Corie Sheppard Podcast
The Corie Sheppard Podcast
A trusted space for honest, Caribbean-rooted conversations that connect generations, challenge norms, and celebrate culture through real stories and perspectives.
Hosted by Corie Sheppard-Babb, the podcast explores the lives, journeys, and ideas of the Caribbean’s most compelling voices—artists, entrepreneurs, cultural leaders, changemakers, and everyday people with powerful stories. Each episode goes beyond headlines and hype to uncover the values, history, humour, struggle, and brilliance that shape who we are.
Whether it’s music, business, creativity, identity, advocacy, or community, this podcast holds space for the kind of dialogue that inspires reflection, empowers expression, and preserves our legacy. It’s culture in conversation—unfiltered, intergenerational, and deeply Caribbean.
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Corie Sheppard Podcast
Pelham Goddard: From Panyard To Platinum Groove
Pelham Goddard — legendary arranger, composer, and bandleader — sits down with Corie Sheppard-Babb for a deep dive into five decades of Trinidad and Tobago’s musical evolution. From his early days in St. James panyards to arranging for Charlie’s Roots, David Rudder, and SuperBlue, Pelham shares untold stories behind timeless anthems like “Sugar Bum Bum,” “Woman on the Bass,” “Soca Baptist,” and “Engine Room.”
He breaks down the art of live band recording — when “one take” meant the whole band — and explains how reading music revolutionised the steelpan. Pelham also contrasts the rich compositions of the past with today’s “fast food” approach to production, reminding us why rhythm, melody, and harmony must all work together.
This episode is a rare masterclass in Caribbean music history, full of cultural insight, philosophy, and firsthand accounts of working alongside icons like Lord Kitchener, Clive Bradley, and Art De Coteau.
🎧 Listen now to discover how the sound of soca was built — one groove at a time.
👉 Click the link in my bio for the full episode.
#coriesheppardpodcast #PelhamGoddard #CharliesRoots #DavidRudder #SuperBlue #CalypsoMusic #SocaHistory #Steelpan #TrinidadAndTobago #CaribbeanCulture
My name is Corey Shepard and I'm here under instructions from my mother who said to refer to the man as the right honorable Dr. Pelam Goddard. This is the man who I would like to call honorable. I'm okay. I'm okay. You good? And good, yeah.
Pelham:We're lucky to catch you in the country. You came back for the oil and music? Yeah, I came back for oil and music. I did that. I came back on the 4th of August. I went to the Panyard for two weeks, three weeks, teaching them nine songs. Yeah. Yeah. And um then we had um rehearsal, right? For the thing, and then because the show, because it gave Sunday. How it was? Everything was good? Everything was good. It was just uh, well, they moved it from one venue and the cricket cricket gun in Cuba. And when the rain fell, the rain beat it like a bat. I hear people talk about it. So it was muddy, you know, that for the dresser Saturday. Oh, right. And then the next day they put board and think maybe we could walk on and go on siege and stuff like that. But um people came out because they already had a ticket.
Corie:People came out, everything I saw, people had a great time. People talk about the mud.
Pelham:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Corie:But they said the music, the performances were excellent.
Pelham:What what we're looking at is that um the young people who are doing things now because it's is um to say, then of Tuse's son or grandson is who put on that show. I see. Right? And they have a different way of planning things now. Right. You know what I mean? So it was big, three big stages. It had um um um supernovas on the side. Then we was on the main stage with Roder, and some of them the skiffle. Right, on the next side. Three big stages, song system, nice, he lighting with good, everything was good.
Corie:Yeah, well, that's good, that's good. It's glad glad to have you back. You could we could we could catch you and hold you down here for how much we have, David? About five hours we have him for? Five. We could try to get that in two, we could try to get that in two. Shrink it, shrink it. As you as you bring up youths, right? Before we start, you would tell us more about youths in the pan yard now. Like Exodus has a whole pan school, you say?
Pelham:Yeah, so they have a pan school going on now for about more than nine years because we had extra cubs, extra cubs you call it. Right, and um they teach music, they teach all the pants, different people play ten apartheid, um second pants, and we do it at age um according to your age group. I see. You know, if you have like five to nine, then eleven to fifteen, then you know.
Corie:Yeah, so you group it out university style, then as it can be. Right, yeah, they group it out.
Pelham:So that happened that happened every Saturday. Oh, that's nice in school in the school period now. Yeah, yeah. When they're on holidays, well, we take your holidays too.
Corie:Oh, that's that's nice, that's nice. So when school opens back, it's back to school, right?
Pelham:Next week, so next week they start back in the pan the other again.
Corie:You know what's nice about that? Like when you watch sports teams abroad, right? They have academy, so even though you watch it, you might watch in Manchester, that might be the worst example now. But watching Man United, big team out there, but they have youths coming up all the time. Who could think so? Exodus and good hands with the youths, you know.
Pelham:Yeah, well, uh uh it has a lot of that, not only exodus, it has a lot of that happening with most of the big C bands. They have the youth, and I I was good to see um for um Carnival the school panorama. Right. You see, they had a putting categories now under 21, under this, and you know. So that's good. Yeah, and we our matter of fact, our whole red-on section of it. Our drummer was 11 years when he started playing with bar Billy Ban. Now he's arranging. Oh, nice. He now arranging for um East Trinity East.
Corie:I see.
Pelham:He's arranging for Trinity East, you know. And you know about 15 years old or 16 years old.
Corie:That is a nice sign in the culture. Pan is one of them places where you see, and I like to see that with youths. You know, people complain about youths a lot, huh? But to see them come through their system is a good thing.
Pelham:I find I find the youths in our country, you see them playing football, you see them playing cricket, you see them playing pan, you see them in all kinds of different capacity. So you want to know now who's you really bad ones at the anything.
Corie:Yeah, it's it's a mystery to all of us. It's a mystery. But they go change it because so much of them are so constructive that if you give it time, the the mutes and them will change it. Yeah. But one of the things you said that changed for you too was um now you go in any pan yard, but a lot of a lot of panists who read in while they're playing, yeah?
