Af­ter ten years David Michael Rud­der will do his first ma­jor full length con­cert on lo­cal soil on June 29, at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. Billed as Rud­der 6.0, the pro­duc­tion promis­es to be a cel­e­bra­tion of Rud­der's 60th birth­day, a mile­stone he achieved on May 6.

Even the most loy­al of Rud­der fans have been ea­ger­ly await­ing some­thing new from the artiste and they can look for­ward to some new stuff from their icon. "I'll be do­ing songs that I did from the six­ties come up," said Rud­der this week from his Toron­to base. "Peo­ple will ex­pect the tried and test­ed so I'll go there, but there will al­so be the hid­den gems. Lets just say they'll hear a David that few have heard be­fore. It'll be a long beau­ti­ful night."

De­spite the in­nu­mer­able mile­stones, ac­co­lades and ac­claim he has gleaned through his ca­reer, Rud­der is hun­gry to cre­ate even more mu­sic. He said: "Six­ty is the new 40 for me. When I hit 40, I felt noth­ing, 50 same. Six­ty makes you sit up and think though. I want to write now, along­side the mu­sic and re­turn to paint­ing, draw­ing, sculp­ture etc. You know a book launch, an art ex­hi­bi­tion, a ma­jor con­cert each year, or two, will be just fine.

"I want to con­tin­ue and ex­pand my lit­tle out­reach with the youth, now that my lit­tle ones are get­ting big."

One of the most im­pact­ful ex­po­nents of the ca­lyp­so art form ever, Rud­der made his mark in 1986 by win­ning that year's three most pres­ti­gious ti­tles, as well as hav­ing the Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on (Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars) play one of his songs (The Ham­mer) as its tune of choice. But, Rud­der has been singing for much longer than that. The Bel­mont In­ter­me­di­ate alum­nus used to do cov­ers of pop­u­lar artistes and he gar­nered pop­u­lar­i­ty by per­form­ing in nightspots, like the de­funct Rolls Royce In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­co.

A twist of fate brought Rud­der to Char­lie's Roots, Pel­ham God­dard and so­ca mu­sic. Roots vo­cal­ist Chris "Tam­bu" Her­bert lost his voice through over­sing­ing while on tour. In search of a vo­cal­ist, God­dard re­calls the band's gui­tarist Emaon Ec­tor in­tro­duc­ing him to Rud­der. God­dard said that Rud­der, at the time, was do­ing back­ground vo­cals with the hus­band and wife duo of Carl and Car­ol Ja­cob in KH Stu­dios, in Sea Lots. Rud­der's voice is on the record­ing tracks of many of the day's pre­mier ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, like the late Lord Melody, and he al­so did back­ground vo­cals on 1980 Road March So­ca Bap­tist by Blue Boy (Su­perBlue).

God­dard said the first record­ing Rud­der did with Roots was Jun­gle Fever, done in 1981, theme song of a mas pre­sen­ta­tion by Pe­ter Min­shall. For four years, Rud­der and Roots grew in ap­peal and pop­u­lar­i­ty and, in 1985, al­most hit the jack­pot with a sin­gle ti­tled Cal­abash.

The song was a run­ner-up in the Road March race, be­hind Crazy's Soucouyant.

That year, one could feel that some­thing great was im­mi­nent in Rud­der's ca­reer.

The moth­er lode was struck in 1986 when, per­form­ing The Ham­mer and Bahia Girl, Rud­der won the Young Kings and Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tles, as well as Road March cham­pi­onship. Like Roar­ing Li­on, Spar­row, Kitch­en­er, Lord Shorty, Mae­stro and Shad­ow be­fore, Rud­der's as­cen­dan­cy to the pan­theon of ca­lyp­so greats, marked the dawn of a new epoch in ca­lyp­so and so­ca. Nev­er be­fore had any oth­er ca­lyp­son­ian achieved what he did that year.

It seemed like in the blink of an eye Rud­der had be­come ca­lyp­so and so­ca's prime prop­er­ty and for the en­su­ing decades every show he has done has been a sold out af­fair. His June 29 con­cert is ex­pect­ed to be no dif­fer­ent. Af­ter Rud­der's 1986 achieve­ment, Daisann Mc­Clane, Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist and World Beat cor­re­spon­dent for Rolling Stone Mag­a­zine, wrote: "Al­most overnight he (Rud­der) be­came a na­tion­al hero on the or­der of (Bob) Mar­ley in Ja­maica, Fela (Ran­some Ku­ti) in Nige­ria and (Bruce) Spring­steen in New Jer­sey."

