Zahra Gor­don

At the peak of his so­lo ca­reer, mu­si­cian and arranger Earl Rod­ney was trav­el­ling fre­quent­ly be­tween the UK, the US and Trinidad per­form­ing at var­i­ous events. Since 2008, he's been based in Trinidad and has re­mained large­ly out of the pub­lic eye.

Ac­cord­ing to Rod­ney, trav­el­ling was rough and a well-de­served break was need­ed. The 75-year-old Point Fortin-na­tive has spent a lot of time work­ing on his gar­den, fin­ish­ing his home, and gen­er­al­ly re­lax­ing.

This does not mean, how­ev­er, that he's giv­en up mu­sic. Dur­ing an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian last week at his home in Point Fortin, Rod­ney said he is still learn­ing.

"I keep play­ing all the time. I'm im­prov­ing. Every­day I go on my pan and find out things I didn't know be­fore. It's like you've nev­er seen the pan be­fore. I haven't reached a bot­tle­neck yet. It's like out there (point­ing to the sky), there's no end."

A few more "out­ings" are turn­ing up for Rod­ney this year, how­ev­er. Dur­ing Car­ni­val he per­formed at a Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Calpyso­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) event and in May was fea­tured in the Point Jazz con­cert as part of Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions. Last week­end he was al­so the fea­tured artist at the bird­song Ben­e­fit Con­cert held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA). Work­ing with bird­song, Rod­ney has been in­tro­duced to young mu­si­cians whom he can en­vi­sion fu­ture work with. Mak­ing a con­nec­tion with re­al mu­si­cians, who have both tal­ent and ded­i­ca­tion is a rare oc­ca­sion, ac­cord­ing to Rod­ney.

Al­though Rod­ney said he's able to bridge gen­er­a­tional gaps, he doesn't see him­self fit­ting in with to­day's lo­cal mu­sic in­dus­try.

"All over the world there's a down­grade in mu­sic. You go to Eng­land you'll hear the same com­plaints. In be­tween there's some good ones that could last a few years," he said. "But these peo­ple who are in­to the Car­ni­val thing, I won­der if they can re­mem­ber the Road March or the So­ca Monarch from last year. I hate to say that and I wish I didn't have to say it. Peo­ple used to sit down to write and arrange mu­sic for peo­ple to dance. It's a dif­fer­ent time and these peo­ple are en­joy­ing their time, but for me, the mu­sic isn't go­ing any­where."

His dis­ap­point­ment with the in­dus­try will not stop him from pro­duc­ing. He has a few projects un­der his sleeve. He hopes to build a stu­dio and has the scores of nu­mer­ous com­po­si­tions wait­ing to be record­ed piled up at home. He al­so wants to work on scores for film or the­atre as this is one area in his vast ca­reer that he has yet to ven­ture in­to.

Rod­ney may best be known for his win­ning Panora­ma arrange­ments for So­lo Har­monites and his work on icon­ic ca­lyp­so mu­sic. As a mem­ber of the Trou­ba­dours he arranged sev­en al­bums for the Mighty Spar­row. He has al­so arranged and played with Lord Kitch­en­er, Ar­row, Black Stal­in, Valenti­no, Lord Melody and Ex­plain­er, to name a few. Al­though Rod­ney has worked ex­ten­sive­ly in ca­lyp­so, he ad­mit­ted that his favourite genre is Latin.

"Al­most every­thing I do has a lit­tle Latin in it," he said. Rod­ney shared that while grow­ing up in Point Fortin, it was Latin mu­sic that filled night­clubs.

Rod­ney is al­so re­mem­bered for his 1972 record­ing Friends and Coun­try­men. He has record­ed two oth­er so­lo al­bums: Steel­band Mu­sic (1999) and Pure Orig­i­nal Mu­sic (2002). Rod­ney said he has all in­ten­tions of record­ing an­oth­er al­bum and de­vel­op­ing new meth­ods to record live steel­band mu­sic, which can of­ten be dif­fi­cult.

"We need a good way to cap­ture pan and I don't know how come we haven't come up with one yet," he said.

His for­mu­la for longevi­ty and the large body of work come from an un­de­scrib­able source, he said.

"For me it's not a labour re­al­ly be­cause most of my com­po­si­tions just come to me. Some­times I do sit down and man­u­fac­ture some­thing, but oth­er times it just comes from nowhere. I'll be watch­ing TV and just hear mu­sic in my head. These things are mag­i­cal. Mu­sic for me is a nat­ur­al thing."

Earl Rod­ney was co-founder of Trop­i­cal Har­mo­ny Steel­band and a for­mer mem­ber of the T&T Na­tion­al Steel­band. He was al­so a bass play­er in the band Dutchy Broth­ers dur­ing the 1960s and 70s. As arranger for So­lo Har­monites, the band won four Panora­ma ti­tles.