Pelham:Yeah. Yeah, because it it come out, it stems out of that. We will get we'll produce um readers because a lot of um our panists and musicians too. They figure, well, if they have the talent, they don't have to read music, you know. So once you're reading, it makes it up faster. For us uh producers or arrangers. You know, you just present them with the music and you come here one, two, three, four, and they start to play. Right, right. You know, that's how I I I started to play with Adi Koto and Bradley and and going to the studio, and they're not coming to tell you after this line here, when you artists sing so and so, you'll play this, you'll play that. Everything is written. Yeah. So they're coming to tell you that what they play down. They they write it on the paper.
Corie:But remember you're telling me your first experience in a panyard wasn't that when you go with scores and things, many.
Pelham:But I went in salif, I went in salif with music scores and things, and they didn't really appreciate that kind of thing because they find well um paniard was panyard vibes. Yeah, you know. So you get your you look up in the sky and and would one of the stars bring a part for you and they played. What year is it so? That was 1996 and 1986.
Corie:86, okay, you got it.
Pelham:And 1986, I had my own tune already. I had the hammer, the hammer in my composition. I see, I see. But they didn't want, they didn't want arranger bringing their own tune in the band.
Corie:No, no, so in those early days, they seen a separation between the man who arranged for music production for singing for radio and records and them things from the pan yard. All he wasn't welcome there that time.
Pelham:I didn't really. And I was done having 1986. I done win rose, super blue, all of that. It would done respect. And then have David Roder come out win the triple crown, all of that. Not your first triple crown either. So when I in Palifiard, it has a side, uh, a sign outside, bad talking man. So I see now. Let them why you do that. So it's from the end of the next to us. No, no, after that, yeah, yeah. After that, in 1989, I went back to that.
Corie:And that's why. Yeah. All right. Well, let me go back to some of them days where you're talking about the arts of the cuts or now because it's a name sometimes that we talk about. I wonder how much youths now might know the name, right? When you going into art studio, I hear you say something about him where he wasn't just writing music or writing scores. You say he used to make it a point to write it neat, no scratch off, no mistake.
Pelham:No mistake. Yeah. And he used to write it just so he, you know, like you know his um decoto, you know is his father? No. I mean, I know his um Ronnie Macintosh. That Ronnie Macintosh father, yeah.
Corie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
Pelham:Waiting for Ronnie to come here. So he used to be old talking. He doesn't people are meeting, and it's writing music at the same time, you know. So when you go in the studio with him, you know, he put on the music, and that I come in from a time when it had um the whole band playing in the studio. It's like in here, the whole band was set up in here. I will set up the piano and the guitar in my side, the bass on this side, then they have a little boot for the congers and the thing, then they have a little boot for the drums, then the hornman will sit on um sit on, yes, yeah, with Mike and thing on the in a little booty, and he said he conked you one, two, three, four, and we started playing. Everybody read it. And then we said when we conk one, two bum bum bad um pam pam ba dum pam. One thick. One tick, whole band. One take, the whole band. Yeah, big difference. One, two, three, four. One tick. La la.
Corie:Yeah, whole ticket.
Pelham:Now a baseman coming the Wednesday. I was home and a girl called. Well, Bradley called me. Bradley said they want a keyboard man to go to St. Thomas. Right. But they asked Bradley and he couldn't go because Bradley is an operator advertising agency too. Really? Yeah, Bradley's a maximum, he's an artist, he did this and that. It's Clive Bradley, yes. Yeah, right. So creative advertising was there. Okay. So he tells me, go by Chung San restaurant to the rehearsing and talk to Adi Koto. Where is restaurant? Chung San on on Charlotte Street. Okay. Right opposite Renegades. Okay, okay, okay. So you say, um, I don't go on. You say, you can record good? I say, yeah, man. So he said, alright, sit on with it. So the rehousing a band. Uh, the band Houston, with um a guy named Belfast arranged for um uh yeah, he be he arranged a tune. But the band going over and over and over and over and over and over. Then I go to come take it, he gonna look at the music. He said, Just see the band, you bar over value? Put it you. He called me. I said, Oh god, is this how the table? What kind of age you is at this point? That was in 1962. So 72. Um, I was about 26, 25, 26, going on 26. Okay, so yeah, you're going in the fire, you go into the best. Yeah, I won't difficult things. Anyhow, and here now, who playing with Ali Koto? Featural Coleman playing guitar, Adi Koto playing bass, I playing the piano, um, block bonapart, playing um saxophone. So we have our stars of this kind of side. Yeah, the equity the first to the first door to play trombone, a friend and poor, you take them out of the orphanage and bring them there, two little guys. Uh-huh. And it was kind of um it was kind of frightening. Yeah, one time I reached me at the cotona. And then you meet him for the time. Yeah, no, I mean it's the guy and thing now. You meet the only guy. He doesn't call the name of the singer was Callisto Princess at the time recording. So I said, I'm gonna go on and play. Well, alright, go and St. Thomas for one one week. Yeah, one week on the other. Traveling. They say, Man, go and travel one time, and they start. Yeah, but we didn't. So when after I came back from there now, they're going and do Reno Armour album. Record Reno Armour album in 72, late 72, first if they had a release in 73.
David:Right.
Pelham:So we know Reno 73. So they called me in the studio and I go on. The first tune, Carnival in 73, and I playing. The music gets so sweet, man. I close my eye and I'm playing, man. Piano going. I watch any shit. I make a mistake in the last verse. Now long time in the whole band playing, and you make a mistake in a last verse, you mean that the band will have to go over. Yeah, it's no cut and paste on them days. Right? Uh-huh. But everybody cuts, man. What's your music? Yeah, no, what's your music and after that?
