Nass­er Khan

At the age of 22 in 1965, Lennox "Bob­by" Mo­hammed be­came the youngest arranger to win a Panora­ma ti­tle with the San Fer­nan­do-based band Guin­ness Cav­a­liers. They would re­peat this in 1967 af­ter plac­ing sec­ond in 1966. In 1992 Mo­hammed was ho­n­oured with one of this coun­try's high­est na­tion­al awards, the Hum­ming Bird Medal Gold. Now a spright­ly and very spir­i­tu­al 71-year-old, he re­flects on and tell us of his re-emer­gence on the mu­sic scene.

When and how did you get in­to the steel­pan in­stru­ment?

As a mu­si­cian from small, way back in 1958 when Narlin Taitt, ping-pong soloist cham­pi­on, brought the first tenor pan home by us. My broth­er Sel­wyn start­ed to play first. I kept ac­com­pa­ny­ing both Narlin and Sel­wyn on the pi­ano. And Gon­do­liers Steel­band moved home by us and I start­ed to play the cel­lo pan.

Was it some­thing you had to work hard at or did it come nat­u­ral­ly?

Lar­ry du Boulet, the first arranger for Gon­do­liers, start­ed giv­ing me the idea how to play the cel­lo pan with three sticks. Be­ing a pi­ano mu­si­cian, hav­ing learnt from my mom Enid, chords were easy for me to play and I im­pro­vised a bit. I must say that mu­sic and God are in my blood and soul.

De­scribe your rise to be­com­ing the arranger of Guin­ness Cav­a­liers?

Lar­ry Du Boulet had left the band and I was asked to arrange. Our reper­toire was var­ied: mam­bo, waltzes, clas­si­cal, boleros, castil­ians and, of course, ca­lyp­soes. We (Gon­do­liers) got the Guin­ness spon­sor­ship play­ing at Tav­ern on the Green in Port-of-Spain and were known as Guin­ness Gon­do­liers. How­ev­er, the band split up and Cav­a­liers was born out of Gon­do­liers. We al­so got the Guin­ness spon­sor­ship to be called Guin­ness Cav­a­liers. I was ap­point­ed to lead and arrange the mu­sic.

Fol­low­ing your glo­ry years in the 1960s Bob­by Mo­hammed dis­ap­peared from the scene for quite a while, what hap­pened?

Dis­ap­pear­ing from the scene for so long was and is the will of God. I al­ways want­ed to know about God be­cause of a great ex­pe­ri­ence that I had so many years ago. I was al­ways ask­ing many ques­tions, how­ev­er, and nev­er seek­ing God for my­self. In the height of Guin­ness Cav­a­liers suc­cess­es, I had a ner­vous break­down. Now, how­ev­er, I know how great God is and who He is in the per­son and spir­it of our lord and sav­iour Je­sus Christ. Vol­ume I and II of The Life His­to­ry of Steel­band Icon Lennox Bob­by Mo­hammed–In the Light of Pan Mu­sic, tells my life sto­ry and my dis­ap­pear­ing from the scene and all that took place in my life. It was doc­u­ment­ed by Dr Brad­er Brath­waite, ed­u­ca­tion­al psy­chol­o­gist, with 22 of the Guin­ness Cav­a­liers tunes be­ing played as she nar­rat­ed my life sto­ry about three or four years aback. All I want to say is God is a great, great God and all that I do now in mu­sic is to ho­n­our Him.

What new mu­sic do you have to of­fer? What is the name of the new CD, what tracks are on it, and where can we get it?

Most of the peo­ple who know me, re­al­ly know me as the steel­band cap­tain and arranger of Guin­ness Cav­a­liers, al­though I arranged for more bands. Close ones know that I re­al­ly was a pi­ano play­er (by ear) do­ing it from very small–sev­en years old. I have had eight steel­band CDs done and three key­board CDs pro­duced. The last one, Key­board Mu­sic Vol III is out. It's called Re­joice and has four of my orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions–a parang, pop, ca­lyp­so and a gospel piece. This CD has mixed songs–When you tell me that you love me, The Robe, Re­joice as the theme song, C is for the Christ Child and This is the mo­ment, to name a few of the 18 songs.

The record shops and out­lets that have Re­joice so far are: Mu­sic.Com; Eden's on High Street, San Fer­nan­do, op­po­site the li­brary; Babi­ta's Roti Shop in Dum­fries Road, La Ro­maine; al­so get­ting it to Va­ri­ety Records, San Fer­nan­do; Off the wall, Gulf City; Cros­by's in St James, PoS; Cleve's Record Shop, Fred­er­ick Street; Kams Records; Just CDs in Diego Mar­tin, and at the air­port. Al­so from me at 652-3370. Mr Phillip Al­lard of PA Stu­dio in San Fer­nan­do is do­ing a good job on pro­duc­ing the CDs.I have a lot of pi­ano and key­board mu­sic that is so unique and won­der­ful, all to be re­leased one af­ter the oth­er; clas­si­cal and gospel main­ly, as well as pop­u­lar tunes and a lot of com­posed songs which I wrote. Peo­ple may ask so long we are hear­ing about this, what is hap­pen­ing? Every­thing will hap­pen in God's tim­ing.

Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

I was born in Siparia Old Road, and when I was about be­tween sev­en and nine years, we (the fam­i­ly) moved to Laz­zari Street, Mon Re­pos, San Fer­nan­do. We grew up, my sis­ter Lynette and my two broth­ers, Sel­wyn and Lester with my­self in Mon Re­pos with our grand­par­ents and par­ents.Who were the peo­ple who have in­flu­enced you the most in your ca­reer, and in life in gen­er­al, and how did they? Who are your role mod­els, or who in­spires you?Well, I nev­er took pan or steel­band ar­rang­ing as a ca­reer. It was just a great love. To­day the pan play­ers, arrangers, etc, have it as a ca­reer. Narlin Taitt, Ju­nior Pouchet (who to me was one of the most imag­i­na­tive, beau­ti­ful and sen­si­ble arrangers–very cre­ative, very unique which I recog­nised.)

My broth­er Sel­wyn, Ruthven Davies and Pol­lon­ais (known as Pol­ly) from Sea Bees Steel Or­ches­tra close to us, they used to vamp the bass which was some­thing I used to hear out­stand­ing when they played. When Al­lan Ger­vais from Point Fortin tuned our pans in 1965, the same year I had that great spir­i­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence (that was a gift I think God gave me) and Cav­a­liers came down the track in that Panora­ma, God alone knows what hap­pened. God pro­pelled Cav­a­liers, my­self and Al­lan Ger­vais straight in­to the height of the pan world. Don't ask me. God alone knows. He is so great.As re­gards who is my role mod­el, I nev­er looked at any­one as such. Things would strike me like I ex­plained how peo­ple op­er­at­ed, but God was al­ways guid­ing me so strong, whether I knew it or not, and I al­ways want­ed to find Him af­ter that spir­i­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence. Je­sus is my role mod­el though it may not look so. He knows each and every one of us. He is my Sav­iour, I shall not be moved.

What school/in­sti­tu­tions did you at­tend?

I at­tend­ed Siparia Road CM School, Mon Re­pos RC School and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do.If you could pick a singer to per­form just for you, who would you choose?That would be the girl who sang my com­po­si­tions who I don't see now, Miss Petal Dowlat. What do you want to still aim to ac­com­plish with your tal­ent?I with­draw my­self some­times; God who is in charge knows why. How­ev­er, I need some­one who can help me to man­age all the CDs; all my mu­sic and what­ev­er is the Lord's will for me in the mu­si­cal world. Still, to mar­ket every­thing and get it to the record shops and the peo­ple, I feel is a great part. But know­ing more about the Lord is our great­est as­sign­ment, which is very clear. But per­son­al re­la­tion­ship is nec­es­sary in every­one's life. His spe­cial gift to me is the mu­sic, heav­en­ly mu­sic, and peo­ple may take it to mean it's on­ly gospel, but heav­en­ly mu­sic sounds beau­ti­ful. Heav­en­ly mu­sic is to glo­ri­fy God with.

