Michelle Loubon

Strum­ming his gui­tar at 13 Pic­ton Street, Laven­tille, vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Clifton Ryan (Mighty Bomber) paused to share his sen­ti­ments on be­ing ho­n­oured by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT). Oc­ca­sion was the re-en­act­ment of the 1962 In­de­pen­dence Ca­lyp­so Con­test at Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa), Keate Street, Port-of-Spain, on Sep­tem­ber 16. The il­lus­tri­ous Lord Bryn­ner (Kade Si­mon) had won. Ryan, 84, and fel­low bard Slinger Fran­cis­co (Spar­row), 80, were pre­sent­ed with awards of ap­pre­ci­a­tion. The duo has the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the on­ly two sur­viv­ing com­peti­tors from the in­au­gur­al con­test. Ryan is the el­dest sur­viv­ing ca­lyp­son­ian in T&T. The late vet­er­an Son­ny Fran­cois (Pow­er) was billed to ap­pear on the show but he died on Au­gust 9. He sang Hur­rah For In­de­pen­dence. Last Sun­day, UTT chair­man/vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Prof Hol­lis Liv­er­pool sang Fran­cois' clas­sic. In­ter­viewed on Wednes­day, Ryan said it was bit­ter­sweet. "The show show­cased the 1962 com­pe­ti­tion. I?en­joyed it im­mense­ly. I was pleased to get the UTT?award. They ho­n­oured Spar­row and I." In 1962, Ryan had placed fourth with In­de­pen­dence. He al­so had the dis­tinc­tion of win­ning the 1957 Ra­dio Trinidad Com­pe­ti­tion with a song ded­i­cat­ed to its 10th an­niver­sary.

In 1964 he cre­at­ed his­to­ry when he de­feat­ed Spar­row with the epony­mous Bomber's Dream and James and Joan. Af­ter 50 years, Ryan's still hurt­ing.He felt In­de­pen­dence re­sults were skewed against him since he was born in St Georges, Grena­da. Re­liv­ing the mo­ment, Ryan said, "In 1962, the show was held at City Hall. It was packed to ca­pac­i­ty. When the re­sults were an­nounced, Bryn­ner had to run and jump in­to a car. The peo­ple want­ed Bomber. I was the Peo­ple's Choice. It was felt I?was not a cit­i­zen of T&T. I?came here on June 15, 1956. "I?felt hurt. Since then, I?don't like to sing In­de­pen­dence. My wife (Jean) and I got about 220 let­ters from Grena­da, St Kitts, An­guil­la and Nevis. Peo­ple kept say­ing I?should have won." To com­pound it, Ryan had a T&T?pass­port. His fa­ther An­gli­can sex­ton Fitzroy Ryan was from Ser­raneau Road, Bel­mont. He was in­stru­men­tal in get­ting the pass­port. His moth­er Agatha Joseph was a Grena­di­an. "I still have my pass­port. I car­ried it to him (co-or­di­na­tor An­drew Carr) the next day. He told me about it (be­ing Grena­di­an prej­u­diced his plac­ing)."?

In­de­pen­dence hor­rors

For­mer monarch King Lu­ta got lusty ap­plause when he sang Ryan's In­de­pen­dence last?Sun­day. Ryan is fierce­ly ter­ri­to­r­i­al with his song. "I?heard him singing the song. It did bring back fond mem­o­ries. But he made some mis­takes. He for­got some of the lyrics. He fumed when they an­nounced Bomber had placed sixth, that too was wrong. "In the orig­i­nal line­up, it was Bryn­ner, Spar­row, Nap and Mighty Bomber." Quizzed about 1962 com­peti­tors, he said, "Pow­er sang. He did not place. I?knew Nap Hep­burn. Ver­sa­tile sang Hep­burn's This Is My Flag. Crazy sang Chi­ang Kai Shek's In­de­pen­dence. I didn't know Chang Kai Shek. But Crazy calls me all the time. I?knew him when he was liv­ing at Er­i­ca Street in Laven­tille. They moved to St Au­gus­tine. "I?knew Strik­er (Per­ci­val Obling­ton). Strik­er had a love­ly voice. Mighty Di­a­mond sang his song We Could Make It." Ryan miss­es his friend the late vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Pow­er (Son­ny Fran­cois). There was a tinge of sad­ness he was not present. He said, "Pow­er was my good friend." About three days be­fore Pow­er died, Ryan talked to him for about and hour. He al­so names first prime min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams and Grena­da's first prime min­is­ter Er­ic Gairy as cher­ished friends. "Er­ic was my good friend. I?used to go home by him. In 1976 he gave me a plot of land for my con­tri­bu­tion to ca­lyp­so." Re­count­ing how he met Gairy, he said, "I was 12. He had a meet­ing at Mar­ket Square. Grena­da Labour Par­ty was his par­ty. Miss Bobots in­tro­duced me to him. He asked me if I?would write a ca­lyp­so about his par­ty. The next day I car­ried a song to him. He liked it."

