David Cuffy

Mu­si­cal leg­end Joey "Pal" Lewis, 78, died yes­ter­day.

Lewis was ad­mit­ted to the Com­mu­ni­ty Hos­pi­tal in Co­corite and di­ag­nosed as hav­ing a growth in his colon in 2011.

In Au­gust 2012 he be­gan chemother­a­py which af­fect­ed his mo­bil­i­ty and he had to be as­sist­ed with walk­ing. His con­di­tion de­te­ri­o­rat­ed slow­ly un­til his pass­ing yes­ter­day.

Lewis had been play­ing mu­sic for more than six decades. He formed his first band–Joey Lewis & The Teenagers–at age 16. In 1964 the band toured the Unit­ed States where Joey met Har­ry Be­la­fonte and Dizzy Gille­spie.

The fol­low­ing year he did a com­mand per­for­mance in Guyana for Pres­i­dent Forbes Burn­ham. In 1976, the Sol­id Gold com­pa­ny took the band to New York for per­for­mances where it won wide ac­claim.The band has toured reg­u­lar­ly, per­form­ing in every Caribbean is­land with the ex­cep­tion of Do­mini­ca.

Ac­cord­ing to his wife Ju­lia, "Joey got the nick­name 'Pal' from see­ing Pal Joey, a 1957 Amer­i­can movie which starred Frank Sina­tra, Ri­ta Hay­wood and Kim No­vak. He has been re­ferred to by that mon­ick­er since, and his band has car­ried the name as well."

Vet­er­an mu­si­cian Roy Cape said yes­ter­day: "I awoke to the news and it re­al­ly shocked me. But then again, life is about liv­ing and death.

"In 1961, I did an au­di­tion with Joey in Bel­mont. When I first met him the awe­some­ness of the man over­whelmed and in­spired me. I feel that Joey's band is the longest ex­ist­ing band in the his­to­ry of world mu­sic. That alone says a lot. But his son will per­pet­u­ate the dream.

"The first song I learned to play was Kiss­es by Frank Pur­cell. Joey taught me that song. For more than half a cen­tu­ry I have shared stages with Joey through­out Trinidad. I will give him cred­it for be­ing a good man­ag­er of hu­man re­sources.To hold a band for over 60-some­thing years and still have some of the orig­i­nal mu­si­cians speaks to your lead­er­ship skills."

Pel­ham God­dard, leader of Roots and arranger of Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus Steel Or­ches­tra, said: "Joey is one of my men­tors; an all-round mu­si­cian. He was a true mu­si­cian who could play any­thing. He was so much that it's dif­fi­cult to say ex­act­ly who he was in one go.

"Joey in­flu­enced sev­er­al mu­si­cians, es­pe­cial­ly my­self, and ex­celled so much that when we had Roots and be­gan play­ing our own mu­sic we used Joey and his mu­sic as the mod­el for us to fol­low by hav­ing our own reper­toire. Joey's mu­sic, to this day, is still alive en­sur­ing that while he may be missed he will not be for­got­ten."

Vet­er­an ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Phill Sim­mons added: "We have lost one of the leg­ends of Trinidad and To­ba­go mu­sic. He was one of the most im­por­tant mu­si­cians in the sta­bil­i­ty of our mu­sic, since he be­gan play­ing as a teenag­er.

Joey bridged eras and gen­er­a­tions and was one of the few mu­si­cians to own his own stu­dio so he had a po­si­tion of in­de­pen­dence. Joey led from in front to the time of his death.

This was a stal­wart of a man; a poui tree when it came to strength and sta­bil­i­ty."

Fu­ner­al arrange­ments will be an­nounced lat­er.