Having grown up with my best friends being the sons of a father born in Trinidad and their wonderful mum, a local girl, and often spending more time in their house than I did in my own, I heard some of the most exciting musics to my ears, from the pans and joy of steel band music to Soca and the music across the islands from Martinique to Jamaican reggae and the music of this part of the world has therefore always appealed to me. Early reggae roots of Ska and Rock Steady was a given of course but it led me to explore the musics of Mento too and Neville Marcano strikes me as being early roots of Calypso of Trinidad as it has no pans and is rooted in the music of the thirties and consisting of the more traditional-styled band backing with flute, fiddle, guitar, bass, and percussion here recorded by the legendary Alan Lomax in 1962.
Intriguingly there is also a boxing connection as the boy's dad was a superb and famous British professional feather/super feather/lightweight boxer and I was intrigued to find that Marcano was a teenage flyweight champion also.
This album is long out of print now (1998) and if anyone knows otherwise and wants me to take it down just let me know.
Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment