Pe­ter Ray Blood

Who is the best ca­lyp­son­ian of the 20th cen­tu­ry? This ques­tion has been asked so many times and no one has ever been able to come up with a con­clu­sive an­swer.

Dat­ing back to the ear­ly 1900s ca­lyp­soes have been so di­verse, top­i­cal and poignant it is a mon­u­men­tal chal­lenge to chose the best ca­lyp­son­ian in al­most a cen­tu­ry of the art form. Dubbed "the voice of the peo­ple," world and T&T his­to­ry, in­deed the his­to­ry of mankind, can be traced through every ma­jor epoch of civil­i­sa­tion.

Names like Atil­la the Hun, Be­gin­ner, King Ra­dio, Ex­ecu­tor, Rail­way Dou­glas, Tiger and Spoil­er are but a few etched in the an­nals of ca­lyp­so. Since In­de­pen­dence in 1962, that dy­nasty has been en­hanced by the likes of Kitch­en­er, Spar­row, Bomber, Ter­ror, Lord Shorty, Shad­ow, Mer­chant, Duke, Chalk­dust, Black Stal­in, Cro Cro, Sug­ar Aloes and Ca­lyp­so Rose.

To ar­rive at the best ca­lyp­soes of the 20th cen­tu­ry, Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) em­barked on an ex­er­cise to iden­ti­fy the Top 50 ca­lyp­so­ni­ans of the pe­ri­od. The list makes in­ter­est­ing read­ing and you can e-mail your thoughts, re­spons­es, and prob­a­ble omis­sions to blood­line@guardian.co.tt

Tu­co's top 50 ca­lyp­so­ni­ans of the 20th cen­tu­ry(in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der)

1 Atil­la the Hun (Ray­mond Queve­do)

2 Be­gin­ner (Eg­bert Moore)

3 Black Stal­in (Leroy Cal­liste)

4 Blakie (Carl­ton Joseph)

5 Bomber (Clifton Ryan)

6 Bri­go (Samuel Abra­ham)

7 Ca­lyp­so Rose (Mc­Cartha Lewi)

8 Chalk­dust (Dr Hol­lis Liv­er­pool)

9 Com­pos­er (Fred Mitchell)

10 Crazy (Ed­win Ay­oung)

11 Cristo (Christo­pher Laid­low)

12 Cro Cro (We­st­on Rawl­ins)

13 Cypher (Di­lary Scott)

14 David Michael Rud­der

15 Duke (Kelvin Pope)

16 Ex­ecu­tor (Phillip Gar­cia)

17 Ex­plain­er (Win­ston Hen­ry)

18 Fun­ny (Don­ric Williamson)

19 Growler (Er­rol Duke)

20 Gyp­sy (Win­ston Pe­ters)

21 In­vad­er (Ru­pert Grant)

22 Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts)

