Pe­ter Ray Blood

That mantra of a re­frain is my pick for this year's Parang So­ca Road March. I have heard Baron's I want a Span­ish woman ad nau­se­um on every ra­dio fre­quen­cy lo­cal­ly, and even on a Ba­jan sta­tion picked up ap­par­ent­ly on­ly in the hills of Par­latu­vi­er, To­ba­go. It has al­so been beat­en like a ma­pa­pire in every Christ­mas lime and par­ty I at­tend­ed.

My mu­sic re­searcher Nicholas St Bernard tells me that the first time he heard I Want a Span­ish Woman was when Al­lan Di­az played it on Sweet 100 FM late in 2008, which means this song is al­ready two-years-old.An­oth­er favourite sur­viv­ing the past cou­ple Christ­mases have been Black Cake and Sor­rel by Da $pir­it$ (Shawn "Da Ma$tamind" Noel), and Wal­ter Tay­lor's Coro Coro. Every Tom, Dick, Mary and Har­ry is now singing parang so­ca, in­clud­ing chut­ney star Adesh Sama­roo. But, the stuff that has en­dured, at least the past 30-plus years and con­tin­ued to be played, is the work of parang so­ca icon Crazy, and peo­ple like Scrunter, Baron, Ken­ny J, Mar­cia Mi­ran­da and Singing Francine.

Old school parang so­ca, like Crazy's Parang­so­ca m(1978) and Muchacha, and Francine's Hooray Hoorah will last 'til the end of time. Of course parang so­ca would be in­com­plete with­out the ridicu­lous and this area has ably been cov­ered by Spran­galang, Nik­ki Cros­by and Third Bass. Oh gosh, I love Bass' Par-Hang, a parang so­ca sin­gle about hang­ing mur­der­ers in Wood­ford Square.

Be­side the avant garde parang so­ca genre, we are al­so blessed with lo­cal soul Christ­mas dit­ties and among the best in this sphere are Around my Christ­mas Tree and Sha La La Christ­mas Song (Lennox Gray); The Cher­ry Tree Car­ol (Hazel Ram­ber­ans­ingh); and Rib­bons (Mar­i­lyn Williams). Let's not for­get the ever­green clas­sic Christ­mas bal­lads, like There's No Place Like Home (Spar­row); Nap Hep­burn's Tell San­ta Claus; and, Kel­wyn Hutcheon's How I wish I was a child again. Then, there's the Christ­mas ca­lyp­so, in­clu­sive of Re­la­tor's Christ­mas On Sesame Street, Kitch­en­er's Drink-A-Rum, Mar­cia Mi­ran­da's Marmie, and David Rud­der's Go Tell It On The Moun­tain.

Add to that, Pel­ham God­dard's catchy re­make of Tell San­ta Claus, fea­tur­ing Char­lie's Roots. No list of top Christ­mas mu­sic would be com­plete with­out the in­clu­sion of two sin­gles by two su­per artistes-Crazy's One For Tito (2009), with lyrics by T&TG jour­nal­ist Michelle Loubon, and Singing Francine's He is the Rea­son.

Let the parang so­ca roll

I asked St Bernard to send me his Top 20 all time parang so­ca items and, in as­cend­ing or­der, he sent me the fol­low­ing:

De Paint­brush (Ken­ny J);

Home­made Wine (Scrunter & Los To­cadores);

One For Tito (Crazy);

What Is Christ­mas (Bun­ji Gar­lin);

Bring Drinks (Spran­galang);

Gimme Love (Mar­cia Mi­ran­da);

Eat Some­thing (Scrunter);

Cork In She Hand (Ken­ny J);

Trib­ute To Daisy (Scrunter);

I Love Christ­mas (De­sign­er);

In­di­an Parang Chic (Taxi);

Christ­mas Nice (Shad­ow);

Madame Jef­frey (Scrunter);

Parang Parang (Singing Francine);

Ani­ta (Scrunter & Flo­res De San Jose);

Bring Out De Ham (Mar­cia Mi­ran­da);

Parang­so­ca (Crazy);

Muchacha (Crazy);

So­ca Parang, aka Piece ah Pork (Scrunter); and,

Hooray Hoorah (Singing Francine).

The re­al deal

While I re­al­ly love parang so­ca, my re­al pas­sion au­then­tic parang, es­pe­cial­ly those groups that use non-elec­tron­ic in­stru­ments, like Lara Broth­ers. Among my favourite parang groups through the years have been La Div­ina Pas­to­ra (how I miss Daisy and Big Birch); Las Es­trel­las, Los Alacran, Fuego Caribueno, Carib San­ta Rosa Ser­e­naders, Love Bunch, Los Alum­nos de San Juan and Paran­deros de UWI. Of course, be­side Daisy and Tito Lara, amongst my favourite parang song­sters have been Pa­pa Goon, Hen­ry Pereira and Glo­ria Al­cazar, and now Ali­cia Ja­gas­sar and the lead voice of Fuego Caribueno.

