Michelle Loubon

No­to­ri­ous­ly fa­mous for clas­sics like Paul Yuh Moth­er Come and Nani Wine, vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Ed­win Ay­oung has carved a niche as the pi­o­neer of parang/so­ca. As the count­down to Christ­mas in­ten­si­fies, Ay­oung, fond­ly known as Crazy is ap­peal­ing to fel­low ca­lyp­so bards and parang/so­ca singers to Keep It Holy. In­ter­viewed re­cent­ly, Ay­oung said he was is­su­ing a plea for his peers; es­pe­cial­ly the young artistes, to re­frain from singing smut in the name of parang/so­ca. Ay­oung said: "I does get crazy. Christ­mas is about Je­sus, Mary and Joseph. It is about giv­ing praise to God for send­ing his son Je­sus. It is a holy sea­son. Let us not for­get the rea­son for the sea­son." He added: "I am beg­ging the young singers to keep it holy...keep it clean. Don't let the art form de­gen­er­ate. Christ­mas is a sa­cred sea­son. Je­sus is the point about the sea­son."

Ay­oung is keen­ly aware his cyn­ics may raise their brows or dis­miss his pleas, but he main­tains like the prophet Je­re­mi­ah he will con­tin­ue cry­ing out in the wilder­ness. He list­ed a num­ber of top­ics peo­ple could sing up­on like the Na­tiv­i­ty, an­gels, San­ta Claus, Beth­le­hem, Christ­mas cus­toms in T&T and the Ma­gi-who went in search of the Christ Child. Ay­oung said: "It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for singers to cap­i­talise on the Bible. Sing about Je­sus. Think about pure things. Sing about holy things." Ay­oung feels the sanc­ti­ty of Christ­mas should not be taint­ed with smut­ty songs about win­ing, jam­ming and carous­ing.

He said: "Let us leave the par­ty­ing and wine and jam for Car­ni­val. Leave out the drunk­ness and the bac­cha­nal. We have plen­ty time for that. But let us keep Christ­mas clean." Among his reper­toire are parang hits like Maria, Yvonne and Tito Lara. "I nev­er sang a dirty parang/so­ca song. Check out the lyrics and you will see. They are all clean. No smut. I give due re­spect to the sea­son."

Tra­di­tion­al parang ver­sus so­ca parang

Ay­oung, who was born to a Venezue­lan moth­er Ros­alia Al­cazar-Ay­oung, re­lied up­on his Span­ish an­ces­try to cre­ate the genre. Asked whether he felt so­ca/parang would re­place tra­di­tion­al parang songs about the Aguinal­do and Ser­e­nal, he blunt­ly stat­ed: "No." In Christ­mas of days gone by, co­coa pe­ons (peo­ple of Venezue­lan and mixed an­ces­try) would go parang­ing from house to house with their cu­a­tros and man­dolins. They sang tra­di­tion­al parang songs in Span­ish. Ay­oung said: "Tra­di­tion­al parang is the moth­er of so­ca/parang. It will not be wiped out. So­ca/parang is the child."

Need for Span­ish com­posers

Up­on clos­er in­tro­spec­tion, he felt the prob­lem lay in the trans­mis­sion of the lan­guage and the need for more Span­ish com­posers. He said: "We had peo­ple like the late Daisy Voisin and Tito Lara who sang a lot of tra­di­tion­al parang. They have passed on. There is still tra­di­tion­al parang. But peo­ple have to learn Span­ish." Ay­oung felt the rea­son they were grav­i­tat­ing to­ward so­ca/parang was be­cause the ma­jor­i­ty of the lyrics were in Eng­lish. "Peo­ple are able to sing along much eas­i­er than if it were in Span­ish. They must know more Span­ish. But the so­ca/parang is easy. So­ca/parang is just the break­ing down of the lan­guage." The dearth of Span­ish com­posers pre­sent­ed a prob­lem, too.

"Peo­ple have to know Span­ish to com­pose in Span­ish. It is easy to com­pose a song about Christ­mas in Eng­lish. We need more com­posers." For ex­am­ple, he said: "It is easy to sing, 'I love pastelles. But the per­son had to know 'A mi me gus­ta pastelles' to prop­er­ly ex­press it in Span­ish. Ay­oung felt Span­ish should be taught in the pri­ma­ry schools to en­sure there were fu­ture com­posers and pre­pare stu­dents to be glob­al lead­ers. He said: "We will have more Span­ish speak­ers and com­posers. If a child is bilin­gual it is even bet­ter. They will be able to man­age even bet­ter when they trav­el to an­oth­er coun­try."

34 years of parang/so­ca

De­spite the tri­als and os­tracism, Ay­oung is proud parang/so­ca will be 34 years old. "I got a lot of pres­sure from ca­lyp­so­ni­ans. They said I was singing stu­pid­ness. They pelt the tapes. In those days, we didn't have CDs. They tried to run me out of town. They were con­vinced I was crazy." In con­tem­po­rary T&T, Ay­oung is pleased the art form has been adopt­ed by stal­warts like Baron (Span­ish Woman) Scrunter (Ah Want Ah Piece of Pork) and Ken­ny J (Ah Want Meh Brush). Ay­oung said: "I cre­at­ed an av­enue for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans to make mon­ey dur­ing Christ­mas. They don't have to wait un­til Car­ni­val to rush to the tents. They could make mon­ey for the sea­son." Again, he lift­ed a warn­ing fin­ger. In his zany style, Ay­oung said: "Don't let Crazy get crazy. Keep it holy. Every­thing will be nice."

Keep It Holy

An ex­cerpt from Keep It Holy which was arranged by fel­low artiste My­ron B.

"Let us keep it holy

Let us be hap­py

Songs must be part of the sea­son

Let's not lose the moral sense of rea­son

Re­frain from the spir­it of the hea­then

Some­times we end up drunk; we end up in a fight

Let's be holy

Watch the con­tents of those com­po­si­tions."

Car­ni­val 2012

Seiz­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty, Ay­oung said he was mov­ing tent, from the Re­vue to Klas­sic Ru­so. He thanked its man­ag­er Michael Os­una (Sug­ar Aloes) and the staff for their sup­port and love and wished them all the best in their fu­ture en­deav­ours. "I learned a lot from the late Lord Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts). But it is time to move on. I will be meet­ing up with All­rounder, Ver­sa­tile and Con­tender. Let­ting the cat out of the bag, Ay­oung said his Car­ni­val con­tender was Mad­der Dan Mad. He said he was mo­ti­vat­ed by his per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences. He said: "I had to write Mad­der Dan Mad. I helped a friend with mon­ey to get her pass­port. She went to the Ex­po and spent it on a vase. I said: 'Woman, yuh more crazy than Crazy'." For C2k12, he was pro­duc­ing for La­dy Gyp­sy. "She has a sweet piece about vin­tage wine." Ay­oung ex­tend­ed best wish­es and God's choic­est bless­ings to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.