Archibald Webb’s love affair with steel pan music

MORE than 66 years after Archibald Samuel Allan Webb started training people to play the steel pan, he is still very much involved in the music.

Born on January 1, 1932, 86-year-old Webb told the Pepperpot Magazine that he started training people to play the steel pan from the year 1952 and for the last 25 years, he has been concentrating his efforts to train persons within the church to play the instrument. “I moved from church to church, including the Salvation Army, training mostly young people to play the steel pan and I love what I do,” he said.

VERGE OF SUICIDE
Webb, who was an electrical engineer by profession, said he worked at the University of Guyana for the last 10 years – responsible for electrical works there; he also worked at the City Engineer’s department, as well as at William Fogarty’s for maintenance.

During that time, he noted that he fell in love with a “beautiful lady” who eventually broke his heart; a heartbreak that left him feeling so wronged, he admitted to being on the brink of committing suicide, having turned the thought over and over in his mind.

“Then one day as I was walking through DaSilva Street, Newtown Kitty, I heard the sound of sweet steel pan music coming from a yard. I did not hesitate to stop and eventually made friends with the gentleman who was training the young people. His name was Winston,” he said.

“We started exchanging views and I offered to start to help him instruct the folks. He asked me if I know steel pan and I told him no, but explained to him that because of my experience taking part and understanding the church choirs over the years I know that it would not be difficult. The rest is history because he allowed me to be a part of the team and I never failed him. In fact, that was the opening for me until today.”

MUSIC IS HEAVENLY
According to Webb, music enriches the brain and helps people to retain. Further, he said, music is a gift from God and believes that music came straight from heaven. “It is a very powerful instrument,” he offered.

Therefore, he told this newspaper, that it was through music he found a way to help him hold on – to keep him going in the difficult times.

Webb expressed happiness in having the ability not only to teach the steelpan but also to be able to transform the lives of many young men. “I have taught many who believed they were lost – whose parents also felt that there was no hope for them: drug addicts; criminals; people who are depressed and many others,” he pointed out.

He emphasised that steel pan changes people; their brain becomes quick – very quick; it can even bring out the aggressor in people, where they learn to fight – not physically, but for the things in life; it also keeps a person physically fit, he assured.

One of the founders of the Burrowes School of Art (1958), Webb, a true an artist, has being involved in painting, poetry, drama, singing, playing the flute, doing art and craft. He was also engaged in the Centipede Masquerade Band and danced on many occasions for them. “I got some good licks for this but it did not stop me,” he said.

MOTHER’S LETTER
“I had a young man’s mother who wrote me and told me that I am wasting my time with her son because he is doomed for prison. She asked me: ‘Why are you wasting your time with him?’ I wrote back and said to her, ‘You will live to see this child make a success of his life,” he said, adding that the young man could not be too bad for him because he understood the child. He reported that the young man was correct and the mother was pleasantly surprised.

He added that the ‘Breakthrough band’ that he managed some years ago had some similar challenges, where some of the young men were sometimes difficult to manage. “I persevered,” he stated, adding that in the end, he managed to turn them around by taking some of the seemingly worse members to give responsibilities in the band, such as being in-charge, becoming the treasurer, secretary and the like. This, he posited ,was the turning point for them as the results were all good.

He said too that in the world of sports, men like Andrew Murray, who became an outstanding boxer; as well as the late Andrew ‘ Six-Head’ Lewis, were both once members of his steel pan.

TRANSCEND TO ANOTHER WORLD
“When I begin to direct a show – instruct the players in music with the steel pan, I am not there anymore. I am captivated – I would cry and all when I am getting the music out; when the words are expressed in the playing of the steel pan it really makes me cry,” Webb said, visibly emotional.

He stated that it is not only the pan (steel pan); it depends on who is teaching; it must be applied to your life – the melody, rhythm; harmony – your life has the same composition; I must be able to bring out of you – I believe you have to want it,” he mused.

Webb stated that pan, in a way, saved his life and helped him to turn away from an undesirable life. Moreover, seeing the benefit of steel pan in the lives of the young people he teaches, he has an even deeper appreciation and love for it.