Morro” the Spanish fort in Old San Juan, painted in Red against the Golden background of the mighty upright tail.
The planes were immaculate, in and out and smelled of romance and sweet peppermints, the stewardess were the exact Spanish beauties of your dreams. The kind of ladies that inspired you to get grown up, just so you could fling yourself babbling at their feet.
The dashing “Don Caballeros” in the crisp pilot’s uniforms were clearly capable and mucho macho. More than enough, to fly you into and through any “cat 10” Huracan! No problema..mon.
In those days, this airlines planes had never crashed. But if one did, (they didn’t, but IF one did) you knew that “You flew with Spanish Angels in the air, when you flew with Caribair” so if you did accidentally wind up with them in Puerto Rican Heaven, well… you knew you would be welcome there.
Not only were the planes and people beautiful but the sound of the powerful always steady engines (seemed tuned to concert 440) A full throated celestial “A” chord that did not waver, that did not roar. Their harmonic consistency was the background sound every day, morning noon and night through the sweetest years of our lives. “dungderoad” in Bournfield.
I lay down this afternoon on the warm soft sand as I had done through out the sweet days of yore, with the sound of DC 3’s taking off and landing in the background… just like a favorite song playing over and again on the juke box…
Book 3 And 1 And 3… The Second Coming
The Plane climbs into the orange dusk above Charlotte Amalia, and I am on my way back to the states. As we bank into the setting sun, I think,” I’m doing it again, I’m doing it again. I’m leaving the Island, and going to the states… with the same intention that I held forty five years and lets see..five months and twelve hours and a lifetime ago.
To sing, to change the world, to change my family’s economic situation, to prove myself, to demonstrate to other Virgin Islanders that we are good enough too, that we’ve got what it takes to make it, and be equal in this world, To get famous and… (lets not forget, or overlook, diminish or deny the primal, primary force that has driven many many men of music)… Chicks.
Only perhaps this time the priorities might be listed somewhat differently.
1. Do not drink or use absolutely no matter what
2. Do not allow myself to be constantly and continuously distracted by the promise of a kiss. Sublimate that to taking care of those already in my care.
3. Do not be dismissive of ideas other than my own
4. Remember to be grateful for the beautiful gifts that I’ve been given, and to let them shine.
5. Stay committed to doing it better, by doing the things I do, better than I’ve been doing them.
6. Choose my battles thoughtfully and carefully
7. Listen. and
8. Learn
9. Remember alsway, to pass it on.
While this octave plus one, of ideas may not be the whole story, it could lead to a better story than the one I’ve got.
Puerto Rico is below and the whole majestic Island is moving to the south east at five slow hundred miles per hour. Every dream and heartbreak, pot of arroz con pollo, beautiful bighearted, black-eyed, big bottomed beauty, and her Abuelita, every tousled haired little one and their sinewy armed Abuelos, every conga pounding, bongo beating, high note hitting, guapo big dreamer, every surviving Taieno and Carib, every Don Santiago de Espana, every child of Africa, every perfumed Princessa De la Noche, every hysterical television personality and dancing melocoton, electric plug, telephone cable, naval installation, politician, supermarket, history book and so on, is slipping away “al Oriente”. I will miss it when it’s gone.
On July 2nd, 1964, (forty five years, five months, twelve hours and a lifetime ago) It took the entire day, (dawn to dusk), to sail the fifty foot Ketch “Success” this far. Sailing into San Juan harbor in the dark that night, was a bilge-rat’s first lesson in finding the navigational lights hidden among the dancing neon, red, green and amber traffic lights and the ever blinking diamond twinkle of a major sea side city.
On July Fourth 1964, as we were leaving the harbor at Areciebo, bound across the dreaded Mona Passage for Hispaniola. I looked back towards “The Virgins” beneath the rising sun, and felt my heart all but break with longing.
I wanted more than anything to go back home (even though home was at that time, a small clearing on the side of Sara Hill.) I stood on the deck, looking back for a long long time.
In truth, no small part of my pain was the realization that “today, the 4th” was wild, raucous, rambunctious, crazy ruckus, Carnival Day in St. John. I felt ever so strongly that I should have been heading there, rather than here, going who knows where. (but clearly in the wrong direction).
The good question of whether I ought to have been heading east to England rather than west to the U.S. has been posed many times by sincere people aware of my history in the music business. While I very much appreciate their concern and perhaps it is true that I might have been a better fit for Britain, Truth be told, on July Fourth 1964, standing on the deck of the good ship “Success” longing for the “Islands of the Virgins” I was much more an “instinct driven, lusty, dipsomaniacal youth,” than a thoughtful, practical, prescient planner. Ah well…
I’m remembering how at 18, I was alone in the full moon night at the helm of a 50 foot ketch, under full sail, just off the coast of Haiti, holding a course W.N.W, on the Midnight to 4 AM watch, with four souls asleep below.
What an amazing series of moments. I was as hyper alert as I had ever been, hyper aware of the wind, the current, the strong pulling of the wheel, the glowing compass and what would happen if I slid off course. I was sure that I could hear the water crashing against the reefs that line the northern coast of Hispaniola, and if you ask, to this day, I could almost swear that I remember (clear as a ships bell), the leaping fires on the Mountain side and the crazy pounding of Haitian drums. My heart was pounding my, my mind was racing, and I knew that I would never forget that moment, that time and place, the spirit in that boy. And I never have.
There were many other wonderful exhilarating unforgettable nights at sea, standing at the point of the bowsprit, flying high and plunging deep above and between the dark and dangerous waves. Singing into the wind as it whipped my hair my open shirt and my words away.
Scrambling in crazy wind lashed rain storm to follow the Captain’s command, to haul in the franticly beating jib, in spite of the fact that it’s already slapped you silly. To this day I dream of magnificent beautiful flying Jennys…
Or still quiet nights when the sea and the sky and the stars in the sky ARE everything, are everything that is the world, everything that is except our poor little pondering noggins with their peculiar little imaginings,
A boy of beating heart, of fragile little (but conscious) brain, my feeble little man-child wonderings, sandwiched between billions of years above and billions of years below. A “consciousness” floating on a wood chip smack dab between double eternities. Yikes! There perhaps, the waddling baby duckling birth of reverence and humility. Continued…
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 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. 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.
Scott Fagan's Mem.wa? 