Dal­ton Nar­ine

To­day marks the 30th an­niver­sary of the death of Laven­tille leg­end Rudolph Charles, the Des­per­a­does leader who left an in­deli­ble mark on the steel­band as well as the hill's in­no­v­a­tive mu­sic and its over­all sound sys­tem.

To para­phrase ca­lyp­son­ian David Rud­der in a dif­fer­ent way, the drag­on still walks the trail. This, de­spite his un­time­ly demise at a rel­a­tive­ly young age in 1985. At 47, he left the na­tion an im­mea­sur­able lega­cy that per­haps guar­an­tees his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence for the ages. Well in­to the far reach­es of space, un­fath­omable as that may seem. But that's who he was. The un­wit­ting prog­en­i­tor of beast mode, where good and bad co­ex­ist at op­po­site ends of the con­tin­u­um of steel­band lore. The Ham­mer he was. Al­so an­swered to Trail and Char­lo. One and the same icon of the realm be­hind the Bridge, where the in­stru­ment was birthed.

Of course, Pan, the bold-faced out­side child of per­cus­sion, ful­ly recog­nised and rel­ished the in­nate skills of this tuner of sub­stance. And what made the man–who dressed like a guer­ril­la war­lord–was his swag­ger, sense of style and a re­mak­ing of ex­cite­ment from a high ceil­ing that had an im­pos­ing view of Port-of-Spain, as far as the eye and ear could com­pre­hend, well past the Panora­ma stage.

Way be­yond.

You could tell.

Years now Des­pers has been neck-locked in a strug­gle of its soul.

"He took us to ten Panora­ma ti­tles," says his wife, Car­ol, from Los An­ge­les. "He was a phe­nom­e­nal per­son, and as a leader and pan­man, there's none, none to meet his cli­max. We should mark the mem­o­ry of what he did for pan and move on."

For Rudolph to move on, it would take the death of his fa­ther Syd­ney, an of­fi­cer in the Prison Ser­vice, who suc­cumbed to di­a­betes in 1953 at 44 while rear­ing nine of 11 chil­dren, two of whom died young. By all ac­counts, he ex­celled at crick­et and in the class­room. He proved to be a good singer, too, says el­der broth­er Ger­ald, who taught him­self on his moth­er's up­right bass. Rudolph al­so served as an al­tar boy at Our La­dy of Laven­tille, where the fam­i­ly wor­shipped. But he had his stub­born ways. If he didn't have mon­ey for school he'd stand his ground. Ma Georgie, as ma­tri­arch Geor­giana was known, would have none of it. Luck­i­ly, neigh­bours pitched in with a shilling or so.

Mean­while, as Syd­ney lay dy­ing, he gath­ered the fam­i­ly. Lennox, the in­tel­lec­tu­al who re­tired as a di­rec­tor of Mon­tre­al's Jew­ish Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, re­mem­bers the chill of de­fla­tion and fear in the room. "He asked my moth­er what she was go­ing to do, and Ma said, 'God will pro­vide.' It was a teary mo­ment."

Rudolph was 15, a Tran­quil­li­ty stu­dent on the as­cent. In a few years he would find his own groove.

"The cre­ativ­i­ty of the fam­i­ly comes from Ma Georgie," says mu­si­cian Ald­win Al­bi­no. "We used to go to some­one's house and cut loose. Ger­ald was pop­u­lar, play­ing with my group and top bands."

Rudolph found a job at the Gen­er­al Post Of­fice and a pen­chant for clas­si­cal mu­sic. Bach and Beethoven were in­stru­men­tal in his for­ay at tun­ing a tenor on the sly. In time, he be­came one of the lead­ers of a small band, Spike Jones, the new kids on Des­pers' block. Their pop­u­lar­i­ty chafed at the el­ders' nerves. Join, or else, they threat­ened.

"Rudolph turned around the band mu­si­cal­ly," Ger­ald re­calls. "He was trained to take lead­er­ship."

In 1959, af­ter the steel­band clash with San Juan All Stars, Rudolph met Bren­da Wal­lace as he was push­ing pans up Laven­tille Road. At 16, she oozed with vir­ginal pu­ri­ty. Next day, they con­nect­ed at a stand­pipe, fell in love and brought Cheryl Wal­lace in­to his world in 1960. The fol­low­ing year he led the band–as in the mil­i­tary, the first man on a climb­ing rope.