Corie:No mistake again. I see. So 72, when you tore them, that would have been when Mass ran out. Mass and maybe 72. Right. Then they postponed can ever. I understand. I understand. So by April Benchin Thomas. Nice. So by the time you go into that space, you're reading and you accomplish. By here, you say earliest days of music. At that time?
Pelham:That time it only takes I I do not so fast. I can't even remember right now when I wasn't reading music. Really?
Corie:Wow. I wish I could say that one day. But you say earliest days of music, or we get interested in music is Balma who say at Clarence Street.
Pelham:Boy, all kinds of things, yes. Because if you really play TASSA, the among the rhythms that have been tasser, people take taster for uh for granted that you know it's just an Indian thing and it just and this and that and that. But when you play in a tasser, the among the spontaneously kind of rhythms that you're going to play and rolling and all that kind of thing, you know, it's because you alone at one time. So when you hear music that had the same kind of phrasing, sometimes it you get to the phrase, and you know. Yeah. And and with the time of the music, too, it comes so natural now because when you watch music on a sheet, by the time you watch it, you know what phrase it is already. You don't have to practice nothing. Right. You know. So Balad is you beating any air and thing, or you just I was a top class of man at that age. At at a at I would say about 11 years old. Cutting on everything you put in cutting, cutting, I was a cutter. No, it's news to me. My mother, uh I didn't have cloud and she's man, the boy rolling. So that's my mother. I'd take up the drum and go back home. She won't be in that.
Corie:But that's the thing with any little boy grew up in St. Little Boy or girl who grew up in St. James, know about that.
Pelham:Balma is Balmayard, everybody in Sin in Overstreet used to take part in USA. Because they used to make um the all the materials and things to do with choreal and batasta and all that kind of thing. They used to make all of that. And we've done a lot of art in there too. Yeah, I suppose it's not just the drums. But apart from that, it had Stanish by the corner, Steelban, Triple E, two corners away. Right. It had Crossfire, two streets away, Chinfurness, a street away from Christ. Then it have you could hear Stanley from them practicing when the breeze blows in Chantal Street coming through, you know. So the the whole environment. You have no choice than to get into music. Then then then when I started to play piano too, um when they have um concerts, community concerts in schools, in the Agnes schools, I will go and play for everybody, back up everybody. Yes, and Agnes right on Clarence Street.
Corie:So you went to school there? No, I went in Crispin. Oh, you went far. You do you walk quite on there? Well I didn't know. Thanks for saying that. I'm trying to tell people for the longest while I was St. James and passing through the cemetery and playing in the cemetery and going through the river is normal.
Pelham:Going through the river and you're you're reaching Crispin. You can only leave one half past here.
Corie:So you say we are doctor I can't question that. So when it went from that early interest in music, because somebody was here the other day, David. I can't remember who now, and they were saying the same thing. They said their parents didn't want them any pan yard. But even home, you were hearing all the songs of the culture coming home.
Pelham:You see, because in those days with the pan yard and thing was kind of um dangerous now. I should say dangerous because you know who the LMS now was bad for youths and things coming up. So, but we survived it, and then like always have gangs and things, people know about gang. Sometimes I had gang all over St. James. Yeah, normal time. You know.
Corie:I go pretend I don't know that from a mother listener. Yeah. When it changed for you from or that interest in music to start to learn formally, you went and learned formally in music or you listen to the music.
Pelham:I think um in 1971 or 70, I would send for a uh uh correspondent course from Berkeley. Oh, see. I buy 25 lessons from them. I pair about what 90 US or 70, something US rate. And then, and then, well, in them days, but I was making a little change, playing out. Yeah, no, in my own. Oh, so you begin anything by then? I wasn't reading, but uh in them time, in those times, in playing combo, I thought of any combo scene.
Speaker 1:I see.
Pelham:So we could have playing wedding, buddy party, graduation parties, body party in our house, the band set up in a gallery. Right. I do all of that. Yeah, the combo bands, yeah. Are they playing? Uh-huh. And every every time I play join a combo, they make me the arranger of the plant.
Corie:Well, it just me was so good then, or you just feel for music and things making you rise in them in them settings.
Pelham:No, I didn't, I was, I don't want to both and say I was naturally thing with me, but maybe the Lord blessed me with a little talent, a talent, you know. And it is that you're hearing it. Music is right here too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? You hear and you could have said, Well, that note you're playing on the bass, don't play that note, play this one, play that one, play F sharp, play G sharp, how you know that?
Corie:Yes, that it so you just hear it's that great. Yeah. So when you say correspondent cause of booty, how does it work? They would send materials for you.
Pelham:They send it for you for you, they give you the whole 25 lessons, right? And they send manuscript paper and thing, this and that, and that, and they do lesson one and they send it back. And and when they send it back, you can't. Oh, so when you do it, you get a mail it back to them, then mail it back to them and they come back. Yeah. But when they when they come back, man, or like a dog that embedded is only tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Correct.
Corie:Yeah, your gift, your gift paying off. Yeah, yeah. And that's a short space of time you're talking about because if you say you.
Pelham:Well, I did that in about six months. Six, yeah, it takes a lot of time. Right. But uh I did it, and it helped me a lot, you know, to blend. It's a lot of things. You see, music have a music have a lot of music thing is breakdown into three. It's a rhythm, melody, and harmony. You know what I'm saying? So teach you the rhythm first, the rhythm of things. Then the thing is harmony, is a lot, a lot of the harmony takes a little longer time. Because people know if a C a C is is C, but a C is the two A flat. You T a C as the the fifth of F, you see the A minor, you know what I mean? No, but go ahead. So yeah, so it has all of these kind of things in harmony. Yeah, of course. I don't know.
Corie:And you from you from early hearing them things because it's rhythms mostly.
