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Monday, March 17, 2025

Impresario of T&T culture to Europe– Sonny Blacks

by

Tony Rakhal-Fraser
15 days ago
20250302

Son­ny Blacks, a name and an in­di­vid­ual not as wide­ly known in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion of T&T as he is among ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, pan­men, and steel­band lead­ers, has spent over 50 years pro­duc­ing and pro­mot­ing the best of our cul­tur­al artistes.

His work has tak­en these tal­ents on per­form­ing tours across Eng­land and con­ti­nen­tal Eu­rope, spread­ing the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and de­pict­ing the folk art and cul­ture of T&T.

“Spar­row, Rud­der, Black Stal­in, Rene­gades, Pan Am North Stars, Trinidad All Stars” are among the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and steel­bands Son­ny has fea­tured in his shows and pro­duc­tions. How­ev­er, it did not be­gin in such grand fash­ion for the boy from south-east Port-of-Spain in the 1940s.

For the keen read­er and ob­serv­er, a scan of Son­ny’s off-beat, un­con­ven­tion­al youth in front and be­hind the Bridge, cou­pled with his dis­in­ter­est in con­ven­tion­al school­ing at Cal­vary and Beth­le­hem pri­ma­ry schools, shows he was a ha­bit­u­al “biche break­er.”

His choice of route to school of­ten took him far­ther away from the class­room learn­ing of his time, through “Hell Yard,” the home ground of the leg­endary Trinidad All Stars, which fore­shad­owed his lat­er in­ter­ests in pro­mot­ing the cul­ture.

“I go back to Jules, Fish­eye, pan­men like Cur­tis Pierre (De white boy from Dix­ieland), the Hill 60 steel­band, Cru­saders.”

Through his un­cer­tain jour­ney, Son­ny came un­der the tute­lage of renowned pan in­no­va­tors like Spree Si­mon. He al­so formed friend­ships with the great El­lie Man­nette and char­ac­ters such as “No Hand Sarge,” “Patch Eye,” and oc­ca­sion­al­ly, through ca­su­al con­tact with the in­fa­mous Boysie “Ra­jah” Singh, who com­mit­ted one too many mur­ders with Boland Ramkissoon as his ac­com­plice, the vic­tim be­ing dancer Thel­ma Haynes.

Son­ny was born on George Street, lived on Nel­son Street, and es­caped to San Fer­nan­do as a run­away from licks by his grand­moth­er in Port-of-Spain, walk­ing part of the way and for the rest of the jour­ney rid­ing on a don­key cart.

“Af­ter I start play­ing pan for a while, Spree, who wasn’t an easy man in those days, told me to go and pro­mote steel­band and ca­lyp­so.” So said, so done.

In his ear­ly ef­forts, Son­ny came to re­alise, “These men grew up in dire pover­ty, start­ed beat­ing bis­cuit tins and pitch oil drums, and ran from the po­lice with bull-pis­tle. When they were caught, they charged them with dis­or­der­ly con­duct, and the mag­is­trate threw them in jail for a few weeks,” giv­ing a pic­ture of the des­per­ate con­di­tions out of which the steel­pan and steel­band emerged.

He re­mem­bers the “break­away” re­lief on VJ and VE days af­ter the war—Vic­to­ry over Japan and Vic­to­ry in Eu­rope Day. “When they came out on the road with their rudi­men­ta­ry steel­pans play­ing ‘Matil­da, Matil­da, Matil­da, she take meh mon­ey and run Venezuela,’” which was one of the pop­u­lar pieces played by the bands af­ter the 1939-1945 WW2 end­ed with vic­to­ry for the Al­lies over Ger­many un­der Hitler.

On his re­turn from his es­capade in San Fer­nan­do, Son­ny got a job in a Chi­nese shop on St Vin­cent Street near Green Cor­ner, “I didn’t get any mon­ey, but I got food and a place to sleep,” says the hardy man from George and Nel­son streets.

First steel­band con­cert

at Queen’s Hall

“My first time in a ca­lyp­so tent was when Melody (Lord Melody–Fitzroy Alexan­der) took me as his guest to a tent on Rich­mond Street. In the tent were Pre­tender, Tiny Ter­ror, Chris­to, Sir Gal­ba and oth­ers.”

