Charles Kong Soo

When 86-year-old "Pa­pa" Lord Nel­son (Robert Nel­son) steps on the stage at the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch se­mi-fi­nals at the Ari­ma Velo­drome on Feb­ru­ary 5 he will be go­ing up against scores of artistes in­clud­ing 13-year-old Aaron Dun­can.

An elat­ed Nel­son said he nev­er thought it would hap­pen to him at his age as he had been over­looked in the past.

He was in New York when he got a call that he was se­lect­ed to be in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Still in dis­be­lief, Nel­son said he was hap­py to take part in T&T's cul­ture and to help de­vel­op it.

The Sun­day Guardian spoke with the ever­green en­ter­tain­er in a tele­phone in­ter­view on Fri­day from the ve­ran­dah of his fam­i­ly's Ply­mouth, To­ba­go, home about his life sto­ry in the ca­lyp­so world and away from the spot­light.

When asked what he thought about his chances in the com­pe­ti­tion, he down­played the as­pect of win­ning. Nel­son said "I'm just glad to be there to be in front my peo­ple per­form­ing sur­round­ed by the beau­ty of this land. If you work hard enough for any­thing, you will get it.

"It will be an ho­n­our and priv­i­lege to be per­form­ing among the young artistes. Aaron is good as well as many oth­ers.

"If you give me a mil­lion dol­lars I don't know how to act, just to be there in So­ca Monarch with the best of the best is a thrill.

"I'm not old! I ripe!" he burst out laugh­ing.

He dis­likes be­ing called "Mis­ter" or "Sir" as it did not make the per­son feel clos­er to him and pre­ferred "Nel­lo", say­ing "all ah we is one fam­i­ly", ref­er­enc­ing the ti­tle of one of his many gem-like songs.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view, you could hear him ac­knowl­edg­ing sev­er­al peo­ple who passed his house and hailed him out see­ing that he was back home.

Known for his trade­mark colour­ful jump­suits, Nel­son said he does not have to re­ly on elab­o­rate props such as py­rotech­nics and wire acts.

He said half of the per­form­ers go on with lit­tle clothes or bare­back these days and the women were half-naked com­pared to the artistes of his era who came on stage im­mac­u­late­ly dressed, and if their song did not have wine in it, it was not good.

Pacro for longevi­ty

When asked if he had any se­cret to his longevi­ty, if there was some­thing in the wa­ter in To­ba­go, he replied laugh­ing, "pacro".

Nel­son said he ate a lot of fruits, he was not used to eat­ing too much meat, loved fish, and was glad to come home as he loved good To­ba­go home food.

He de­scribed him­self as a seafood freak.

For Sat­ur­day lunch, Nel­son bub­bles a pot with fish, spaghet­ti, and "buck buck" or green fig. He said he al­so ate crab and dumpling, conch, wilks, shrimp, lob­ster, but not eel as it re­sem­bled a snake.

Nel­son said when he was away from the stage, he was a hum­ble, re­li­gious and hap­py per­son who be­lieved in God and all his good­ness.

The Ko­re­an War vet­er­an said Un­cle Sam took care of him, re­fer­ring to the time he was draft­ed in­to the US Army and sent to Ko­rea dur­ing the war in the 50s.

Nel­son said his hob­by was fish­ing, he liked to go out there and try his best to see if he can out­smart the fish be­low the wa­ter.

He said be­sides To­ba­go, he fished around the world such as the US and Swe­den, us­ing fish­ing rods, line, and traps.

Nel­son said he did drink "a lit­tle" in the past but it was not help­ing him, it was not cool, and he was nev­er in­to drugs be­cause he felt he was very hyped nat­u­ral­ly.

En­ter­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch race

He said he did not know any­thing about ca­lyp­so, when he was sta­tioned in Ko­rea and pat­terned him­self af­ter ca­lyp­so­ni­ans such as the Mighty Spar­row, Melody, and Kitch­en­er, es­pe­cial­ly Spar­row, and sang ca­lyp­so and bal­lads for his fel­low troops.

When he left the ser­vice he con­tin­ued mim­ic­k­ing Spar­row and con­tin­ued singing in dance­halls in Eu­rope.

Nel­son said the av­er­age per­son did not know that he was in­stru­men­tal in in­vent­ing what would be known as so­ca along with Ras Shorty, Mae­stro, and tute­lage from the Mighty Duke.

He scored hits with songs like "Gar­rot Bounce", "Stel­la", "King Liar", "Bald Head Ras­ta", and "Dis­co Dad­dy".

Nel­son be­moaned the in­flux of wine and jam in songs, with some for­eign el­e­ments such as rap, some smoke, and some girl who can wine thrown in.

He said one man would come off the stage and an­oth­er would come on singing the same rhythm with no lyri­cal con­tent.

Nel­son said he felt proud of the for­mer Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch Aaron Dun­can, and he mashed up the stage in France when to took a young Machel Mon­tano on his shoul­ders to sing Too Young To So­ca.

He said he was a so­ca pi­o­neer tak­ing the mu­sic to places like Swe­den, Ger­many Nor­way, Eng­land and Latin Amer­i­ca.

Ac­cord­ing to his man­ag­er, Er­rol Pe­ru, not on­ly will Nel­son be mix­ing it up lyri­cal­ly with the young guns in the So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, he will al­so be par­tic­i­pat­ing in Ca­lyp­so Monarch.

Nel­son will be singing "Sug­ar Mam­my", com­posed by Ker­nal Roberts, Kitch­en­er's son.