A Des­per­a­does sol­dier, William Thomas, alias Thun­der­bolt, and Bren­da threw in their lot in the tun­ing process. She burn­ing the drums over a bon­fire and he sink­ing the face to groove the notes. Over the years, Rudolph sought as­sis­tance from re­spect­ed tuners to­ward fash­ion­ing his goal of a unique Des­per­a­does sound. Which he would achieve with­in a decade by virtue of his in­ven­tions: the nine bass, 12 bass, rock­et pan, quadra­phon­ics, Yin Yang, har­mo­ny pans and a marked im­prove­ment on the fourths and fifths tenor.

"At Car­ni­val time, he looked like the dev­il self," Bren­da re­calls.

Car­ni­val over, he'd fast and med­i­tate a whole week. "Then all the women would grav­i­tate to­ward him."

What with charis­ma and per­son­al­i­ty, Rudolph no doubt car­ried a Bob Mar­ley com­plex. He mar­ried Car­ol in 1973, the same year he vis­it­ed Cheryl in Mon­tre­al where she lived with her mom. In a clas­sic show and tell, he emp­tied a bag of as­sort­ed drugs on the ta­ble and lec­tured her about the fork in the road she should nev­er take. Her friends called her "square."

In 1984, Rudolph's life changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly when doc­tors broke the news that he was di­a­bet­ic. He'd al­ways fore­told his death at the same age as his fa­ther. The di­ag­no­sis came when a band­mate rushed him to the hos­pi­tal af­ter a car struck him and rolled over a leg.

Notwith­stand­ing Panora­ma and fes­ti­val vic­to­ries pil­ing up, a rift be­tween fac­tions oc­ca­sion­al­ly flared, ac­cord­ing to dou­ble sec­ond play­er and con­fi­dant Leslie "Mitch" Warn­er.

"He'd say, 'Leslie boy, I have some re­al se­ri­ous crim­i­nals in this band but if I don't ap­pear stronger, they'll walk over me.' Some play­ers ac­cused him of si­phon­ing mon­ey. But I knew he wasn't. Too fair. A gen­tle­man."

A flo­ral de­sign­er and se­nior care­giv­er, Cheryl, one of Rudolph's six chil­dren, whose own fam­i­ly in­cludes sons Tris­tan Lal­la, 31, an ac­tor (White House Down) and hos­pi­tal su­per­vi­sor Bran­don Lal­la, 34, in­sist­ed that her fa­ther spent his last pen­ny on the band."

Thun­der­bolt con­curs, adding that he and Rudolph, as com­mu­ni­ty leader, got homes and jobs for the peo­ple, "in­clud­ing play­ers."

In March 1985, Cheryl, the dot­ing daugh­ter, has a re­cur­ring dream. She tries to reach her fa­ther on a dead phone. Then writes about her con­cern over changes in his lifestyle. Not to wor­ry, he re­sponds, it won't hap­pen again. Her dreams are so ex­act, like Ma Georgie's, they scare her.

It is Fri­day. An un­cle calls from Trinidad. Where's your mom? She looks Bren­da in the eye. He died, didn't he?

Bren­da learns that on Wednes­day he held a meet­ing of the el­ders at his home, then trav­elled to the south­land. Thurs­day they were treat­ed to lunch at a Chi­nese restau­rant on a whirl­wind tour of his favourite haunts, in­clud­ing a roti shop in San Juan.

That night, she says, he was hal­lu­ci­nat­ing and fight­ing his demons with half a sword, run­ning across the road to Berlin, where he lived, and falling be­tween a wall and a fence, bruis­ing his face. It wasn't like nat­ur­al, she ad­mits. He died in his house, though he was rushed to the hos­pi­tal. But the end had al­ready come, she ac­knowl­edged.

Cit­ing her mem­o­ry of him as a health nut, Cheryl swears her fa­ther had nev­er dab­bled in drugs. Guar­an­tees it.

"I don't think he en­joyed it. Tried to talk him out of it. When he got the news of his di­a­bet­ic con­di­tion, he de­cid­ed that was go­ing to be the end of his life.

"I ac­cept that he died. But that he had to die? No. The man that he was was no longer the man that we all knew and loved and cared about."

"Artists are liv­ing a part of their life that they were sup­posed to live," Bren­da philosophis­es. "They've lived it and they had a pur­pose, and they lived out their pur­pose and then they moved on."

Com­pelling and three-di­men­sion­al, Rudolph was the the spir­it of the hill. A flesh and blood sculp­ture mir­ror­ing the struc­ture grac­ing the pa­n­yard.

Thir­ty years af­ter his death, he lives. And you bet the next time his ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly and cadre see him will for­ev­er be in the mo­ment. Or to­mor­row, please God.