GB is back!

Prolific songwriter Gregory Ballantyne (GB) is making a return to live performances in 2018, after a 12-year, self-imposed hiatus.

During Calypso History Month 2017, GB came out of retirement to do a guest performance at a vintage calypso evening, where he entertained with his hilarious Gas, the song which won him the Prestige Promotions International Humour Monarch Title in 1995.

Then late last year he joined Lord Superior (Andrew Marcano) for another vintage calypso show with the National Heritage Trust on Nelson Island, which helped to blow away the cobwebs. And on January 5, 2018, he performed at another vintage show, this time at Our Lady of Fatima churchyard in Curepe. So is the former public relations man ready to pick back up the pieces of his performing career?

“One day at a time,” was his answer. “By the grace of God, I’ve kept myself in decent shape. I still play three or four football games per week, with guys half my age and less.

“Spiritually, I feel at peace. I haven’t arrived, for God’s sake. Every day I learn something. One thing’s for sure: I have no more prayers or tears to waste over a vicious drug rumour that I never deserved. Hindsight is really 20/20 vision. In a way, I’m thankful for the rumour. It forced me to take a serious look at humanity and come to terms with the cancer of empty gossip and the damage it can do.”

GB said he has always been a fitness enthusiast, and a living testimony to the aphorism that children learn what they live.

“I have three children in Trinidad. They all work out in different gyms. None of them smoke. Only one drinks alcohol, sparingly. The day I met Avion, their mother, I said to her, if she planned to hang around me, the little pack in her hand had to go. That was the last day she smoked.

“They sure picked the wrong guy to try to pin a drug rumour on, but truth needs no explanation or proof. God is good. I’m not bitter. I’m better, I’m not a cobra. I’m not designed to carry poison. Love conquers all, and I think the vintage song puts things into proper perspective.”

The semi-retired GB told Newsday the lure of the stage and the thrill of entertaining his fans got the better of him and with the help from producers Carlysle and Linda Chan, he headed straight for Leston Paul’s Sunset Studios in Mt Lambert to record his first CD single in 12 years, a track entitled Vintage.

“It’s calypso on at least three levels. Primarily the song addresses a phobia which seems to exist in our society regarding persons over a certain age. We are a society that has little problem destroying heritage sites and we often treat our human treasures with similar disregard. Secondly, the song is designed to dispel a popular perception that I can only write ‘crown songs’ of the Dimanche Gras variety. I said to Leston while we were recording, that even people who don’t like me must dance when they hear the song.

“Thirdly, on a more personal level, the song deals with a ridiculous drug rumour which gained tremendous circulation over the last 15 or more years…the work of a lunatic admirer who worked in community relations and attended every calypso show in the country, spewing her garbage. Poor me,” he concluded with a chuckle.

So is GB in a calypso tent this year?

“Not likely,” came the prompt answer. “I got going kinda late. The record has only just been released this week.

“However, I wouldn’t mind sticking my face in the bullpen auditions for the semi-finals, and try to make it at least to Skinner Park and have some fun.”

Needless to say, the former Scouting for Talent host will have other singers vying for spots in Skinner Park, Dimanche Gras and elsewhere with his 2018 offerings, among them Bodyguard, Garth St Clair, Sugar Aloes, Stacy Sobers, Malaika Ballantyne and juniors Jerrisha Regis and Adrian Adams of Tobago.

Reflecting on the state of the artform, GB became somewhat morose.

“I planned to do a song this season entitled Tail-Chasing Puppy but my love for calypso got in the way. This piece of work chronicles many of the ills facing calypso, most of which seem to be escaping the notice of those in authority. The sparse attendance at most tents so far this year, with some threatening to close prematurely, is a sad commentary on the state of things. There are other crucial issues, like the fact that calypso has an ageing, dying audience, affected by crime, recession etc, and anything that only caters to this particular demographic, will die along with it.”

Noting a recent attempt to rebrand and market two calypso shows, he said the initiative is commendable and forward-looking.

“Without wanting to throw cold water on this drive, however, I’m just concerned that the same persons in the vanguard of this thrust may turn out to be the ones competing for the very spoils that they are responsible for managing. Calypso needs independent marketing experts who are not interested in competition.” GB’s classics include Calypso Rising, the Christmas song Ribbons, sung by Marilyn Williams, David Rudder’s The Future Belongs to Me, Rooplal Girdharie’s Tassaman, Aaron Duncan’s Grammy Award and Mystic Prowler’s Beneath the Surface. And, he continues to leave an indelible mark on the cultural landscape.

In his debut year as a performer in 1986, he made it to Dimanche Gras as a reserve, singing Big Country Attitude. That same year, he launched the calypso careers of both Denyse Plummer (with Len “Boogsie” Sharpe co-compositions) This Feeling Nice and Pan Rising, and Rikki Jai (Samraj Jaimungal) with the crossover hit Sumintra.

A few short years later he would again link with Rikki Jai, giving him two more gems, Good Father and Identity, with which the artiste went on to win the San Fernando Monarch, the Unattached Monarch, the Young King Title, and placed sixth at the Dimanche Gras finals, all in the same year.

But while continuing to win Best Political Commentary with the likes of Duane O’Connor (Political Nursery Rhymes) and two San Fernando Monarchs with his daughter Malaika, National Calypso Queen titles with Joanne Foster and Twiggy, two Junior Monarchs with Aaron Duncan, GB himself has not graced a calypso stage since 2006, when he sang The Cross I Bear.

During his years offstage, GB’s prolific pen has not been dry. In that interim, he composed songs that won five of the last ten national calypso monarchs in Antigua with Edimelo, Panman and Queen Thalia.

Add one Grenada and one US Virgin Island Monarch title, and a clientele that spans St Maarten, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla and a clear picture emerges as to the scope and quality of his contributions.

A University of The West Indies (UWI), Mona campus-trained mass-communications professional, he has also led calypso writing and judging workshops on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and TUCO (Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation) both at home and across the Caribbean.