Tonight, 3Canal will be the spe­cial guest per­form­ing at the fifth edi­tion of Caribbean Night, at De Nu Pub (The Mas Camp), Wood­brook, at 9 pm.

Pel­ham God­dard, the man be­hind this fort­night­ly spe­cial, has been re­spon­si­ble for some of the biggest so­ca hits of the last four decades. He has been the mu­si­cal ge­nie be­hind the late Mae­stro, Ca­lyp­so Rose, Su­perBlue, David Rud­der and Chris "Tam­bu" Her­bert.

Mu­si­cian, arranger, pro­duc­er, God­dard be­gan his ca­reer at a very ear­ly age, since the days of the com­bos, grad­u­at­ing in­to the stu­dio as the key­boardist for all the big name artistes of the era. He played every­thing, be it ca­lyp­so or lo­cal pop bal­lads and was even­tu­al­ly al­so part of the cre­ation of a new hy­brid ca­lyp­so genre, made by Lord Shorty, the late Ras Shorty I.

In 1975 a small group of mu­si­cians which com­prised of drums, bass, gui­tar, sax­o­phone and God­dard on key­boards formed a band and called it Sen­sa­tion­al Roots. The band was based at KH stu­dios in Sea Lots where it did most of the stu­dio's prod­ucts on its la­bel, on the Kalin­da la­bel. The quick­ly hailed as the coun­try's top stu­dio band and was hired the do a project with the Wild Fire singing group, em­bark­ing on a whistlestop tour, tra­vers­ing the en­tire na­tion, with star guests like Mavis John. Roots al­so worked with cel­e­brat­ed play­wright Derek Wal­cott on one of his pro­duc­tions at The Lit­tle Carib The­atre in Wood­brook.

In 1976, when the stu­dio up­grad­ed to 16-track fa­cil­i­ty, New York-based Tri­ni en­tre­pre­neur Rawl­ston "Char­lie" Charles signed God­dard and Roots to record the ca­lyp­so Sav­age with Mae­stro. The sin­gle was a mega hit. That year, Roots al­so was al­so a hit for Labour Day Car­ni­val. Af­ter pro­duc­ing Kitch­en­er's Christ­mas hit Drink A Rum, Charles de­cid­ed to spon­sor Roots as a road band. Now known as Char­lie's Roots, the ag­gre­ga­tion set about pro­mot­ing the new wave sound of so­ca.

On Charles' CR la­bel, in 1977, Roots pro­duced two songs for Mae­stro�Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic and Play Me. The band al­so did More Tem­po and Ac­tion Is Tight for Ca­lyp­so Rose, and she won the Road March ti­tle, a first for God­dard.

Af­ter the Car­ni­val '77, Roots re­turned to New York and pur­chased all the in­stru­ments and equip­ment to start Char­lie's Roots, of­fi­cial­ly launched in Ju­ly 1977. Iron­i­cal­ly, si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, on the same night of the launch, a new mas band was launched by a tal­ent­ed artist who would change the face of T&T mas for­ev­er�his name was Pe­ter Min­shall. Min­shall and Char­lie's Roots re­mained joined at the hip for the next 15 years.

In 1978, Ca­lyp­so Rose re­peat­ed the Road March with God­dard's arrange­ment of Come Leh we Jam. What hap­pened next was a slew of Road March vic­to­ries for God­dard, pro­duc­ing hit af­ter hit for Blue Boy (Su­perBlue), Pen­guin, Rud­der and Tam­bu. To this day no one has matched God­dard and Roots record of 12 Road March­es and most pop­u­lar songs. In­clud­ed among these hits are So­ca Bap­tist, Re­bec­ca, Ethel, No No We Aint go­ing home, Free up, Bahia Girl, The Ham­mer, This par­ty is it, Per­mis­sion to mash up the place, and Bac­cha­nal La­dy.

In 1985, God­dard and Roots in­tro­duced Caribbean Night, on a Thurs­day night, at At­lantis Club in West Mall, lat­er re­named Up­per Lev­el Club. This pro­gramme that grew in­to some­thing very mas­sive as the ag­gre­ga­tion show­cased all the mu­sic of the Caribbean.

The sec­ond com­ing Caribbean Night has quick­ly be­come a reg­u­lar fix­ture at The Mas Camp. Blessed with a wealth of su­perb mu­si­cians, God­dard and Roots are guar­an­teed please crowds at any kind of event.

The band com­pris­es of a 12 piece or­ches­tra and can be con­tact­ed for book­ings at 738 6940/628 1823, or by e-mail at pel­ham13@ya­hoo.com.