He re­called with laugh­ter that, on oc­ca­sion, he was able to don the at­tire of the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans of the day—“Pink Suit and Black Tie, black and som­bre—‘Eh-beh-we-doh-doh,’” says Son­ny–check out the mean­ing in Cote’ci Cote’ la.

Hav­ing tak­en Spree’s ad­vice to pro­mote the pan, Son­ny said his ear­ly ef­forts at achiev­ing the ob­jec­tive set out for him by his men­tor re­sult­ed in the bands and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans per­form­ing for dif­fer­ent au­di­ences “but for no pay, on­ly a bot­tle of rum.”

Un­de­terred by the con­di­tions faced by a pro­mot­er, the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and steel­bands, Son­ny, this young man from George and Nel­son streets liv­ing with his grand­moth­er, with noth­ing to rec­om­mend him, dis­played the courage, temer­i­ty, and deep in­sight in­to the fu­ture to or­gan­ise and pro­mote “the first steel­band con­cert at Queen’s Hall.”

And get this, the show was un­der the pa­tron­age of the then British gov­er­nor, Sir Hu­bert Rance, who TUB But­ler once called “Ran­cid”.

“In those days, they didn’t want steel­band in Queen’s Hall, it was on­ly bari­tone and mez­zo-so­pra­no. I brought Ebonites, Star­land, Dix­ieland, and In­vaders to the con­cert; I in­vit­ed All Stars, but they didn’t show up,” Son­ny told me.

When I asked him how he could per­ceive achiev­ing such a far-out-of-reach ob­jec­tive giv­en the cir­cum­stances of the day and the per­cep­tion of the steel­band and steel­pan play­er, he sim­ply replied, “I just did it,” with­out be­ing de­terred in any way. A les­son in see­ing the val­ue in cul­ture.

Son­ny al­so pro­mot­ed rov­ing ca­lyp­so tents, three times a week in coun­try ar­eas such as Cou­va, Cal­i­for­nia, and Ritz Cin­e­ma in San Juan, among oth­er venues.

“On nights af­ter one show, we had to stop a taxi to go to the oth­er show.” He al­so pulled off the seem­ing­ly im­pos­si­ble feat of be­ing in­volved in pro­mot­ing the Jaycees Queen Show—“white peo­ple com­pe­ti­tion,” says Son­ny.

Spread­ing Tri­ni cul­ture

to Eu­rope

One close friend Son­ny had in the ca­lyp­so world of the 1940s-50s was the great Mighty Spoil­er. “He used to meet me on morn­ings by the rum shop at Char­lotte and Duke streets, Gold­en Gate, and start­ed drink­ing from there. The next stop was at the cor­ner of Hen­ry and Duke streets by Peep of the Day Bar. From there, the pro­ces­sion went to Fred­er­ick and Duke, La In­dia Bar.

The stops at the wa­ter­ing holes got Spoil­er primed to sing down Fred­er­ick Street, in front of Yufe’s “with peo­ple putting in a few dol­lars along the way. Spoil­er was one of the best-loved ca­lyp­so­ni­ans,” says the soon-to-be in­ter­na­tion­al pro­mot­er of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and steel­bands.

We al­so rem­i­nisced about the Vas­co de Gama rum shop at Pic­cadil­ly Street and Old St Joseph Road, where the Por­tuguese own­ers/man­agers lived and ran their busi­ness.

Mi­ra­mar Night Club, the venue of Spar­row’s Ten to One is Mur­der. “Ten vi­cious men … ah had ah chick­en at Mi­ra­mar, well ah say that was meh last sup­per … ah hear po­tow pow and the crowd start to scat­ter.”

The most fa­mous (in­fa­mous, if you like) venue owned by Mervyn As­see, Son­ny tells me, “He was a man from ‘BG’ (British Guiana) and there was al­so the Mo­too Bros band from BG and a dancer who prob­a­bly earned the name of ‘DeLilah’”–use your own imag­i­na­tion; I don’t have court clothes.

Af­ter a gen­er­al­ly failed trip to Lon­don in 1957, Son­ny re­turned in 1961, “this time to live there, and I had a la­dy friend with me along with Dix­ieland, re­named as Flam­beau. We trav­elled all over Eu­rope, France, Swe­den, Ger­many,” Son­ny in­formed me.