Best of the new

One of my favourite au­then­tic parang num­bers is ac­tu­al­ly an in­stru­men­tal-Black Cake And Sor­rel. Re­leased since 2006, this in­fec­tious sin­gle is a work by very tal­ent­ed pro­duc­er Da $pir­it$. The oth­er re­cent parang dit­ty to cap­ture my fan­cy is An­da Par­ran­da. Like a breath of fresh air to Tri­ni Christ­mas mu­sic Noel has been con­sis­tent­ly ex­cel­lent with his work, com­ing with an­oth­er in­stru­men­tal-Sweet­bread-this year.

Oth­er hits by this tal­ent, who seems to have a pen­chant for the culi­nary de­lights of the sea­son, are Ponche De Creme (2007); Ham And Pastelle (2008); and, What Is Christ­mas With­out Ah Rum?, the lat­ter on the Cu­a­tro Man Rid­dim, shared by De Parang Cyar Done (Chai) and Macafouchette (Rem Bunc­tion)

Al­so rel­a­tive­ly new to the scene but churn­ing out some fan­tas­tic hits in re­cent times has been south lad My­ron B. An ex­cel­lent com­pos­er and record­ing artiste, My­ron's hits in­clude Com­ing Down Tonight and Is ah nex' house.

Then there are oth­er new­com­ers who've made an in­stant im­pact, like D Di­a­mond (Breathe In); Fire­ball (Bet­ter Bel­ly bus dan to let good food waste); and, Dad­dy Chi­nee. Last week I heard what must be the best kept se­cret in Christ­mas mu­sic-a group of very young men go­ing by the so­bri­quet of The Crib. A pro­tege of Crazy, this quar­tet has one of the sweet­est songs I've heard this sea­son-More Love for Christ­mas. Crazy, who has com­posed over 40 songs for var­i­ous artistes for next year's Car­ni­val, said that The Crib will be mak­ing much noise in so­ca come C2K11, so lis­ten out for them.

Oth­er new works to catch my fan­cy this year have been What Is Christ­mas (Bun­ji Gar­lin); Christ­mas With­out San­ta (Adesh Sama­roo); Bel­la Trinidad (Leon Coldero); Breathe In (D Di­a­mond); Why Yuh Drink Meh Rum? (D Chan­cel­lor); Ta­ban­ca (Black­ie); My Christ­mas Tree (Kool); Fork (Ri­car­do Drue); Nev­er Be The Same (Kevon Carter); Lov­ing Neigh­bour (Young Voice); and, Bring Yuh Rum (Ajala). There's al­so a must-buy new CD by Carib San­ta Rosa that is avail­able at all lead­ing record shops. One oth­er mon­ster sin­gle is Un­der the Bed by Su­perBlue. This dit­ty is nei­ther fish or fowl as it is not a car­ol, a parang or a parang so­ca, but more in the vin­tage of a Road March con­tender, and damn nice ca­lyp­so.

BLOOD­NOTES

Sad­ness at Christ­mas time

To end on a sad note, I ex­tend Pulse con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of Es­ther Dal­ton, and mem­bers of Star­lift Steel Or­ches­tra, on her un­time­ly pass­ing, as well as the rel­a­tives of Ri­car­do "Smokey" Mc Ken­zie.

This life is re­al­ly brief and fleet­ing as just Sun­days ago I ran in­to a smil­ing, hap­py Es­ther as she limed in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah at the fi­nal steel­band con­cert or­gan­ised by Pan Trin­ba­go. How­ev­er she suc­cumbed to a mas­sive heart at­tack last week­end, and was buried on Tues­day morn­ing, leav­ing to mourn her on­ly child, daugh­ter Si­mone, broth­er for­mer TSTT em­ploy­ee Leslie Dal­ton, and rel­a­tives.

Es­ther, 67, was a vet­er­an, stal­wart mem­ber of Star­lift and, fol­low­ing her ser­vice at Tran­quil­i­ty Methodist Church, a re­cep­tion was host­ed at Star­lift's Mu­cu­rapo Road Ext pa­n­yard. Smokey, a co-pro­pri­etor of the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned Smokey & Bun­ty Pub in St James was bat­tling a brain tu­mour for the past six months and died in a Mi­a­mi hos­pi­tal on Tues­day.