Machel Montano gets keys to San Fernando, city where it all began

IT was a night of nostalgia for Machel Montano as he reminisced about his days in San Fernando, which graciously offered him the keys to that city on December 10.

Skinner Park, where he made his professional debut at a calypsonian in 1986, was specially chosen for the new mayor, Robert Parris, to present him with the keys to the city. This fact not lost on Montano, as he acknowledged the decision to honour him with the coveted keys was not coincidental.

He made it known that long before he became a star entertainer, San Fernando embraced him, and he returned the love.

“I have special memories of San Fernando,” he said as he expressed humility and gratitude for the gesture. He considers it not merely symbolic, but an honour to be held up as an example for others who may emulate him in trying to excel.

In a ten-minute response, Montano spoke of his love for the city, which he credited with some impressive firsts. He promised the politicians present he would consider the city as the location for the proposed Machel Montano School for the Arts.

It is this city which gave him the opportunity to hone his skills, a platform to make his professional debut and exposed him to bullies before being rescued by a peer, which led to a lifelong friendship, and a place which helped him rediscover the Road March magic when he thought he had lost it.

Montano reminisced in song about his 43-year journey from Carenage to La Romaine, Siparia to St Augustine, Toco and Woodbrook, where he now lives.

“I probably moved here (La Romaine) in 1980, and I really had some enjoyable years living at the end of Douglin Street and going into the ocean.”

Going further down memory lane, he remembered, “My first professional picture was taken at a studio on Cipero Street near Chuck Wagon (now defunct).

“I had a little plastic microphone, and I wanted to be a superstar. They put me against a background, and I felt like the world was exploding.”

With that memory etched in his psyche, Montano recalled his early Panasonic Express years performances in Gulf City car park and in Pleasantville, and the warmth of fans even then.

“My first ever Skinner Park experience was in 1986 with Too Young to Soca, and I came first that night in Skinner Park.

“Thank you, Skinner Park, I did not get no toilet paper. They never give me toilet paper in Skinner Park,” he said recalling the acid test other artistes endured on that sacred ground.

The late Denyse Plummer was a famous example of a target of the Skinner Park audience, which greeted her debut at the Calypso Monarch semifinals with placards, toilet paper, waste turned into missiles and aimed at her, as well as verbal assaults.

While he was spared the wrath of the Skinner Park invigilators, Montano's peers at Presentation College showed no such mercy.

He recalled being bullied, thrown in the dustbin, laughed at, and being rescued by lifelong friend Faris Al-Rawi, who was also present at the ceremony.

“It was a cautious entry, because I was a young, famous calypsonian and you know when you are entering with these teenage boys, they like to give you some trouble. So I was a little bit troubled in the beginning.

“But there was this young man who was a prefect. He was very militant, always standing straight, walking straight and not smiling with anybody and he just looking like a soldier.

“When they were giving me trouble, this one young man would always come and save me,” he said of Al-Rawi, now an MP for the city and Local Government Minister.

In his teenage years, Montano recalled meeting Kenny Phillips, music producer and owner of WACK Radio, in Palmiste and making his first foray into a new genre.

“That is where I started my soca parang career, and I think it ended there too,” he joked.

In all seriousness, however, that collaboration with the original parang queen, the late Daisy Voisin, turned out to be her very last recording.

“I don’t think it would ever happen anywhere else in the world again. That song was recorded in San Fernando.”

Montano said he wanted to share these significant moments because it was in San Fernando, at the famous Block 5 parties at Palmiste, that he honed his skills.

This opened doors to the then very popular all-inclusive Cancer (Society) Fete to raise funds for treatment of the illness. It attracted the likes of presidents and former prime ministers, including Basdeo Panday and the late Patrick Manning (both also Presentation College alumni).

Montano shared a little-known secret about his dry spell after his Big Truck Road March victory and rediscovering the magic in San Fernando.

“After the Big Truck, we went a little bust and we could not find it back. We found it eventually in a young producer who lives in San Fernando by the name of Junior 'Ibo' Joseph.”

That introduction led him to spend many nights at the studio, in Embacadere.

“I slept there many a night, loved by the people of that community, and I found Band of the Year Road March, Jumbie Road March and Patrice Roberts and Kernal Roberts Road March.

“So there is always something special happening in San Fernando.

“Today is a special moment. San Fernando has a special place in my heart. I am grateful.”

Montano, who has bowed out of the 2024 Carnival season to concentrate on his masters in Carnival studies, said he hopes the gesture inspires others to aspire to his level.

He hopes his pursuit of academic excellence will set an example for possible emerging Machel Montanos.

“Music is not seen as academia, but if you take it seriously enough, as I have done, you can reach very far, and you will be able to stand on the stage – just like me.”