Pe­ter Ray Blood

The 1963 Car­ni­val, held on Feb­ru­ary 25-26, was the first of the In­de­pen­dence era, and brought with sev­er­al firsts. Next year marks the 50th an­niver­sary of of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment-sub­sidised, Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tions. Among the sig­nif­i­cant firsts of '63 in­clude the first time the Ju­nior Cham­ber of Com­merce staged its an­nu­al Car­ni­val Queen Show at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and not at its tra­di­tion­al venue-Queen's Park Oval. The ti­tle was won by 18-year-old Jean Stod­dart, parad­ing as Miss Y de Li­ma. It was al­so the first time the Na­tion­al Panora­ma was staged, won by North Stars, fol­lowed by Sun­down­ers, fol­lowed by Des­per­a­does. North Stars' tune of choice was Spar­row's Dan is the Man, arranged by An­tho­ny Williams. Fifty years ago, North Stars was al­so vot­ed the Best Steel­band on the Road, fol­lowed by High­landers, Trinidad All Stars and Casablan­ca. The year al­so saw the stag­ing of the first Na­tion­al King of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion, won by Col­in Edghill, por­tray­ing Hen­ry VI­II, from new band­leader Archie Yee Foon's The Field of the Cloth of Gold.

The 1963 Queen of Car­ni­val was Kay Christo­pher, as High Priest­ess of Etruria, from Ed­mond Hart's The Etr­uscans. It was al­so the first time that an In­di­vid­ual of the Year was cho­sen, an ho­n­our that went to mas­man ex­tra­or­di­naire Ter­ry Eve­lyn, por­tray­ing one of the most beau­ti­ful cos­tumes in mas his­to­ry-Beau­ty in Per­pe­tu­ity, from George Bai­ley's mas band-Bats and Clowns. One of the most sig­nif­i­cant wins ever in Car­ni­val oc­curred in 1963 as Sil­ver Stars copped the cov­et­ed Band of the Year ti­tle, the first and on­ly time a steel­band had won this pre­mier com­pe­ti­tion. Sil­ver Stars por­trayed Gul­liv­er's Trav­els, de­signed by Rus­sell Char­ter. The New­town steel or­ches­tra's win was even more em­phat­ic as it al­so ran away with the 1963 Peo­ples Choice award. The Band of the Year com­pe­ti­tion was first in­au­gu­rat­ed eight years pri­or to the first of­fi­cials com­pe­ti­tion un­der the aegis of the Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee (CDC), fore­run­ner to the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (NCC). The cham­pi­on of ca­lyp­so in the land was not crowned as a monarch but as a "king" back in 1963. The hold­er of this ti­tle be­came an is­sue years lat­er with the as­cen­sion of To­bag­on­ian McArtha Lewis (Ca­lyp­so Rose) in the ca­lyp­so are­na, the first woman to cop the ti­tle.