Pelham:I used to play, I used to play when it had Scouting for Talent, right? Scouting for Talent taught in 1963. I leave the guys and them lining on the co doing when that doesn't have a lime in, all the friends and them down there. And I should go up by by um television house and hang out with in the rehearsals. They say, Here, Matthew, um, I'll be no and then play and became friends because they seen me every Saturday. And when they get if Albino gets up from the piano to go in the bathroom, I go on the piano and I play. So they say, you could play. I want to da da da. You can play for me. I said, No, I'm saying Albino will play for you. So I all of that, you know, it's doing education or so. So then people agree, all man, and them just seem me, we know them in wood broke and and all that kind of thing. So then coming by us to trim my brother trimming a year and we play music. Right, right. And I used to play down the classical music, I used to play by ear.
Corie:I see, because see on Facebook now playing all kinds of things. Classical music.
Pelham:I can't play anything.
Corie:So you're going on tour, you pick up with with with with the cuto button. Yeah. At that point in time, they're writing out music, they're giving everybody the sheets. And you you're falling easy because I would be so frightened, you know, you call your big names there, but you're fitted.
Pelham:When I reach in St. Thomas now and we're checking in the hotel, I could say, Palamir saving me. I say, Yeah boy, I catch him. Opportunity. Yeah, opportunity, yeah. So in the day, we all the pile of music, all these tennis access parts, all these artal parts, all the trumpet parts, I just put them together. Now I'm putting it together just so I'm taking a peep to see how we do it. How the phrase is saying, I say, oh, die body tennis acts away. So that little week been put putting the music together and all that, you know my thing I learned there, you know, already.
Corie:Yeah, it's none of this, you know. Yeah, I guess if you're arranging with the combo bands and things, there's a real, there's a there's something for you to see. You know, brass now. Right, you see in every piece.
Pelham:Because combo and I know brass. So it's brass alone in here now. Yeah, that's what the first trump bit part half, what's the second trump bit part half? And I put the band the music together there, and he easy.
Corie:So from playing with him, right? I have a couple of questions about some songs you play with his arrangement. Uh, one of them, I fascinated with the start of songs, right? And the way songs is open. So sugar boom boom is one of them.
Pelham:That would have been nah, that's Edwardson. Edwardson, that's right. I saw that. That's me playing it.
Corie:So that first thing is here when the song opens, that me. That's you. Yeah, that's me. So music written out for you, or you playing where you feel by that point?
Pelham:In that in that point, we did the track already. We did that that song was recorded already. The track. Right. But um in multi-track recording, there was a track open that they want to put an instrument in. So they came and meet picked me up a holiday. Um was what either one of the I think it's either either or the wali or them holidays. And we went down to the studio and we have a scene. Now I default person play synthesizer in the college, so thing. Really? Right? Yeah. So that a track open, that uh omni synthesizer. Because a split from middle sheet going so it can get strings, and from middle three going like that, it's beasts. So any tone, only thing. Right? And at the track start, I just take off. I don't know who tells me the papada papa papa. Right? And then my left family just play papa pop. So it's both parts you playing? I won't keep up playing them two things on the track.
Corie:On one track, so no mistake, you're going straight through, too. Straight through. I see. No cotton piece.
Pelham:So uh yeah, another experience. I'm trying to play the piano. We hear the fender roads playing. All through the song.
Corie:Dime too. That's only the same recording, you just that's over the right.
Pelham:That was recorded. Uh that uh we did that on the tracker before. So they are overdue by doing it. Right, right, right, right.
Corie:Well, look what we that song land. Another one I had asked about is one where it is the end of a song now. Woman on the bass. That's solo in the end is you too, playing keyboard. Die me, yeah. Yeah, playing keyboard, just playing. That'd be too.
Pelham:That'd be no panorama.
Corie:You just play where you feel at that point in time because that song, woman on the bass, so iconic, you know, and it's so funny. You're talking about 72 to 73, right? That's a cuto, too.
Pelham:That's a woman on the base is a cuto. You see, and so we record that night. We record that, we record that with um take the number. Oh, they record anytime that they have, and then once I have it, um, go to take the number. Carol, you know that you believe it? Right. So we record those two tunes and they had a part, the track going down, and they had their scores going down there at the end. And I went on solo on the synthesizer. And next big one was um um those sub days party, yeah, party, party. You know that's all, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, that's me playing solo too.
Corie:So by that time, you're trusted people bringing you in the studio.
Pelham:I was the synthesizer man, I was a cube player in the studio for years, yeah.
Corie:For years, and at that point, you're starting to do arrangements, artists looking for you to do.
Pelham:Yeah, but during a readman too, because I'm not only a readman, I can post tune in 1975. I had a song named Calypso's Less.
Corie:That would have been your first big composition, yeah.
Pelham:Calypso's L and Just Give Me Love. His Rembrandt Sing Just Give Me Love.
Corie:His Rembrandt Singh was in Roots 2, or no, she was, but she just for them. We call in the studio to sing the song for me. I see, I see. So when you do any composition and thing, you have artists in mind, then you know who you want to sing it, you know.
Pelham:Sometimes you don't know how to song come to you. No people have songs that they write for this song and they write, they write it for nobody. They write a song come to you, and then then you figure, well, you ought to be thinking. Because voices have range. A voice have a range. So you might say you write a song for somebody, but the low notes they can't make it, and the high note they can't make it.
Corie:So yeah, then it's an everything had to change. Everything had to change. You had to change the key and all that kind of things. Oh, it's you. Now, you were talking before, and it's an interesting thing because when Cage Studio at that point in time is in C-Lots, yes? Yeah, yeah. And I guess because there are few studios, everybody congregates in there. You're gonna know all the other musicians, you're gonna know the artists, you're gonna know the singers. Whereas now, music making in people's bedroom, sending by email and them kind of thing is a big difference. But you see.
Pelham:You know, like a session might be about from 9 to 2 or 9 to 4, then 5 o'clock is our next session. Right. Then it had what do you call the graveyard session, a session might be from 12 to 7 in the morning. Uh huh. It had all of that, yeah. Right. You know, like um I did um I play on Sparrow 50 Buddy album. We um Sparrow after the tune again, we had overdub, Tony Vozer and myself. Then the studio with Sparrow from seven in the evening till half past the next morning. Right.
