Pe­ter Ray Blood

Days af­ter the launch of a book com­mem­o­rat­ing his work, vet­er­an mas­man Stephen Lee He­ung, 93, died on Mon­day night from pneu­mo­nia at St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre.

The book, We Kind ah Peo­ple, by Amer­i­can judge and Car­ni­val re­searcher Ray Funk and lo­cal pho­tog­ra­ph­er George Tang, was launched on Oc­to­ber 7 at the Na­tion­al Li­brary, Port-of-Spain.Yes­ter­day Lee He­ung's son, Shane, said: "Dad died of a chest in­fec­tion. Mu­cus had de­vel­oped in his lungs and he was hav­ing prob­lems breath­ing prop­er­ly.

"Dad suf­fered a stroke in 1997 but was mo­bile af­ter­wards with the aid of crutch­es and a cane."Af­ter a while he sim­ply gave up and stopped go­ing out. The last time he went out was to at­tend Di­manche Gras in 2012."Pe­ter Min­shall de­signed Lee He­ung's 1976 Band of the Year win­ner, Par­adise Lost, the first band Min­shall had de­signed.

Yes­ter­day he said: "There are band­lead­ers and then there are band­lead­ers. The cur­rent crop is bla­tant­ly in­to mak­ing mon­ey on the work that they had learnt from the likes of Stephen Lee He­ung, who nev­er ever lost the love of mak­ing mas. We have lost one of the great pro­duc­ers of clas­sic Caribbean art."Five-time Band of the Year win­ner Ed­mond Hart, now 91, said: "I am tak­en aback by Stephen's death. We were very friend­ly and were in the same Li­ons club.

"When I first pro­duced mas, Stephen played one year with me. He and his wife, Elsie, and my wife, Lil, and I were re­gard­ed as the cou­ples of mas. We worked to­geth­er abroad on a num­ber of oc­ca­sions," he added.Hart's son, Luis, now leader of Harts In­ter­na­tion­al, added: "Stephen and Elsie were re­spon­si­ble for giv­ing many of the big de­sign­ers their first break in mas. He did so much for T&T Car­ni­val and was a true pi­o­neer.

"Many of the peo­ple who be­gan by col­lab­o­rat­ing with Stephen end­ed up be­ing some of the great­est con­trib­u­tors to mas in terms of vi­su­al ex­cel­lence. My par­ents and the Lee He­ungs were Car­ni­val's mas cou­ples."They were close as they were cou­ples deal­ing in mas, clos­er than the oth­ers, like George Bai­ley and Harold Salden­ha."The late Wayne Berke­ley al­so de­signed some of Lee He­ung's win­ning bands and his pro­duc­er Earl Pat­ter­son said:

"Stephen was one of the best band­lead­ers of all time. The type of per­son he was... he had a wel­com­ing heart to every­one."The first time we were re­al­ly close was when we trav­elled to Dal­las, Texas, with Wayne Berke­ley's band. We sat for hours dur­ing the day, play­ing rum­my and bond­ing."On our re­turn to Trinidad we con­tin­ued play­ing rum­my at Stephen's home on Al­ber­to Street. I re­mem­ber that he loved a fried bread­fruit very much.

"I want to ex­press my deep­est con­do­lences to Shane and the fam­i­ly."D Mi­das As­so­ciates leader/de­sign­er Stephen Dereck said: "An­oth­er one from the glo­ry days has passed."Artistes like us can­not for­get the cre­ations he gave us. Stephen was one of the founders of the band­lead­ers' as­so­ci­a­tion and he was al­so one of the first peo­ple to tour abroad with our mas, go­ing to Mon­tre­al for Ex­po '67."

Shane Lee He­ung said fu­ner­al arrange­ments would be an­nounced lat­er this week, with the fu­ner­al ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled for next week.