Patriot with a passion for music

GARY CARDINEZ

Spoken word artiste Shakela is the lone female to appear in the upcoming concert series Live and Direct in White. The third edition of the concert will come off on October 5 at Kaiso Blues Cafe on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.

Gary Cordner the man behind the series of concerts in which he is the headliner will bring some of his friends together to perform with him on the night.

Along with the band Red White and Black, former Soca Monarch and Road March champion SuperBlue, the incomparable Johnny King, Blackie and Mini Priest will also perform.

The former coast guardsman Cordner popped into the national limelight in December 1993 when he rocked the country with Police Looking For King Bad, a song about Aldwin King, a then wanted badman from Laventille.

Cordner’s music changed when he did a tour of duty in Haiti in 1994, when the Hatian army seized power from its first democratically-elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Cordner was a member of a 600-strong multi-national force sent to Haiti to restore order.

He saw that tour as punishment for the song he did the year before but it turned out to be a blessing. Cordner said he saw suffering first-hand and made a conscious decision to use the experience for a good.

On his return to Trinidad his music changed to a Caribbean French/African beat with a passion like never before. This passion for calypso and music led Cordner to produce songs like Shango, Dance, Love You Tonight, Hold on an Wine, Seduction, Red White and Black and a Tribute to Black Stalin.

Cordner says he wants this edition of Live and Direct in White to surpass the first two and he is working very hard to make sure his fans get a concert of a lifetime.