Corie:You know, it's going through. It's going through. It's alright. That's only like a rough time, but surely are plenty of stories in them studios too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Calypsos as being one of your first arrangements at that point again, sought out collecting composition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Corie:Give me the difference. The composition means what is the difference between composition and you have to compose the song first, yeah.
Pelham:Then that's what they are doing now. The songs now don't have composition types of song. It's a production song, right? Right? When you have a composer song, it will be you want to you have to arrange it and then after it arranges and it produces. See. So it's uh it's a plug, it's a three-way thing. Right. Everything goes into one kind of thing now. It's just no, right. Because people it song better to people right now, you just say there's a producer. And then they song better to them if they know that they're mastered by. Yeah. Then on, you know, master now. If you go to America and you go via the master records, you see experienced old men come out there who know about frequencies and and and different speak out speakers up. Right. Because speakers wrong, right? And have you the base and they have your different frequencies going to the speaker show. You understand? Like that. So them guys know that, and it is it it go to on a spectrum from from let's say green to red to yellow, you know. It goes to a spectrum, you know, when it's too hot, when it's too thin, then it's too too that. But in trend, everybody's a master mastering, and they think now then if you program now, like logic. I have the little version of logic that have that have master in it. Right? It has master in it. But you still have to know where you're looking for. You don't know where you're looking for. Yeah.
Corie:So you think it's one of the reasons now why we were talking about this before? Well, go back to sugar boom boom, for instance. So iconic, the sound of it, the song so crisp when you hear it now. Yeah. And why sometimes the music from now, it's harder to remember. For me, maybe it's my age, yeah. It's harder for me to remember now a song that was big last year or year before, than it is to remember sugar boom boom. You think that's part of the reason for it? The way the music is being done?
Pelham:Well, at times I get a lot of licks for.
Corie:um well is the criticin people thing right and um people tell me that um i like to be critical too much and this and that and the other and the other at the time i write a 10 in the papers i say it's fast food is fast food is a fast food thing you know it's for now and it's a now you understand yeah but the the you cannot have um music you know it might have something in the music that you'll remember but but now you with rhythm and voice it have no inner parts inner parts you you can remember papada papa that kitchen and sing nothing like that you know but you still remember sugar boomer for that right but the the the music now it's rhythm you know what we used to do with the rhythm rhythm is what we used to make first and then go home and start to write the music for on top of the rhythm the brass parts thin parts and all that kind of things and you know bass line and thing but now it's and now they're inputting no bass yeah some of them with that music have no bass you know with that frequency down below and a low end yeah it's about it right that they feel it's a bass with that no bass well I don't want to dwell on this forever but it's something that I feel strongly about because even go again going back to sugar boom boom when you listen to sugar boom boom it feels like if Kitchener don't want to sing at all the the the the solo at the top lasts so long yeah it makes for dancing it's about for dance it's a dance too so that by the time the tension that built by the time Kitchener say Audrey they done almost love this song already and I wonder sometimes now with whether let me call myself a producer right I might make the whole rhythm as you it they call it a rhythm too. So the whole thing is a rhythm and there's no space where a Fitroy Coleman or a Pelum Godard or somebody plays. Right there's no space for that.
Pelham:Yeah so that I feel like we lacking that expression sometimes you know there's a part you see the thing about this right now you can't have vocals right through a song it's one color. Music it's coming with with it is a colorful something you come like an artist on a thing you if you only put red you have no blues you have no you have no greens you have no yellows and so on. So you at one point you could rest the voice and put in a guitar playing something or putting a saxophone saxophone people you know brad people have no no on unless after they go to the party and they want to put brass after they come from the studio. But the producers don't want no brass no yeah is missing and when you put brass I did a song for a guy I am a son composed song in him um appointments you think no play right a guy named young guy kind of covers you singing in um so we went to a synergy to launch this on and he mentioned it has some old school he says how about old school feeling microphone and yeah what old school they come and tell them I say I don't like that word at all to talk about old school music and if only talking old school do send your strength of Kyasi Fatima or Tim Mary them is old school even old school like hell so they like to talk about old school yeah yeah the old school and this old school and that old school there's nothing but no school because TV wanna can still make a song TV one can still make a song yeah yeah you're an old school you new school be inside you go and learn your chords and learn your progression and learn your thing everything songs so so simple to me. Yeah yeah yeah yeah it has a song it have um it has um this big song take me home I like this song but when I play it these chords it it it's simple for me to play right I don't want to go on I'm not if they call me to do a rehearsal to back up that I don't want to go to no rehearsal I can say oh because I went on um on uh interview on an ex radio session with that and they were there I say when I hear it I said I A flat B flat and C minor you watch me sure you know you whole song is that you know I mean well is is and when they come to take me a place where we take me a place yeah where I don't feel no pain where I feel no pain but you could have a a different color in that you know I mean so you still hear them things no you could hear where it had space for that to make a difference I could hear where it didn't.
Corie:Yeah funny you bring that up you know because one of them fellas in free tongue Lou Lions he tell me whenever you get Pelum I want to come I just want to come and listen to when he what he's talking about.
Pelham:But he could make feel no pain pain is the same cords you use you know in in he could have put a different now if you listen to my um arrangements like um let me say engine room um um rally round the West Indies collects music because if somebody has to sing Calypso music it would have go like a natural lava kind of song music it'll go a natural thing I put in break the rules and I go on so you know I mean yeah them things make the song in the dream room we play pra k and catch and we just started a groove them kind of thing so because we listen to my the um Charlie Jose band when we on tour we used to be like collecting casts with jazz and listen to jazz and going going um we went up um Lincoln Center and listened to Mild TVs and listen to this one. So because we opened my mind to different things you know yeah people like it earth went on fire and all this kind of groups with us play thing music you could you could open your mind to that yeah yeah you know um so we used to listen to all of these things so we was in England going to rehearse and all of a sudden um that Junior Warwood and Tony Voz and myself changing changing kink changing.
