With al­most six decades of mu­si­cal his­to­ry and pedi­gree be­hind him, Roy Cape, at 72, is about to ven­ture in­to a new thresh­old of his life. The ven­er­a­ble and wiz­ened mu­si­cian will launch his first pub­li­ca­tion ti­tled Roy Cape: A Life on The Ca­lyp­so and So­ca Band­stand on Fri­day, at Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz pa­n­yard, Tra­garete Road, New­town. In this two-parter, Cape speaks with Pe­ter Ray Blood about some of his mu­si­cal ad­ven­tures and mile­stones.

The leader/mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of the Kaiso All Stars, Roy Cape has done it all in mu­sic: an ac­com­plished sax­o­phon­ist; arranger; com­pos­er and record­ing artiste, and he's al­so the 2004 re­cip­i­ent of a Hum­ming Bird (Gold) na­tion­al award, "for loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice to the na­tion" and, in 2011, an hon­orary doc­tor­ate from UWI was con­ferred on him.

Co-au­thor of the book is Cana­di­an pro­fes­sor Jo­ce­lyne Guil­bault, a na­tive of Mon­tre­al and an eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gist at Berkley Col­lege, Cal­i­for­nia. She has been com­ing to Trinidad for decades and made a lot of friends in Trinidad, in­clud­ing Cape. "I met Jo­ce­lyne through Ju­nior Telfer," re­called Cape. "Af­ter three years of ob­serv­ing me, she ap­proached me to do a book. I told her I nev­er had that am­bi­tion but know that I have a sto­ry to tell. This book took four years to com­plete. We worked on it in Toron­to, Grena­da, Car­rie's on the Bay in Man­zanil­la and at my home in Orop­une.

"It was im­por­tant to do some of the work in Grena­da and oth­er lo­ca­tions as at my home there can be a lot of dis­trac­tions. You need peace when it comes to writ­ing, in or­der to prop­er­ly con­cen­trate. Be­cause we didn't have prepara­to­ry notes to be­gin, I had to dig deep in­to my ex­pe­ri­ences and mem­o­ry with all of the bands I've played with through the years, da­ta that is buried deep in­side my mind. I was suc­cess­ful in be­ing able to speak about all the bands I've been ever in­volved with, start­ing with Sel Wheel­er, my first men­tor."

Cape is from very hum­ble be­gin­nings, grow­ing up with Wheel­er and many of his ear­li­est mu­sic peers at Bel­mont Or­phan­age.He said, "In 1961, I went on my first Caribbean tour, play­ing with Wheel­er. We went to Grena­da and An­tigua. The two ca­lyp­so­ni­ans on the An­tigua leg were Bro Su­pe­ri­or and the late Lord Bryn­ner. That band al­so had mu­si­cians like No­ble Williams and Clary Wears. Every is­land we went to turned out to be a dis­as­trous ex­pe­ri­ence."We were very young, all 19 or 20 years old, and very in­ex­pe­ri­enced. We stayed at a ho­tel in An­tigua named Hap­py Acre Ho­tel and when the pro­mot­ers couldn't pay our bill they threw the band out. Me, be­ing the most frag­ile in the group, Su­pe­ri­or and Bryn­ner took me in­to their room. When it was time for the es­cape we did so through the win­dows, us­ing bed sheets to scale the wall.

"Our An­tiguan ad­ven­ture con­tin­ued when we met strong man Bill Ab­bott, whose stage name was, 'Sam­son of the West In­dies'. He lat­er be­came a mem­ber of par­lia­ment in the Vere Bird ad­min­is­tra­tion. Ab­bott had a club in down­town An­tigua and gave us the gar­ret to re­side in. Wears then met a girl whose fa­ther had a bak­ery as well as a lime tree in his yard so for the next few weeks we lived on a di­et of bread and lime juice. On Car­ni­val day, as we head­ed to Ab­bott's club, the band at­tract­ed a very large fol­low­ing. A woman met me, took pity on me and took me in­to her home.

"The band even­tu­al­ly left An­tigua with­out Wheel­er and I as he was hold­ing my pass­port. We end­ed up in Mar­tinique with­out a cent in our pock­et, but got a ride to town. We were res­cued by some Tri­nis who recog­nised our pass­ports and Bee Wee tick­et fold­ers. They took care of us. The next morn­ing these guys gave us some mon­ey and took us to the air­port for us to go to St Lu­cia where we re­con­nect­ed with the band. There we sur­vived on plen­ty bread­fruit roast­ed in the ground. Af­ter our best show in St Lu­cia we still end­ed up dead broke as the fe­male pro­mot­er ran away with all the mon­ey col­lect­ed. We then end­ed up in Bar­ba­dos and per­formed at the Bar­ba­dos Yacht Club.

"The band left Bar­ba­dos leav­ing Wheel­er, Wears and me. Some busi­ness peo­ple named Red­man & John­son gave us a colo­nial house to live in and a job at their es­tab­lish­ment named Cloud Nine. Since we were pi­o­neer­ing our ca­reers we re­mained in Bar­ba­dos for a while. We met some sis­ters, the John­sons, be­came friend­ly and they in­vit­ed the band to their home and we played for them. Be­side the mu­sic I was pret­ty good at bar­ber­ing so I did some of that, even cut­ting the sis­ters' fa­ther's hair. Mr John­son gave me a house on the beach to stay in. Af­ter months abroad, my moth­er wrote and told me that it was time to re­turn to Trinidad."