Among the venues for the ca­lyp­so and steel­band shows pro­mot­ed by Son­ny over the decades in his role as im­pre­sario were the Roy­al Al­bert Hall in Lon­don at a show or­gan­ised by the then T&T na­tion­al liv­ing in Eng­land, Olympic sprint­er Mc­Don­ald Bai­ley.

Son­ny al­so pro­duced and pro­mot­ed a T&T Cul­tur­al Ex­trav­a­gan­za show for one month in Harlem, USA.

Most re­cent­ly, Son­ny cre­at­ed the Three Ca­lyp­so Kings in 2024, a mu­si­cal pro­duc­tion in which D’Al­ber­to and To­ba­go Cru­soe sang the songs of the Win­drush Gen­er­a­tion–“Win­drush” was the ves­sel which took the first group of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans such as Kitch­en­er, Be­gin­ner, and Ter­ror to the “Moth­er­land”. The sec­ond half of the pro­duc­tion fea­tured one of the mas­ters of this era, David Rud­der. The show was sold out for three nights, says Son­ny.

Son­ny Blacks, the im­pre­sario who in­tro­duced and spread Tri­ni cul­ture to Eu­rope, cre­at­ed a 30-day tour in Eu­rope with Black Stal­in, Denyse Plum­mer, Roy Cape and his band.

Over­all, Son­ny lived and worked for 25 years in Den­mark, five in Fin­land, and five in Ger­many.

“I do this from my heart and not for the mon­ey,” says Son­ny, giv­ing an ex­am­ple of his hon­est deal­ings with en­ter­tain­ers. “Once, I came to Port-of-Spain with a con­tract for Black Stal­in. He came from San Fer­nan­do and just signed it with­out read­ing it, ful­ly trust­ing me to do the best for him. A ca­lyp­son­ian doesn’t have to tell me any­thing, I know what his needs are, and I will make sure he gets it,” Son­ny told me with plen­ty of pas­sion and com­mit­ment in his voice.

He al­so pro­mot­ed a show a few years ago with King Spar­row. “It was one of the big shows I did in Eng­land which made mon­ey.” He said he goes back to the days “when a fel­la named Hull used to print the words of ca­lyp­soes on sheets and sell them for a shilling.”

I asked him, “Do you pro­duce and pro­mote shows with the new so­ca artistes?” He said, “No, I don’t,” in a very mat­ter-of-fact re­sponse, ob­vi­ous­ly de­signed to stop me from pro­ceed­ing along those lines. But I per­sist­ed, and the tenor of the con­ver­sa­tion changed. “I am from the old school, man; old school ca­lyp­so, that’s where I came from. ‘Peo­ple say if you bring this per­son, you are go­ing to make mon­ey.’ I say I’m not in­ter­est­ed in mak­ing mon­ey, it’s a ques­tion of re­spect for the cul­ture. I’m not jump­ing on any band­wag­on,” I got the idea that I should not pur­sue the sub­ject any fur­ther … he knows what is true, true kaiso, and he’s done with that talk.

There is one thing that sticks deep in Son­ny’s craw, though. “All the shows I did nev­er got a pen­ny from the T&T Gov­ern­ment. They knew the op­por­tu­ni­ty was there for them to pro­mote the coun­try’s tourism in­dus­try,” he says, giv­ing an ex­am­ple of an en­light­ened ap­proach by the St Kitts Gov­ern­ment re­spond­ing to an out­reach to pro­mote the coun­try.

“I met with the min­is­ter, and in 20 min­utes, he said I could have this and that. I have writ­ten so many let­ters to the T&T Gov­ern­ment, noth­ing! It’s the most dis­or­gan­ised civ­il ser­vice, but I don’t both­er. I put on shows in Eu­rope with Ca­lyp­so Rose, ten times; they just palaver.”

He loves his use of that word. “Not one artiste in the world can say I owe them a pen­ny. I love work­ing with Shad­ow, he was a great man; but don’t mess with him.”

As for the fu­ture, apart from be­moan­ing the fact “that pan­men, steel­bands, and ca­lyp­so­ni­ans aren’t mak­ing mon­ey in keep­ing with their tal­ents, I just plan to con­tin­ue,” says the im­pre­sario, mint­ed on George and Nel­son streets in the city.


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