Corie:No you know just vibe in that vibe in and Davis had a sing that song and it come up we have engine room well that starts off it's only just played yeah we just get a groove when we start a groove that um well I guess when you say earth went on fire and then you see that start engine it's about feel like something feel it's like we we were playing somebody came to the studio and said what kind of music you'll see all the doing there I say well if you want to call it calypso pop yeah a different world yeah call it calypso pop if you want yeah you know how it's good I saw that you I have a it's a tune named Trini Prance in my tune too we saw the you know all the little things that make a tune and make the bang song big yeah and and you know and thing we play that all over Germany and all over yeah it's like that missing no that's what you're saying to where you're saying that that music takes all over the world versus sometimes now we're talking about calipso and how it will break through but uh something you say about pain right going back to that free tongue so we can you you say take me to the place where I had of you know pain and your thing is like where the pain and as far as interview with you and Alvin Daniel breaking down your arrangement at Gitapan. And it remember that that statement where the pain reminded because when you talk about doing the arrangement for for Exodus at the time you you're saying basically okay the song is guitar yeah so you're making something out of the guitar it's almost like a study what was the scenes with the guitar pan man used to watch guitar pan men has less so you make it into something so you you go into the theme of the song all those things contribute into your yeah you go to the you go with but the team is you go with the theme Tambo comes in a and rush in the hotel room in in um Miami after we playing we come from on the road a party right in Miami carnival and you have a song free up and when he started singing the song I come up with you know make it happy one time instantly free up free up you know I mean so you must have an introduction and your voice will wait until you have a voice and a chorus a vocal right through a piece of music doesn't make sense.
Pelham:Yeah what you mean doesn't make sense you gotta rest your voice yeah yeah yeah well life performances they had to change it because these even the songs they do it now when they could only sing one voice in a song in a party understanding yeah so when did it go for for you you're talking about 70s right uh let me get to rose first rose would have been uh one of the no not in rose but maestro was one of the first first set of people yes yeah um we're gonna talk about my show but my as a game mas but my show was uh different kind of person he likes rock music too yeah yeah he likes rock music so he used to come and buy me and work out um and what is in Clarence Street still yeah I was in Clarence Street too he used to come down there and work out things yeah and we we work a lot together and the album he was making the Anatomy of so called you listen to that right that had all kinds of different kinds of moods and things in that kind of song you know in the album because he didn't see himself as a regular he used to sing in the tent and sing social thing because he wanted to move off and the first song I did famous um song named Savage and then um we went into this um thing I do goal with him and he got to do goal but I did goal offer to the world and get popular with my show too so that was the first artist he had that range that kind of relationship with thing I know I did all kind of thing before all kinds of things I did a show in in um in Queensall with Valentino that in 1976 name and Poet and Prophet that I direct all the music and all that for them and um be tore Canada we went Washington we I went um in universities and things right with Valentino yeah so all of that you know yeah yeah so where the relationship with Rose started because the for the first song was right if I gave the thing with Rose now because um well when we used to go St. Thomas and all that it's all them kind soon they used to go there you know we later Rose Kitchener Sparrow Shorty everybody used to go St.
Corie:Thomas so they know they used to come on the piano while they're cousin and thing and the singing and people playing guitar and all kind of things like that right it comes to this now that um Rose had a two songs going on More Tempo and a song named Healing 2 right that gave A Dikoto to arrange so a coto went and arranged it I play piano and those two tunes also already right but when Rawls and Charles now Charlie from New York who ended up he he that was our sponsor Charlie Jutes he came and heared it then if I find a decoto should have done more with the song because modern times coming up and things changing in the music people looking for different things we had um all kinds of things happening so we had a big argument he wanted he wanted arrangement with rose he then did that and that and that he takes the tape and it boom there's the cut off yeah he tape that recorder he pay the cut off and he said he pay the cut off and he takes the tape he ain't one dollar arrangement and let's show you on now with our manager Charlie manager right he said that guy in the studio that'll be there every day every day we used to be in the studio either doing jingles or we did everything so why you trying with it so they gave me the cassette and I went to Manatin and I came back and I recorded song and that was it going out after now a different feeling about the synthesizer tone and all kind of thing because that time was the tone the tone of music was changing right and that that make it a hit yes and then at the next year I give her a double now she went the Kroong she went that triple crung too she went queen crong and um road match yeah the songs then would have been jammed together and her majesty was it too much i i was I was talking to and stacey sober's here recently and she had done um queen of the road a play about rose so when she gone through that era the early that early part it was it's it's when I went to um when I went Canada when Rose went to Canada for Caribana after she made going on um more tempo they gave her a trophy they gave her the honor into in to in Toronto and thing and she gave me the trophy yeah because then this is for you you do rather that I see better we guess so then with the late 70s you with Charlie's roots already you know what had to go to ban again or what what Charlie Roots started in 77 now 7 no we had assigned um sensational roots okay and then we started Charlie youth in 76 okay and then after from 70 Charlie from 78 now we started playing Minchel band and and then we started go away we played Madison Garden for years backing up all them Californians that's up you know yeah so at that point in time you're doing arrangements of musical directions for the band or you're just playing keyboard i you know I musical director I writing music and everything yeah so it's and when Shallow you get popular now then Californians used to come in fest just like how singers singing in fest we started too because everybody is going in our fest and playing instrumental music and singers for the band but California now starts come bring the music sheet what we playing and then had the music sheet and we played joke all of them all in Chinese association all about so they jump on with the band yeah jump on with the band Charlie Jut bam yeah so then when when because Rodder wouldn't have been the original lead singer at that point in time or Tambu started with Tambu yeah it started with Tambu but Tambu went in 1980 after we finished carnival here we went straight to Guyana to do the daily carnival right and that in March when Tambu came back he didn't have no voice he lose his voice so we had to get a singer but we used to used to see David Rudder come in at the studio done a teach to sing background vocals and so on and then he used to do um he used to do like shows too all in