Bomber hits Trinidad

Ryan, 21, worked at a soft drink fac­to­ry. Car­ni­val co-or­di­na­tor Pan­sy Ro­ley dis­cov­ered him. "She said, 'I?heard you are a singing sen­sa­tion. You should be in com­pe­ti­tion.' They put me on a ta­ble to sing. I sang Fowl Thief. They said, 'You are a bomb.' "At 12, I?took a ra­zor blade and a piece of card­board and cut out B-O-M-B-E-R. They were big bold let­ters. I?put it on my jer­sey. Bomber was born. I?con­tin­ued en­ter­ing com­pe­ti­tions home. I?won about sev­en times. Peo­ple loved me. In 1956 I?sang Ju­ve­nile Delin­quen­cy." Asked about his so­journ here, he said, "A girl." Her name was Jean. They mar­ried. She bore him eight chil­dren-Sharon, Sher­ryl, Rea­gan, Ju­nior, Sher­ma, Don­bar (late), Robert and Sher­win. Ini­tial­ly he stayed at the home of Small Is­land Pride (Theophelus Woods) at 69 Prince Street, Port-of-Spain. In 1957, he en­tered Ra­dio Trinidad 10th an­niver­sary com­pe­ti­tion. "I won $200. In those days, that was a lot of mon­ey. Pride said I?had to give him $100. I?went to Hilton Rhyn­er and he told me to bring the mon­ey and he took it and bought cloth. He made a blue suit." Then Pride's land­lord in­formed Ryan his friend had passed on in a ho­tel in Suri­name. He said, "In those days they had cig­a­rettes called Play­ers. It used to be in a tall pan. Pride put a han­dle on it and drank his tea from it."

Faced with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of evic­tion, Ryan found a job mix­ing drinks at South Quay's ho­tel Bo­li­var. "Rent was $3 a month. I?slept in a ham­mock. Wor­rel (who got him ho­tel job) told me to get some fur­ni­ture at RA?Moze (back then af­ter Stephen Low)."? He cred­its Pride for in­tro­duc­ing him to Melody. One day Fitzroy Alexan­der (Lord Melody) had a drink. He in­vit­ed him to sing at the Old Ice House Fac­to­ry (oblique­ly op­po­site to de­funct Ho­tel de Paris), on Aber­crom­by Street. The rest is his­to­ry. Ryan's reper­toire in­cludes Land Of Spice and the 1958 hit Glo­ria. He could not for­get pal­try wages. "When I?won in 1964, I?got $1,000. That was a prince­ly sum. In those days women were not in­volved. They used to sing. But they were not so up­front. Now it gone up to $2 mil­lion." In 1981, he said he had of­fi­cial­ly re­tired from ca­lyp­so. He got bap­tised and wor­ships at Pic­ton Cen­tre. He re­turned to Lord Kitch­en­er's Re­vue for fi­nan­cial rea­sons. But since 2006, Ryan said, "I?am re­tired com­plete­ly. I be­long to Je­sus." Com­ment­ing on crime, Ryan, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the North­west Laven­tille Cul­tur­al Group, said, "Peo­ple can­not stop crime. On­ly God...Men are try­ing to see how many notch­es they can get on the gun. I don't think it's get­ting bet­ter. Laven­tille is still a nice place."