How­ev­er, in 1963, the first of­fi­cial ca­lyp­so king was Spar­row, singing Kennedy and Dan is the Man. The fi­nal­ists in that com­pe­ti­tion were Lord Kitch­en­er, Lord Blakie, Lord Cristo, Mighty Bomber, Mighty Dougla, Nap Hep­burn and Spar­row. The Ca­lyp­so King got the roy­al grand prize of $1,000. In 50 years of ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion, the monarch took home a mil­lion-dol­lar first prize in 2012. By the way, Spar­row was al­so the Ca­lyp­so King of 1962, the year of In­de­pen­dence. Growl­ing Tiger, singing Labour Sta­tion in Trinidad, has the dis­tinc­tion of win­ning the first record­ed Ca­lyp­so King ti­tle in 1939 -a feat which cel­e­brates 74 years next year. In­ter­est­ing­ly with­out disc jock­eys and elec­tron­ic mu­sic on the road on Car­ni­val day, steel­bands de­ter­mined which ca­lyp­son­ian would win the Road March. In 1963, it turned out to be a run­away vic­to­ry for the late Lord Kitch­en­er's The Road. Road March­es had been pre­vi­ous­ly cit­ed 31 years pri­or to 1963, with the first ever record­ed win go­ing to King Ra­dio's Tiger Tom play tiger cat. How­ev­er, next year al­so marks the 80th an­niver­sary of the "Big Mas­quer­ade," staged in 1933, on Feb­ru­ary 27-28, with venues in cap­i­tal Port-of-Spain, es­pe­cial­ly Ma­rine Square (In­de­pen­dence Square), Besson Street and South Quay, teem­ing with rev­ellers and spec­ta­tors. Mas, fea­tur­ing kalin­da drums and stick-fight­ing, was al­so very much alive in rur­al dis­tricts like San­gre Grande and Ari­ma. A "Car­ni­val Re­vue" was or­gan­ised by James Smith at the Queen's Park Oval, show­cas­ing cos­tumery, and ca­lyp­so and a mu­sic band com­pe­ti­tions, with the first prize win­ner re­ceiv­ing $50. Singing Eman­ci­pa­tion Cen­te­nary, At­ti­la the Hun won the top prize in the ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion, billed "The Song­sters," fol­lowed in the plac­ing by Lord Ex­ecu­tor, Lord Be­gin­ner and Chief­tain Dou­glas, At­ti­la's prize was twen­ty dol­lars; yes, $20.

And so, here we are, fac­ing half cen­tu­ry of "of­fi­cial" T&T Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion. So, who will our cham­pi­ons be? NCC, Pan Trin­ba­go, TU­CO, NC­BA etc, I have you all suf­fi­cient no­tice to be­gin prop­er­ly plan­ning this very sig­nif­i­cant epoch in the his­to­ry of T&T Car­ni­val. Car­ni­val 2013 falls on Feb­ru­ary 11-12. Every two years the Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val Foun­da­tion (LSFF) stages one of the most pres­ti­gious steel­band events-8 of Hearts Steel­band Con­cert. This year's edi­tion is sched­uled for Sat­ur­day, May 19, at 7 pm, at the Laven­tille Com­plex, lo­cat­ed at the An­gos­tu­ra Com­pound, in Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille. The con­cert fea­tures the top eight placed large con­ven­tion­al steel or­ches­tras of the na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion-Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, bpTT Rene­gades, So­lo Har­monites, CAL In­vaders, NL­CB Fon­claire and RBC Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters. Miss­ing is sec­ond-placed PCS Sil­ver Stars be­cause the New­town band had a pre­vi­ous com­mit­ment and would be un­avail­able on May 19. In the pro­duc­tion, each or­ches­tra has an al­lot­ted 35 min­utes, and it's up to band to show off its vast reper­toire, aug­ment­ing pan with con­ven­tion­al in­stru­ments and vo­cal­ists. It is in­deed a unique and in­no­v­a­tive op­por­tu­ni­ty to show off the ver­sa­til­i­ty of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment as par­tic­i­pants would have had two years to en­hance their reper­to­ries. From its in­cep­tion, the 8 of Hearts Steel­band Con­cert has been held un­der the pa­tron­age of the re­pub­lic's pres­i­dent and this year is no dif­fer­ent as it is sup­posed to be graced by the at­ten­dance of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, and his wife Dr Jean Ramjohn Richards. The LSFF is al­so us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty at the con­cert to launch a book tilt­ed "The Oth­er Side of Laven­tille." LSFF ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Ju­lian Cud­joe stat­ed on the week­end: "While we can­not hide the crime el­e­ment in Laven­tille, we can al­so high­light and cham­pi­on the pos­i­tives of Laven­tille." "The Oth­er Side of Laven­tille" is a pic­to­r­i­al pub­li­ca­tion and Pres­i­dent Richards has been asked to pen its fore­word.

Some da­ta cour­tesy "Pa­rade of the Car­ni­vals of Trinidad 1939 - 1989," writ­ten by Michael An­tho­ny