“Calypso Dreams” is like a family album of life’s work, from Trinidad and Tobago’s world of star calypsonians, chronicled in a 90min award winning documentary that was 10yrs in the making.

Location: Laventille, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad West Indies.

Opening Sequence: Camera pans towards Calypsonian the Mighty Terror (Fitzgerald Henry), sitting on his porch, high on the hill, with the city of Port of-Spain’s view in the background, singing the chorus of the melody of "Steel Band Jamboree.”

The opening scene of “Calypso Dreams” is arguably the most important; for it sets the tone for all that is to follow and creates the proper atmosphere. It begins with the theme of Calypso, and draws the audience into the interplay that follows. “Calypso Dreams” introduces the characters, their contemporaries and their situation. It sets the tone, evokes the desire of our Trinidad music, and foreshadows much of what is to come, and what has been... the glory days of Calypso.

“It is a living vibration rooted deep within my Caribbean belly. Lyrics to make a politician cringe or turn a woman’s body into jelly. It is a sweet soca music, you could never refuse it. It makes you shake like a shango. And why de hell you shaking, you don’t know. Calypso Music.” - David Rudder

Photos By Nadine R.

“Calypso Dreams”, captures dynamic acoustic performances by a host of legendary calypso performers of now and yesteryear, by their sobriquets (stage names) and their birth names, who have lived and are living, ate and are eating, slept and are still sleeping daily, for song. All have contributed and are still contributing immensely to the world of Calypso and Calypso music. The DVD’s launch appropriately paid honour to the late great, profound lyricist and majestic performer, Calypso icon the Mighty Duke (Kelvin Pope), who recently left us at the beginning of Carnival 2k9 (whose funeral I attended, which seemed more an all-inclusive than the norm). This Pope who became a Duke and was crowned a King, gave us “Thunder” whole night and “Pan in Yuh Rookungutungkung” and also helped preserve his own legacy with his “What is Calypso”, a calypso classic for all time, and for the new calypsonians to know and to carry forward.

“Calypso Dreams.” Executive produced by Eddy Grant and produced by Alvin Daniell, Geoffrey Dunn, Lord Superior (Andrew Marcano), Mark Schwartz, Michael Horne and Eric Thiermann. Commentary by David Rudder, Brother Resistance, Chalkdust and Harry Belafonte, who’s featured with a special appearance with Nat King Cole singing Lord Melody’s (Fitzroy Alexander) ”Mama look a Boo Boo there” released in 1978., Also featured is Lord Invader’s (Rupert Grant) “Rum & Coca Cola” that The Andrew Sisters made a huge hit with, in 1945.

Setting: We are introduced to Trinidad’s Rum Shop society’s Good Times Pub at full capacity, with friends and a fraternity of Calypsonians, as the late Lord Blakie (Carlton Joseph) sings about his adventures in a Carnival steel band clash of 1950 with then Invaders and Tokyo. ... The only clash, of our steel titans these days, is in the prelims, semis and finals of Panorama, where their only ammunition is sweet Calypso music aimed, at this sweet Carnival paradise.

'Calypsonians sing from Politics to Sport to Science to Education to whatever...it is recorded in Calypso.' - Lord Relator (Willard Harris) / 'It is a poor man’s newspaper.' - The people’s spokesman Brigo (Samuel Abraham) / 'A kaisonian is the old African story teller, who goes from village to village, spreading the word and keeping the good works and deeds of our heroes alive.' - Black Stalin (Dr Leroy Calliste) / 'A good Calypso is timely and timeless.' - Mighty Chalkdust (Dr. Hollis Liverpool) / 'It’s a Caribbean Music, not ours to own, but to be shared with the world.' - Sugar Aloes (Michael Anthony Osuna) / 'A Calypsonian is a concerned villager who’d like to see his village improve.' - The Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco) / 'I was born a Calypsonian but, Calypsonians doh be good looking people.' - Mighty Power (Sonny Francois) / 'The real roots, the beginnings of the composition of Calypso in Trinidad, was the cry of slaves in their own tongue, so that the master would not understand. It was out of a struggle.' - Brother Valentino (Emrold Phillip) / 'Through the experience of plantation slavery, it was always that art form to express that political angle as relating to life.' - Brother Resistance (Lutalo Masimba - General Secretary of Trinbago Unified Calypsonians’ Organisation (TUCO).