disco and things to sing but that point he'll be singing people's songs covers he's doing while you're doing cover boys and I gave him jungle fever jungle umshell played jungle fever mass right and I as I used started to doing a for the bands jungle fever so you had that in mind what Minchel came out with while you work together and you come up with a yeah we were we were seeing I will just make a song the second year we cut when he played papy or now he cut we try and send me by Pratt Bishop for Bad Bishops I woke out a song I say I give you a song all in a song it come to me or the why I had to go by Bad Bishop I say no song so the two we just went with penguin tune up uh deputy censure all right on that when we were much yeah then I I come back and I do uh I then I come back and do the um what do boy callabash callaloo and river and things yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah then all them bats are the following and try to bring the other tune for a band they have a tune for this band they have a tune for a band they have a tune for a band well you start a good trend you start a good trend yeah so but we're rather at the time he oh let me ask you this before I get to that Charlie's roots in the in the inception in the late 70s early 80s playing mostly covers too yeah yeah we are doing in the when Charlie we start we did some cover versions and things and any genre of music you just play we have we make a head with our and a clear not music uh uh of classical cube playing all that thing tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang and you think that's in fact oh I mean ding ding ding ting ting ting ding this what my mother never was up to eight sentences earlier I don't see why that it may be hit for a shot uh I see I see it made for a shot gotcha so at that point in time I remember when David was here he was talking about his earliest days and starting you know he has his his is doing his writing and thing and starting to go out on his own you would have been instrumental in him starting off yeah yeah yeah yeah uh because we used to work together a lot and you know we have some big ones you have hammer we have dust and the fish uh you know we have some big tools together yeah so uh Panama yeah like a bunch have a listen a long list to rally so they I come I I I make a list of my compositions I reached 92 serious and you ain't contour sure sure sure because I wonder uh I would think you know Masana I wasn't Ivany if you feel to reproduce those songs or anything or do covers to them or whatever that you know yeah let them live a next life yeah it makes sense it makes sense so let me talk about some of them songs because that those them songs uh with a dominate deities and up to now you're talking about hammer panama all them songs uh how these songs used to start between you and Rudder what was the thing you would come up with that with a melody or he come up with I come up with melody for the melody first sometimes he comes up with lyrics and you have no melody on the house sometimes you have melody too and we you work together also is it has anyhow how it comes anyhow it comes in anyhow so you comfortable and I guess knowing that you say that when he comes with lyrics for something like Panama which comes first for Panama lyrics he commit the lyrics he can make the lyrics but and we will call the melee I will call the melody with him in the studio in the studio work on the melody arrange it one time put on brass put on everything one time one one time one time but that song is nearly impossible to do so at the time the band you say the band was recording the album or something I I I I do that all the time maybe we do that sometimes because I um I remember with super blue with Pum Pum I record that a Saturday morning between 10 and 2 o'clock in the afternoon so how you having a nice how you know as a as a as as a producer arranger composer you you you you hear that song and you you know based on what the theme is the thing about it is when you know music right in terms of either reading it or you know it by theory right or knew it anyhow you'd rather wait until you hear something work it out if somebody started saying something here if I say I will meet you today I know that already you know I mean you don't know where it's going from you know what the cause it is right right so you could work out a song too you could work out things one time you know but other than the beginning and the end of songs the phrasing is a thing I always fascinated by so Panama is one of them I die well just working all that together the the the you know you don't when they hear it you could visualize it on people see pop pop pop pop pop pop triplets pop pop pop you know and you write another all sections every every instrument all section everybody and you say you do that I go to three hours you ever give you one super blue have a song named get something and weave there's something and weave you ever hear that something and weave get something and weave but we had a good other go in the studio in New York right we recorded that in Charlie studio Charlie didn't open my studio in Brooklyn now open the studio and I'd be young in the studio for we said what it half 10 LM or something and I take a bus on New York Avenue driving on New York Avenue and I tell all my people and I said I write um I write all the music down the bus and come down to you and go in the studio and record what you hear as a hit.
Pelham:Yeah one of the biggest road match they ever had right so wait wait wait wait wait but that's some walk on first lyrics melody had it in mind already or no he he had the melody he had a melody I didn't have him he had his melody and I know you want a vamp first you call it vamp bum bum bum but up bum bum bum but up get something on wave doom do something on wave so he building the energy he could yeah he gained the energy then he building up the energy so when he band starts is that I start with a when he ready to say um I bubaka day ba da screens so after that now and then we gone by um Eddie Grant now we're going to do back an old time and thing with him by Eddie Grant when I go back an old time Eddie Grant we bring Roy keep whole section we send the name over here one section over there I have my manuscript paper and then same thing like you all to accent I want to know is this how no is G I know it's I say I can't tell you that no you see it is not real sometimes and I can tell him I just I have a pencil man on manuscript I write in back on all time back on all back and all back on you are this can't but you know in that era known for its horns right yeah all the music when you when you listen to the music of that era I don't know if you could have do music without horns then at all it was like it did not this year last year it had uh thing with all the road matches right and he had me on the show in Queenshall and when they came they came to interview me before and all that kind of thing you see but let me put a lot of horns in them tunes I said that they were here they were here and I learned that from thing I learned that from um Quincy Jones say when you write in music whatever you hear you write it down even though the producer say when you go to the studio whatever thing they don't want that at that time but you hear in that you write down everything you hear on manuscript everything.
Corie:Yeah I see yeah that that that that area you're talking about is amazing let me talk about Etienne sure a little more Etienne have done our road matches through the years yeah and I see they have there are plenty of road match battle going on in this country you come from all you all of it and um you would be the person with the most road matches in the country yes 13 is your right number what was your right number I would say it could be 13 and a half because I did um I did um Lareno okay I did Larena in my studio home right but the problem was that the one they met to go by the grand to put it down the Saturday and that same Saturday Exodus was starting up panorama music.
