Among the many interesting aspects of my time in Tradewinds going back to 1968 was becoming familiar with some of the popular performers of the day, many from Trinidad. It is generally true that in a popular music career, musicians are generally travelling so much, often spending just two or three days in any one city, that they don’t get to know each other all that well. It is largely through their appearances on the same show, at the same venue, that we get to know each other as people, and the time for that is often brief. Performers are, as the saying goes, like ships passing in the night with often only enough opportunity to say “hello” and “see you later”, but along the way we form impressions of each other.
Lord Kitchener, for example, was a complete contradiction to the common image of the calypsonians in the 1960s as a brash, hard-drinking, carousing creature whose entire life was about partying and flamboyance. Kitch was a gentle, humble man who was definitely cut from the gentleman’s cloth. In the most casual settings, he would usually be the best-dressed person there, often in a tie and his inevitable hat, and he was known to be generous. I was in Kitch’s company many times
