Rudder at 6.5

SHEREEN ALI

It was 6.30 pm, Carnival Tuesday, the Queen’s Park Savannah, 1986. Like hundreds of others, I was on a high from a great Carnival, my pores raised by the song The Hammer, which possessed me back then for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain. There was an energy about it which made me want to both celebrate and lament; and to go out in search of something precious that I did not even know I had lost. This David Rudder song connected people from many different backgrounds on the road that Carnival.

That sense of connection, celebration and almost a spiritual invocation to reclaim parts of yourself you may have lost (or never even discovered), may be part of what author Kevin Adonis Browne was talking about when he wrote in his book Tropic Tendencies:

“Calypsonians such as Rudder… compose with a definite prophetic agenda: to speak to the people, to pull them together, to implicate them in a project of individual awareness and collective uplift.”

Elsewhere in that same book, Browne observes: “Rudder’s music is saturated with the melodic dirges of the past – overlaid with the language of shipwreck, plantations, sugarcane, rum, oil and blood – balancing elevated oratorical modes with the plain language of ballad calypsoes that have been firmly rooted in Caribbean culture since the 1930s.”

Rudder turns 65 on Sunday and celebrates his birthday with a concert on Saturday at The Normandie, St. Ann's. The concert ends on the stroke of midnight when his birthday begins.

Many of us whose spirits both sank and soared during the last unforgettable Rudder concert five years ago will not be missing this one. It’s more than just nostalgia: Rudder’s songs connected (and still connect) with people in a way that makes us feel both deeply proud and at times, deeply disturbed to be a Trinidadian.

Bahia Girl (1986), The Hammer (1986), Calypso Music (1987), Haiti (1987), Engine Room (1987), Rally Round the West Indies (1987), Madness (1987), There is a Land (1989), 1990 (composed in 1989), Down at the Shebeen (1990), Hoosay (1991), Madman’s Rant (1996), High Mas (1998), The Ganges and the Nile (1999), and Welcome to Trinidad (2017) are just a small fraction of Rudder’s outpouring of creative work.

Each of his songs reflects a different personal meditation, feeling, idea or social commentary of the times, whether it’s the exuberance and power of an African-influenced shared heritage, the lament for lost heroism, the anguish at our descent into violence and corrupted behaviour, or the exhilaration of our sporting triumphs.

Almost everyone in TT has a personal or collective memory associated with a Rudder song.

One fan shares: “Whether it was Atlantis, Upper Level, on the road with Minshall, on the big stage in the Savannah, in Spektakula Tent, the Oval cheering on the West Indies team, in a fete, church bazaar or during one of his many visits to our schools, everybody in this country has been touched by David Rudder’s music. Rudder 6.5 is more than a birthday party. It is a reflection on our lives, on those moments that we’ve shared as a people.”

Here is a pre-concert interview with Rudder done while he was in Canada this past week.

Q&A

The concert Rudder 6.0 was moving and outstanding. Do you hope to beat your own record with Rudder 6.5?

I’m hoping to do 65 songs this time. One for each year of my life.

Can you give us a hint of what we can look forward to? Will there be new material?

Let’s just say I’ll be doing from Calabash to The Jammettery.

How easy is it for you to switch from your Canadian to your Trinidadian self? Or does that question never arise?

Hahahaha! I have one self. It wears a pair of brown Sebu gym boots and khaki pants, and it grew up in Belmont.

Do you feel any different today from five years ago? If so, how?

I groan a little bit louder when I attempt to climb out of bed.

How do you think being a diaspora Trinidadian has affected your art and craft as a songwriter/performer?

It has opened up my creative mind and helps me to see how lucky I am to be able to see the world through Trinidadian eyes.

What music (apart from your own) are you liking these days?

I’m liking the fact that the young people in our society, are re-discovering the magic of sweet melodies.

Do you rehearse a lot for big concerts like 6.5? Do you actually have to go into training for it?

Yes, I rehearse a few times before the show. Fortunately I have a core of musicians who know most of my songs inside out. (And that’s a few hundred).

Training? Nah! I just step on stage and cut the gig. No meditation and prayer circles, ‘cause my entire life is one long meditation – my wife might call it Aspergers (laughs).

When you were a teenager, who or what inspired you, and why?

The entire university of Belmont. All the various campuses. My professors were people like Ken Morris, Jason Griffith on one campus. On the other campus I could encounter Carlie and Arthur Byer. From River Bud to father Graham, and that’s just to start.

Now that you are a grown-up, who do you consider to be your mentors (or sources of inspiration) - in song, in life?

See the answer above and add my mother and father and all the neighbours.

For you, what is the craziest thing about Trinidad and Tobago? And what is the sweetest?

The craziest could also be the sweetest. Trinbagonians don’t eat food, we do battle with it. We “cuff down a roti”. We “put the hurt” on a pelau. We “pelt some lash” (we literally do) on the crab and dumplings, and “damage” the curry ‘guana.

If you could travel through time and space to visit anyone, living or dead, anywhere at all, who/where would you visit and why?

I’d go back and ask a lot of people whose words still affect us today... “Why?” And: “Did you really mean it that way?”

Are there any albums, or group of albums, of all the music you have made in your life so far, that you feel a very strong or especially close connection to up to this day, and if so, why?

Perhaps by a knnnu, The Hammer because that’s the one that got me where I am today. But just a knnnu. Each album expresses a milestone in my life.

What advice do you have for anyone considering a soca/calypso/Caribbean songwriting career today?

If you truly have “it”, the people will let you know. So go through hard, and don’t fear falling.

Do you ever do other kinds of arts or craft to relax?

I still draw and paint occasionally. I’d like to do some copper work at some point. Ken Morris trained me well. Whenever I visit the Kapok and I look at that mural on the wall in the lobby, I’m actually seeing something that I worked on. Makes me feel good.

What is your favourite dessert?

Chocolate, not too sweet. We have the best here in TT. Young people should get into cocoa and chocolate production.

Do you have any special wishes or hopes for your birthday?

To send people home feeling like they’re flying... And I truly wish and hope for an end to the ferry fiasco. Santimanitay.