RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chip­ping to the beat of her hus­band’s great­est hits, Sher­ma Orr-Watkins, man­ag­er and wife of Tim­o­thy Watkins aka Baron, gave him the best trib­ute of his life on Tues­day.

With the bless­ings of the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC), one of the streets where Baron played as a child, was named in his ho­n­our.

Smil­ing and hug­ging Orr-Watkins, Baron ac­knowl­edged her con­tri­bu­tion to his life say­ing she was de­mure, hum­ble and al­ways in the back­ground.

“I know she is be­hind this. She sweet but you wouldn’t want to see her get vex you know,” he laughed.

For him the trib­ute was un­ex­pect­ed.

“This is a re­al plea­sure, a big plea­sure,” he said as every­one ap­plaud­ed. Point­ing to a build­ing, Baron said, “That shop there was my shop. I used to play the gui­tar there. The Jagdeos were liv­ing there. The Primes were like my broth­ers. My fa­ther used to be in the Lodge. I nev­er felt I would get recog­nised,” he said.

Asked to ex­plain fur­ther he said, “Some ca­lyp­so­ni­ans sing and I was lucky enough to get all of this be­cause of the wife. It’s a sur­prise to me, I didn’t ex­pect any­thing like this.”

Veteran Calypsonian Timothy Watkins, Baron, centre, is flanked by his wife Sherma Orr-Watkins, left, and Patsy Calliste, right, as they walk the street named after him by the Penal Debe Regional Corporation, Bamboo Village, La Romaine, yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

His child­hood friend Glen Wal­ters re­called how they would play crick­et on the streets to­geth­er.

Back then the streets were used to trans­port cane and co­conuts, Wal­ters said.

Pres­i­dent of the South chap­ter of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) Steve Pas­call, praised the PDRC for ho­n­our­ing Baron while he was alive. 

“There was a time in the his­to­ry of the arts when it was no dogs and no ca­lyp­so­ni­ans al­lowed. But to­day we can see Tim­o­thy Watkins, Leroy Cal­liste Boule­vard, Kitch­en­er Av­enue, Spar­row. This shows the re­spect that we as artists have been giv­en over the years,” Pas­cal said.

He added, “I thank you to the PDRC for see­ing the need and putting this in­to ac­tion. This is a great street. Icon­ic. Tim­o­thy, you cap­ture them boy.

“You are an icon, you have done great mu­sic and it is an ho­n­our that the PDRC has ho­n­oured Baron,” Pas­cal added.

Fol­low­ing the street un­veil­ing, Baron, his wife, friends and oth­er dig­ni­taries from the Cor­po­ra­tion trekked down the street danc­ing with the Moko Jumbies as they cel­e­brat­ed Baron as one of T&T’s great­est en­ter­tain­ers of all time.