Carnival is the true celebration of Emancipation from plantation slavery, for the enslaved African population. The calypsonian provides music for the carnival revellers and I assure you, there is no Carnival without Calypso. But over the last 40yrs Calypso has inspired remarkable changes in local music, including Soca, Chutney, Pichakaree, Rapso and Ragga Soca, each of which has found its own audience and believers, who in sum, now outnumber, by many factors, those committed to the ideals of traditional Calypso...

I’ve met some of these traditional greats, between Canada and Trinidad, who are here now and those who have now gone on to sing in that great big Kaiso tent in the sky, from The Roaring Lion (Raphael de Leon a.k.a.Hubert Raphael Charles) to Chalkdust, the Mighty Sparrow to Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), Brigo to Lord Superior, Gypsy (Winston Peters-Opposition MP) to Luta (Morel Peters), Barbados‘s Gaby to Guyana’s Eddy Grant, Shadow (Winston Bailey) to Black Stalin, Explainer (Winston Henry) to Superblue (Austin Lyons), Sugar Aloes to Cro Cro (Weston Rawlins), Crazy (Edwin Ayong) to David Rudder and Calypso Rose (Rose McArthur Lewis) to Denyse Plummer, just to name a few. On Tuesday Jan 27th 2009 at 5:30pm, our TriniJungleJuice.com/TJJtv’s coverage of the “Calypso Dreams” launch, in the audio room of NALIS (National Library and Information System Authority of Trinidad and Tobago), gave me new fellowship with Lord Relator, Brother Valentino, Mudada (Allan Fortune), Conqueror (Leroy Paul), Calypsonian Patriot and his dad Trinidad Rio (Daniel Brown), Regeneration Now (Clifton Lewis), Funny (Donrick Williamson), Bomber (Clifton Ryan), Striker (Percy Oblington), Composer (Fred Mitchel) and Poser (Sylvester Lockhart). Even our Mr. Jungle Juice International, Dre, seemed genuinely impressed when he came out of the screening (I think the Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole collaboration hit him for 6). Veteran legends that are still here need to keep composing and writing and keeping ahead of the game in order to restore the art form to its former grandeur. And for those who remember a Calypso song after some 30yrs from any these greats, certainly tells you the quality of the song that allows our heroes never to abandon us, calypso lovers, fully, by leaving beautiful and fond memories.

But they say the greatest Calypsonian ever and for all times, who seemed to have touched very single Calypso artist, and seems unanimous in choice with the Calypso fraternity here on the “Calypso Dreams” DVD, was a man with a plan. He understood the formula of each band, was a genius was a legend, and a grandmaster of melodies. He was a maestro who even won a Road March with a love song. This ultimate, socially conscious, almost perfect performer was Lord Kitchener. I personally know that his direct talented bloodline, his son, the Kernal Roberts is a very sweet, maestro in the making, proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from that Robert’s family tree.

“Calypso is an editorial in song of the life that we undergo. It has a rhythm onto itself alone. It has a native beat all our very own. It is a way of life, a way of love from centuries ago. Our folk heart-art must be calypso.” - The Mighty Duke

And if you choose to follow your own “Calypso Dreams” because your heart is telling you to, then you should go for it! Because everything that we see around us were dreams in itself, that were made into a reality. This “Calypso Dreams” DVD is one that I highly recommend you look at, a few times, more than once. Geoffrey Dunn, the “Calypso Dreams” director and producer is correct when he says, ”This film is a critical document of Trinidad and Tobago’s cultural history”. I concur. Calypso is our heritage. And as long as there are “Calypso Dreams”, Carnival will never be over...

- Nadine