Still not yet 21, Cape wet his feet, mu­si­cal­ly and oth­er­wise, by fre­quent­ing the city clubs. He said, "I used to fre­quent the night­clubs then–places like Mi­ra­mar, Cas­bah, Pep­per­pot, Reno, Wal­dorf and Club 48 on Park Street. In those days each of these night­clubs em­ployed a six-piece or­ches­tra, as well as a six-piece steel or­ches­tra. They would al­so fea­ture lim­bo, bot­tle-danc­ing and bel­ly danc­ing.

"The young mu­si­cians would go to the night­clubs to hear the bet­ter, old­er mu­si­cians, sit­ting vir­tu­al­ly at their feet as they re­galed us with sto­ries of their ex­pe­ri­ences. The night­clubs were like uni­ver­si­ties for young and up­com­ing mu­si­cians. We all went through this."I was taught a song named Kiss­es by Joey Lewis. My friend John Alexan­der found me a space at Mi­ra­mar on his pro­gramme to play Kiss­es. Sel Dun­can was very fa­mous for play­ing that par­tic­u­lar song. Be­ing young, at the age of 20, when I played Kiss­es, beau­ti­ful young women just flocked around. As all young males I end­ed up hav­ing a girl­friend from the club. Of course I couldn't tell my moth­er this."

In Oc­to­ber 1961, the great Frankie Fran­cis in­vit­ed Cape to join his band. "I told Frankie I couldn't just walk out on the guys I had been play­ing with since my days at the or­phan­age," said Cape.

"Frankie said, 'I will take every­body, all of you'. Some of the guys then who end­ed up be­ing ex­treme­ly fa­mous and pop­u­lar in mu­sic were Ron Berridge, Clarence Wears, Michael 'To­by' To­bas and Art de Coteau."In 1962, Frankie took us in­to the Orig­i­nal Young Brigade (OYB) head­ed then by the Mighty Spar­row and Lord Melody. For me, at that point I was just 22 and it was fas­ci­nat­ing to me to be play­ing on the same stage with gi­ants like Spar­row, Melody, Chris­to, Ze­bra and Bri­go. Af­ter that Car­ni­val I was hav­ing prob­lems with Frankie's stan­dard of mu­sic that ex­ist­ed then. He played al­to sax and was fa­mous for that. When I joined he put me on al­to sax and he went on tenor sax, but I couldn't fill his shoes. I then went to Clarence Cur­van's band room on St Vin­cent Street, heard the band and when I saw the young ages of the guys and the method be­ing used by Bev­er­ly Grif­fith, the band's arranger, I de­cid­ed that was for me.

"Frankie was in charge of Tel­co Record­ings, lo­cat­ed in Champs Fleurs. One Sat­ur­day night, we were record­ing in Frankie's stu­dio and Clarence had a gig in Ch­agua­nas. While in the stu­dio phys­i­cal­ly my mind was in the fete in Cen­tral and I be­gan mak­ing mis­takes. Af­ter the ses­sion Frankie told me, 'young boy, be­fore we fall out, take this sax and be on your way'. I im­me­di­ate­ly went to the fete in Ch­agua­nas with lots of drinks and pret­ty young girls. I had a hap­py time with Clarence Cur­van and learnt lot, as well as a lot that has ben­e­fit­ted me up to this day from Bev­er­ly Grif­fith."

Cape stayed with Cur­van's band un­til the end of 1964, but Berridge, To­bas and he had a dream that one day they would have their our own band. Cape re­called, "By that time, Ron was do­ing all the mu­sic for Bertram In­niss, a stal­wart arranger in those days, work­ing Spar­row. Ron used to score Bert's mu­sic be­cause Bert's eye­sight was fail­ing. Leslie Sama­roo, whose broth­er had owned Strand Cin­e­ma, got his broth­er to close down the cin­e­ma for car­ni­val and they opened the first Ca­lyp­so Re­vue there in 1964. For the 1965 Car­ni­val, Sama­roo con­tract­ed Ron's band to play. That year, Ron record­ed Sniper's im­mor­tal Por­trait of Trinidad. That tent was re­al hot that year as we had ca­lyp­so­ni­ans like Bomber and Ter­ror.

"Af­ter Car­ni­val we went to Bar­ba­dos with Guyanese im­pres­sario Clifton Fras­er. But, no­body knew of our band so that tour was dis­as­trous. Be­fore go­ing to Bar­ba­dos we did some record­ings. Mr Sama­roo was press­ing RCA records in Trinidad. By the time we re­turned from Bar­ba­dos the record­ings had been re­leased. The Dutchy Broth­ers were al­so pop­u­lar at that time. We ap­proached them to do a 'non stop', a for­mat in par­ties in which two bands played non stop con­tin­u­ous­ly. They de­cid­ed to help us. There was more love in those days be­tween mu­si­cians. There was a dance in Na­pari­ma Club in San fer­nan­do. All the pro­mot­ers from south were in at­ten­dance and their pro­nounce­ment was that Ron's band would be a great band."

�2 CON­TIN­UES TO­MOR­ROW

�2 Roy Cape: A Life on The Ca­lyp­so and So­ca Band­stand will be launched on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 26, along with Cape CD�Roy Cape: A Ca­lyp­so and So­ca An­thol­o­gy–at Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz pa­n­yard, Tra­garete Road, New­town, at 6 pm. Pub­lished by Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press, the book will have its in­ter­na­tion­al re­lease on Oc­to­ber 3.