Al­ready com­pared to the great Mighty Spar­row, Rud­der's 1986 feats launched a ca­reer that is un­par­al­leled to most ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, one book­marked with stel­lar mo­ments of achieve­ment and glo­ry. In 1987, de­fend­ing the high­ly cov­et­ed na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch ti­tle, Rud­der was stout­ly chal­lenged by vet­er­an Black Stal­in, then a four-time ti­tle-hold­er, in what many at­test was the most fierce­ly con­test­ed Di­manche Gras fi­nal ever. Stal­in sang Bu'n Dem and Mr Pan Mak­er while Rud­der de­fend­ed with Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic and Ded­i­ca­tion. When the smoke cleared, af­ter Stal­in had trans­formed the are­na in­to an in­fer­no for his per­for­mance of Bu'n Dem, Rud­der was re­lin­quished of his crown and nev­er com­pet­ed in a ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion since.

But, al­ways one to re­sist com­pe­ti­tion in the art form, Rud­der had his sights set on wider and lofti­er hori­zons and vis­tas for the ca­lyp­so art form. He signed a six-year con­tract with Lon­don Records in Eng­land, and Sire/Warn­er Broth­ers in the US, and pro­duced al­bums like Haiti in 1988, the biggest sell­ing record of that year. Rud­der al­so pro­duced the Pana­ma CD, an­oth­er award re­cip­i­ent and win­ner of mul­ti­ple awards in the first ever na­tion­al mu­sic awards of T&T cer­e­mo­ny (Nafei­ta), as well as Mad­ness.

Re­cip­i­ent of the 1988 Sun­shine Award For Male Vo­cal­ist of the Year, Rud­der would glean 15 more Nafei­ta awards up to 1990.

To un­der­score the ver­sa­til­i­ty of this great artiste, Rud­der's com­po­si­tions–Dark Se­crets, Chil­dren of Fire and Just a Car­ni­val–were fea­tured in Wild Or­chid, a Warn­er Broth­ers movie. In 1989, he al­so had the lead­ing role in Sug­ar Cane Ar­rows, a six-part tele­vi­sion dra­ma se­ries pro­duced in Trinidad. This was the first dra­ma se­ries from Trinidad aired in the US.

Two of Rud­der's most sig­nif­i­cant CDs have been 1990 and Down at the She­been, the lat­ter high­light­ing the suc­cess of South Africa's an­ti-apartheid move­ment, with Nel­son Man­dela at its head, and 1990 be­ing a doc­u­men­tary in song about T&T dark­est hour, an at­tempt­ed coup in 1990.

In 1996, Rud­der was ap­point­ed as a Good­will Am­bas­sador for the UN De­vel­op­ment Pro­gram (UNDP). His fame and recog­ni­tion ex­tend way be­yond the bound­aries of T&T, so much so his Ral­ly Round the West In­dies is to­day the of­fi­cial an­them of the West In­dies crick­et team.

Cur­rent­ly a res­i­dent of Toron­to, Cana­da, Rud­der has per­formed with sev­er­al of the world's great­est artistes, in­clud­ing San­tana, Regi­na Belle, Third World, Sha­la­mar, Mi­a­mi Sound Ma­chine, Bar­ry White, KC and The Sun­shine Band, Maxi Priest, Van Mor­ri­son, Suzanne Ve­ga, Zig­gy Mar­ley and the Melody Mak­ers, Bil­ly Ocean, Aswad, Steel Pulse, Chal­ice, Kas­sav, Salif Kei­ta and Andy Narell. Al­most every ma­jor mu­sic mag­a­zine has cri­tiqued and hailed Rud­der's ex­haus­tive body of work and those who at­tend Rud­der 6.0 on June 29 are guar­an­teed an en­light­en­ing and mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence.

Al­ways a watch­er, Rud­der has recog­nised sig­nif­i­cant change, in T&T and glob­al so­ci­ety, vul­ture and mu­sic, and wax­es philo­soph­i­cal, say­ing, "The mu­sic has changed, as well it should, as the so­ci­ety changed and con­tin­ues to change.

"The 'in­no­cence' of my ear­ly years in mu­sic and life for that mat­ter, is long gone. Now, we live in con­fus­ing and dead­ly times, where we have to some­times look a lit­tle hard­er for the mag­ic. Even the rhythms seem to be pack­ing a gun some­times.

"It was in­ter­est­ing, telling even, that (Pink) Pan­ther won the (monarch) crown tot­ing a cof­fin.

"The so­ci­ety needs a 'Dif­fer­en­to­log­i­cal shift'. The mag­ic hides be­hind, you see."