SXMElections.com

Dear Editor,

St. Martin's (north and south) style of music has always intrigued me; therefore, I would like to tell my comrades about our unique style. If one would listen to tunes produced by The Mighty Dow, The Emperor Brat, King Patou, King T-MO, King Beau Beau, King Jacko, Doctor Jones, King Fish De Mega Boss, King Stunky, Ramon Wilson, Lino, Kaiso Genius, Rosan Maccow, The Mighty Baker Jr. one would hear 14 very different styles. But they all have what I would call the "Sunshine-City, Guava-Berry” flavour.

Here is a gentle reminder from The Mighty Dow's road-march tune "St. Maarten Style" – Face to face, belly to belly, waist to waist; and Patou's “Who's The Leader" – I want to know who's the leader... Follow the leader.

Be it a calypso/soca, a rhumba, or a zouk as long as our creative musicians are the players that Sunshine-City, Guava-Berry sound will be heard. Except for Trinidad, most of the other carnival-loving Caribbean islands' revellers love fast-beat tunes in the jam. King Beau Beau's road march tunes, according to me, have a fast "ponum-dance” beat which also is a vital part of our heritage. Once you hear his tunes you just cannot stop "wukkin up."

Furthermore most of the abovementioned artists are musicians. But I truly believe that virtuosos like James "Jim Tucker" Samuel, Leonel "Big Nel" Bertin-Maurice, Federico "Culebra" Smith, Hugo Nathaniel "Tanny" Davis, Bebe Flanders (peace be upon them) were the men who created the Sunshine-City, Guava-Berry sound.

Comrades, I have profound respect for The Jolly Boys, because the band is preserving our culture. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s when I was a boy, I was fascinated by the sound of drums or the "trapset."

One day as I was walking up the Pondfill Road (before it became C.A. Cannegieter Street) and I heard the acoustic sound of a band kicking hell and when I got close to makeshift bandstand, I saw Stanley Lloyd beating a trapset and his uncle Franky Thomas blowing a horn that was made from two broken bottle necks with a piece of wax paper in the middle.

The band was playing one of The Mighty Sparrow's Tunes - "Priest." I, however, was spellbound by the sound of the trapset. And I would watch King Beau Beau (Leroy Brooks) play the drums for Pot Rum Steelers steel band. How I became a guitar player is another story for another time, comrades.

The reason why we sound the way we sound (I believe) is because of the music from our string bands and the gyration of our "ponum dancers." And there are other subliminal textures in the mixture. I have heard some of our best bands over the last forty years: the legendary Rolling Tones, and the Creole Stars, the Superfly Bros, the Cool Creations, (I played with) the Bells Explosions, Zodiac Brass, Ramon Wilson and The Family Brass, Lino and The Hardway.

In closing, comrades, let us preserve our Sunshine-City, Guava-Berry sound or style because it defines who we are as a people. So when you talk about music, I am not a fellow walking the street. Let us produce a St. Martin symphony.

Julien F. Petty