23 Li­on (Raphael De Leon)

24 Machel Mon­tano

25 Mae­stro (Ce­cil Hume)

26 Melody (Fitzroy Alexan­der)

27 Mer­chant (Den­nis Franklyn)

28 Nel­son (Robert Nel­son)

29 Pen­guin (Seadley Joseph)

30 Pow­er (Son­ny Fran­cois)

31 Pre­tender (Ul­ric Far­rel)

32 Ra­dio (Nor­man Spann)

33 Rail­way Dou­glas (Wal­ter Dou­glas)

34 Re­la­tor (Willard Harr)

35 Scrunter (Owen Reyes John­son)

36 Shad­ow (Win­ston Bai­ley)

37 Short Shirt (McLean Em­manuel)

38 Shorty (Garfield Black­man)

39 Singing Francine (Francine Ed­wards)

40 Singing San­dra (San­dra des Vi­gnes Milling­ton)

41 Small Is­land Pride (Theophilus Wood)

42 Spar­row (Slinger Fran­cis­co)

43 Spoil­er (Theophilus Phillips)

44 Su­perBlue (Austin Lyons)

45 Swal­low (Ru­pert Phi­lo)

46 Ter­ror (Fitzger­ald Hen­ry)

47 Tiger (Neville Mar­cano)

48 Valenti­no (Em­rold Phillip)

49 Won­der (Vic­tor Atwell)

50 Zan­dolee (Sylvester An­tho­ny)

Ma­com­ere Fi­fi wins in Cana­da

Con­grat­u­la­tions to To­ba­go-born Ma­com­ere Fi­fi (Eu­lith Tara Woods), a mem­ber of Toron­to's Pro­fes­sion­als Kaiso Tent, who was crowned the 2013 Cana­da Ca­lyp­so Monarch last Sat­ur­day. The com­pe­ti­tion was held by the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Ca­lyp­so Per­form­ing Artists (OC­PA).

Fi­fi's two se­lec­tions were ti­tled Nev­er Again and Tell Me Why. This is the fifth time Fi­fi has won, start­ing with her de­but year, back in 1998.

Mean­while, south of Toron­to, in Brook­lyn, things are al­ready wax­ing warm for New York Labour Day car­ni­val, with the ca­lyp­so tents ad­ver­tis­ing some de­lec­table morsels for ca­lyp­so lovers. For in­stance, Vin­cy Nite is sched­uled for Au­gust 28. This show is be­ing her­ald­ed as "a mag­nif­i­cent dis­play of the 2013 St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Car­ni­val, ca­lyp­so and so­ca sea­son." Sev­er­al artistes, in­clud­ing Cauldric Forbes, Live­ly, Theo Homer, Scorcher and the vet­er­an Beck­et, are billed to per­form.

Vin­cy Nite is pro­duced by Gai­lene Wind­sor of Vin­cy So­ca, with the co-op­er­a­tion of the St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Tourism De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty and the Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee. Says Michelle Young of Every­body's Mag­a­zine: "We wel­come Vin­cy Nite to Brook­lyn's Ca­lyp­so-So­ca Re­vue. Thank you, St Vin­cent, for giv­ing the world Kevin Lyt­tle, Beck­et, Win­ston Soso and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous."

The Car­ni­val Thurs­day So­ca Show­case on Au­gust 29, be­gin­ning 9 pm, is the con­cept of Yankey Boy, the reign­ing World So­ca Monarch. Yankey Boy, who was a hit in Trinidad at this year's Car­ni­val, has in­vit­ed young tal­ent­ed so­ca artistes, many of whom have won monarch ti­tles in their re­spec­tive is­lands, such as Su­per­star Jer­maine of Car­ri­a­cou, Grena­da, to this event.

The Ca­lyp­so-So­ca Re­vue, tra­di­tion­al­ly called a "ca­lyp­so tent," is pre­sent­ing many idols of ca­lyp­so such as Lord Fun­ny, Brown Boy, Singing Di­ane, Count Robin, Ca­lyp­so Rose and Beck­et. Every night is a Very Spe­cial Ex­trav­a­gan­za (VSE), with the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed Ladies Nite billed for Au­gust 27, at 8 pm.

With the 51st in­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary of T&T falling ex­act­ly on Brook­lyn's car­ni­val week­end, two ex­cit­ing T&T in­de­pen­dence nights are planned. Pa­trons are be­ing en­cour­aged to bring flags, and wear our wear na­tion­al colours.

On Au­gust 30, the Ca­lyp­so-So­ca Re­vue will present The Icons of Ca­lyp­so. On the stroke of mid­night, on Au­gust 31, the na­tion­al an­them of the twin-is­land na­tion will be ren­dered and there will be cham­pagne toasts by artistes and fans.

Every­body's Ca­lyp­so-So­ca Re­vue cli­max­es on Au­gust 31 with a spec­tac­u­lar show and dance. Af­ter per­for­mances by the icons of ca­lyp­so and so­ca, it is par­ty time un­til 4 am.

Ca­lyp­so and so­ca fans com­ing to New York for the week­long car­ni­val events do not have to pur­chase Ca­lyp­so-So­ca Re­vue tick­ets in Brook­lyn, as they can be ob­tained via www.every­bodys­mag.com.

For more in­for­ma­tion call 718 941 1879