NOT too long ago, I raised the question with the wife of a young Guyanese about a play her husband wanted to write before they met. She’s a talented young playwright herself. To my surprise, it was the first time she was hearing of it. He had come to me to chat about the ‘setting’ of the play; he wanted to locate the events in the late 70s with a GDF officer living on the East Coast and fringes of the politics of the day, PNC, WPA, PPP on the periphery.
He wanted sets and an atmosphere that captured those times. Though this was not a hundred years ago, it might well have been.
We proceeded to talk about the 70s without minibuses; with popular string bands: Mischievous Guys, Yoruba Singers, and Sound Dimension etc; life without TV but with Radio Demerara, Voice of America and Thursday night oldies; and of second-hand book stalls in Bourda and La Penitence Markets.
The trend of our conversation made me understand why his wife knew nothing about this. Where was he going to find the material to bring this play to life? So he obviously dismissed it from his mind.
Last Wednesday (October 19), we laid Lord Canary to rest, and with him serious expertise. In 1995, I self-published a magazine named Folk & Culture; it was a disaster from an economic standpoint, because I had published it in Trinidad and didn’t realise that quotations for such ventures throughout the Caribbean were done in $US.

MEETING CANARY
I’d had to do an article on Sam Chase, a showman from the 30s and 40s I had heard older folk talk about over and over. I’d had cause to visit Malcolm Corrica, better known as ‘The Mighty Canary’, to tap his memory on Sam Chase.
This is what he told me: “I got married in February; I heard that Sam Chase was putting on a show. By that time, I had grown in confidence as a singer, and I really wanted to appear in a big show.
“So I found Sam Chase and introduced myself. I told him that I would like to be in his show. He looked at me and asked, ‘You could sing?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And then he told me to come to rehearsal the Sunday morning for the show Sunday afternoon.”
Canary concluded the interview by naming the song he had sung. “My calypso was about Thelma Haynes, a Guyanese girl who had been murdered in Trinidad.” Thanks to Sam Chase, it was the song that would launch his career as a calypsonian.
I remembered when Pamela Maynard died, I went to Matt Baptiste to eagerly enquire if she had in her library a certain record featuring ‘The Odettes’. This was the name of the group that Pamela and her mom, Mavis Sybil Garner-Maynard, had formed.
I’d known this record as a child, but had had to call a relative, Norman Bourne, to get a number for Pamela’s sister, Georgia, who confirmed to me that it was not just my imagination; that her mother and sister did sing the song in question. But unfortunately, because of some traumatic event in the family, it got lost along with all the other memorabilia. The record was a ‘45 rpm’; it had a green label. Matts remembered it, but she didn’t have it.
This country will not remain outside of world trends on the entertainment and cultural fronts forever, and the sources that can paint the scenery of past periods are leaving us with their knowledge.
This is history as important as the history of political parties or the history of the trade unions.
Breaking the taboo against recording for posterity’s sake the arts as it has evolved, in defiance of the prejudices of those days, requires action today.

LOST OPPORTUNITY
The ‘Jubilee’ planners have missed a significant opportunity to create an archive, listing, by period, the names of the top pathfinders of the past 50 years, so that young minds can be pointed in the direction of a rich creative heritage.
I can well recall my bewilderment when I could not provide some information to a young Arts columnist for the Chronicle’s ‘Jubilee’ edition; she had an interest in Basil Hinds. I did have some newspaper clippings on the subject, but I had no idea where they were in my mini-labyrinth. And though all my sources had but vague memories of the late Jazz/Art enthusiast, none had what a specific biography needed.
Some years ago, I’d approached Sean Bhola when he was attached, for what turned out to be a short period, to the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport [I still lament the fact that ‘Culture’ cannot have its own little cottage; had this been the case, much more would have been done].
I was hoping that Sean would have been able to persuade the then minister, Dr Frank Anthony, to allow him to start video interviewing aged cultural personalities. I’m not sure what happened, but Sean was out of that attachment much too soon, and the idea was aborted.
With all the video cameras and equipment donated to the Guyana Government over the last three decades, I presumed that only reliable expertise would be needed. The anxiety over the timeline I’m referring to is quite recent, but its importance is relevant to the present and the future, with respect to having clarity in defining the human development in the arts.
There is no doubt in my mind that the arts have become a major ingredient and economic force for many nations. The simple recording of these talents in the framework of the times in which they existed would be an asset to our national self.
The ‘Jubilee’ event would be incomplete without a recorded pageant of fifty years of creative expression. Camo Williams is still with us; so, too, are Marc Matthews and Ken Corsbie. However we look at it, this is ‘All Ah WE TING’.