Tony Rakhal-Fras­er

"...pass him in the Caf� wey Delia work­ing, and a stop..."–King Solomon�Samuel Ryan

I re­turn to the work of the above-list­ed, lit­tle-known ca­lyp­son­ian (there was quite a re­ac­tion to it) I high­light­ed a few weeks ago at the pass­ing of Hol­ly Be­taudi­er. Then, it was in the con­text of an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the out­stand­ing com­po­si­tion San­ta, a ca­lyp­so filled with so­cial com­men­tary and deep cul­tur­al con­nec­tions of a woman, San­ta, who "tief ah big man from St James and tie him like ah cow in Mor­vant. Sun and rain..."

King So­lo is in the role of a heal­er-man, a man with mys­tic so­ci­o­log­i­cal pow­ers of heal­ing, drawn from his knowl­edge of the charm and al­lure of women to "make man talk." In the ca­lyp­so Dumb Boy, King Solomon re­lates the sto­ry of him get­ting a job to make "ah lit­tle boy, born deaf and dumb" speak.

"Quite from Pt Ligoure de boy come from; fa­ther promise me a thou­sand dol­lars and ah treat if on­ly I could make this boy speak."

I find the lilt and phras­ing of the lan­guage in the first line of that sen­tence beau­ti­ful and res­o­nant to the ear. The dis­tance at which he places Pt Ligoure, a small com­mu­ni­ty on the out­skirts of Point Fortin, adds some mys­tery to the sto­ry.

The sec­ond part of the sen­tence tells us of the val­ue of mon­ey in the pe­ri­od some­time late 1950s, 1960s; $1,000 be­ing big mon­ey then. And the treat he refers to was of the ice cream and cake va­ri­ety; how we val­ued such small ges­tures in that time; to­day noth­ing seems to have enough val­ue.

King So­lo's great elixir for mak­ing the dumb boy speak is beau­ti­ful dark­ies lo­cat­ed in var­i­ous parts of the city and he gives the boy a tour de force of schools and work­places.

"So ah take him to the trainees nurs­es class­room, pass him by the gov­ern­ment train­ing col­lege, pass him by Bish­op Anstey girl school, pass him by Tran­quil­li­ty girl school, pass him by Prov­i­dence girl school and ah stop...bram brap...The boy shiv­er in he shoes and crack his bone see­ing the pret­ty dark­ies he start to groan ah hah ah hah..." The first stage of talk­ing, I sup­pose.

King Solomon's faith in the nat­ur­al and per­sua­sive beau­ty of the "dark­ies" was ex­pressed at a time long be­fore it was recog­nised, most of all by the so­ci­ety that "black was beau­ti­ful," Duke (Kelvin Pope).

"Ah feel­ing glad ah know he go talk, so there and then we start to walk...ah play­ing for time ah ent hur­ry, be­cause ah know that thou­sand dol­lars is for me," as he takes the dumb boy an­oth­er in­ter­est­ing swing of the city's girls schools, among them Os­mond and Ogles'. He al­so gave the boy a glimpse of the women at the Hodgkin­son and Wool­worth stores, the Con­trol Board on St Vin­cent Street op­po­site the T&T Guardian, which he al­so passed the boy through.

But a line that re­al­ly catch­es the mind is "ah pass him in the caf� wey Delia work­ing...."

I was in­trigued that King So­lo could pick out this one woman, Delia, by name, and the caf� where she was sup­posed to be work­ing. I lo­cat­ed the caf� to be St Pauli Girl Caf� on the west­ern side of Queen Street. One in­for­mant told me it was a reg­u­lar wa­ter­ing hole for work­ers and town-wise men who fre­quent­ed the area. An­oth­er, Pren­ka Cole, a for­mer wrestler, said he was drink­ing ca­capool rum (read­ers should find out what kind of spir­its that was) at St Pauli when he re­ceived news to go abroad.

But Fer­die Fer­reira is not aware of Delia work­ing at St Pauli. In­stead, he knew her as a pret­ty red "ooman" who knew her way around town. For sure, he says, she worked at Mi­ra­mar Club, then on South Quay, the place from which Spar­row had to run in Ten to One is Mur­der. King Solomon's sin­gling out of Delia for spe­cial men­tion must have meant some­thing.

"Ah look at the time is ten to three; ah say ah mak­ing meh last rounds quick­ly; and if he aint talk ah leav­ing he, pass him through GPO, take him up­stairs at the Trea­sury, pass him in the book store by Fog­a­r­ty, take him up to the Pen­ny Bank and there ah stop...bram brap.

"The boy shiv­er­ing still be­yond con­trol, the lit­tle boy hand cold, cold, see­ing the pret­ty dark­ies he start to talk, say­ing Port-of-Spain have nice dark­ies in truth, Ogles' Com­mer­cial girls are re­al­ly cute but pard­ner see­ing is be­liev­ing and touch­ing is (the naked role or the na­tive's role) the record­ing is not clear on the end lyrics, but you get the in­ter­pre­ta­tion whichev­er one you adopt.

On King Solomon him­self, I have found lit­tle, even his broth­er Clifton Ryan, the Mighty Bomber, says they nev­er spoke about ca­lyp­so. In­deed, Bomber said he nev­er knew Sam was singing ca­lyp­so un­til he heard the record­ing of San­ta. Bomber says Solomon nev­er sang at a tent, but Win­ston May­nard says he re­mem­bers him in and around the Good Samar­i­tan Hall on Duke Street.

An­oth­er in­for­mant placed King Solomon as liv­ing at Mor­vant, the source for San­ta. Bomber records that Solomon was di­a­bet­ic and lost both his legs be­fore his death.