Name three ca­lyp­soes (so­ca in­clud­ed, if any) and three non-ca­lyp­soes, if you had to choose to arrange.

Three ca­lyp­soes: a) Hur­ri­cane b) Bassline c) Hase­ly Craw­ford.Three non-ca­lyp­soes: (a) My heart will go on, (b) The Pow­er of Love, (c) The Rose.What dai­ly mot­to or cre­do do you live by, and in three words, your recipe for suc­cess?God is in com­plete con­trol in whom I have ab­solute faith. Recipe for suc­cess–just be­lieve in what you are do­ing and in God.Of all your shows, con­certs, per­for­mances, which would you like a first-time au­di­ence, lis­ten­er, view­er to ex­pe­ri­ence?The un­be­liev­able 1965 Panora­ma; 1967 at Na­pari­ma Bowl–Cav­a­liers ac­com­pa­ny­ing a San Fer­nan­do choir–Christ­mas Car­ols; 1966–Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, acts I & IV.Tell us about your in­spi­ra­tion to do the type of 'work' you do.Any­time I get in the mood, I would just go to the pi­ano, in the past and now al­so. I would just play on straight, just play­ing and record on a tape recorder. It is what God al­lows me to put down. How­ev­er, when com­pos­ing a piece I just play, add and sub­tract mu­sic as well as words un­til I am sat­is­fied. This is it. I can write what­ev­er type of song I want, ca­lyp­so, parang, gospel, pop, al­so writ­ing from the Bible (Psalms, or chap­ters tak­ing parts, like Eph­esians, St John, Proverbs etc). I may not write word for word but al­most all is cor­rect, as the mes­sage has not changed; so the lis­ten­er can un­der­stand.

Of all your ac­co­lades, prizes and awards, which do you rate as ex­treme­ly spe­cial?

I ap­pre­ci­ate and thank God for all. I don't thank Him enough. He has blessed me so much to just sit qui­et­ly and then He knows what He is do­ing in my life.What goals and am­bi­tions do you still have?The hope I have is that when the peo­ple hear any mu­sic that I do, they should see God. But with cer­tain ones done, I be­lieve they will see Him and what is yet to come. By His mer­cy, good­ness and grace I know they will see Him.

What is the best com­pli­ment you have ever re­ceived?

Many peo­ple who know me and still hold me in high es­teem as an arranger when they go back to times like, Is Paris burn­ing, 67, My Broth­er, Your Sis­ter, Ting Tang, etc. What a great com­pli­ment.

De­scribe your­self be­gin­ning with B and M your ini­tials?

Be­longs to Je­sus; Mas­ter–God made you a mu­si­cian mas­ter, but He is My Mas­ter, My Sav­iour and My Lord and I am His child.

What in­spires you?

Just know­ing God is there, I'm in­spired. I could just go down­stairs, be­gin to play and write or just play beau­ti­ful hymns and songs–com­posed ones, etc.

What was the most dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion you ever had to make?

I've been in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions but they al­ways work out, short or lit­tle longer; they work out. Just re­mem­ber, God is watch­ing and there's a hymn that says, "There is an un­seen hand that leads the way, I can­not see."How can we find out more about you and keep up to date with your lat­est news? Tele­phone num­bers for ex­am­ple.It will be a plea­sure to hear from your read­ers. My cell num­bers are 469-1430, 750-3856 and num­ber at home is 652-3370. Please feel free to call.

What are your plans for the fu­ture?

Where He leads me I will fol­low.

Bob­by's Mu­sic

Any­one will­ing to as­sist with the mar­ket­ing of his ma­te­r­i­al kind­ly con­tact Bob­by Mo­hammed at 469-1430, 750-3856, 652-3370.There is a one-hour in­ter­view with him on YouTube at: tinyurl.com/kh8wntf