Pelham:Right Eddie Grant would be Barbados so I say I'd go by Exodus Saturday how I go in Barbados to do for kitchen um to bubbly and then come back by Exodus. Right and exodus you know so I say you know what I gave already discussed with the music that because that time you're using you know you Apple had uh a quad a quad something where you had you discussed and thing right yeah yeah one like no right it wasn't like selling the email to no no no right physicals I get only discussed with the music and they went with it all of that yeah Lara Lara So the phrasing and thing you come up with all that all of that I had but listen I can't do Alvin Daniels right because I see all your breakdown that gitar is one of the greatest interviews I ever see but you deliberately because that song in particular Laro that tension in it breakway you doing that do you know what's gonna happen there super blue super blue like that kind of tension before he did that kind of vampire Baptist right right right so he he he wanted to be hopping and going doop doop doop doom doop doop doop and plenty people take up that kind of vamp situation you know I mean yeah the CD success he had with the TC it does build up when that build up so like that at the time when we had um it by here give so music we was playing in St. John's yeah in in down in the West down there St. John and um we had calypso music and uh we would have you we done get kind of stop the music stop the music a woman for all power for me the top the music so you billing it with that in it yeah yeah that that that could get that could get you know spirit take you right so let me talk about that Nasoka Baptist because that's another one with the open iconic first thing you hear when you hear the song um who was our manager he had an office on um track we tour at one time so we're in the office a day and Romy Romy Abraham you know Romy who had a record shop on um print street I don't know the name at all yeah he had a record shop he used to record like crook good partner he used to record crook and thing and thing he used to be in the studio all the time okay good so he came and say um give my cassette he bring blue boy all the time when I watch you say you could do this fella for me now just like that I don't know and he gave my cassette but we was the reason why we were by L'Anton tickets to be going on tour I see so we you know we used to leave we used to leave Trinidad in April go and do Mother's Day show in Brooklyn in in Madison Square Garden and we Ruth coming back we come back all October and things we all we went we used to go to New York Montreal to um Toronto and thing so when you go and you're gone when we go on we go right doing shows and all kind of thing so when I come back now we say do anything with you I said no yet but we we will we'll book the studio and see lots and do that right and we book the studio and we think and then we sort of discuss what the Baptist people do because we know so called Baptist we we know Baptist people Performing a change on the pavement. You saw Baptist meeting and thing all on the pavement and say, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. And the uh the tambourine and the bell and all kind of things. So so we try to we you know, we give it a real Yeah, real, real feel, authentic. So you and I'll get the bell, and we put it, we make sure they had the bell in it. Because what would what is Baptist without a bell? So we get it put him in trouble too. So after that, when the song released now, the Baptist people hear the song now, they they they critique it and they they they don't want it. So the people have to go now to the tent to see who's singing this song. The tent sell out every night.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Pelham:Tent was selling out to see who's singing so called about this. Well, it was banned, the radio wasn't playing at night, or they get banned eventually. You say, let's good friends reveal. Do you have to play that song? Yeah, I know something my mother telling me you have to play that song every night. I say, well, people want it, you won't hear it. Whenever in the road match, she said, you do and do and do until you that song win a road match. She ain't like it. She ain't like it now because she free the Baptist. Yeah. And it's about a nice little Baptist breakdown. Our friend, um Kalian keyboard keyboard is when Kalian playing it, you used to come up the stage. You didn't say playing keyboard.
Corie:Serious, that was so serious back then.
Pelham:Car no halo. Carlo Wallow. I said, Carl, what happened? You ain't played? No boy, not that tune.
Corie:But he go come back with Ethel because Ethel was right after.
Pelham:Yeah. Well Super Blue was so lucky too. That when we wish we cry him one time, eh? No. We went Guyana. We went Guyana. And when we hit Guyana Carnival, we they say, we buy blue. Only being by blue. We ain't been by blue. Chicken crazy. You know what? When we go in away again, we had a cry with super blue boy. Because people look, so we went Madison Shear Garden with him. We went all about Canada. All about with him. You know, we had a carry him.
Corie:Yeah, that's right.
Pelham:Because the song gets popular.
Corie:You know. And that was just of so Soka Baptist was the first one you woke on with them.
Pelham:Yes, so first one. Right. So then now you are then in next year now, you ought to come as good. Right, right. And you went in a big studio in Manhattan to record Etel and things. Serious. Yes, Etel, Soaker in the Showland Temple, and those sort of things. He had a song named Sotti. All them things you do out there. So when the the guy knows a little how we used to record everybody going in the studio at the same time? When the guy see iron and cobell and thing coming in the studio, he said, Mr. Goddard, uh all these things going in the same track. I say, Yes. All of that going. You get confused. He records something already. And when we come back to listen back, he revisited. Yeah, seriously. Uncle Hanson never. The studio end up finding him, and they had a payoff recording it over. Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Yeah, because he banned out the going one ticket. Yeah, you get confused. You can't understand. They couldn't take Cobel and Iron and TikTok and guess. You know, at one time.
Corie:Something like noise to them. You know what's funny you say that? Another time we were doing some work for Trinidad was hosting our World Cup. And we say we had some sponsorship to do for Sony, Sony Electronics. Yeah. So we say, we're gonna get Laventy Rhythm section, we go thing, right? So we go on by the stadium, and when laventy rhythm sections trip up, you know, it's noise, but we accustomed to that. People chipping, coming in the stadium, boy, the FIFA official shut it down, you know. Yeah, they say, nah nah nah nah nah they can't hear the announcements in the stadium. We cry by the complex, you know. I say boy, they could hear everything in that stadium, they shut it down. When time for laventy rhythm section to go in now, they tell them it's weapons. They say all them I have that can't go in, they have the class the thing as weapons, it's not musical instruments. Yeah, I ain't gonna fight a long time. But you are you are immortalized in a song before I get back to Super Blue. Let me get to that engine room now. But had to be my favorite, one of my favorite David Rudders songs or your song, and you say, you know, they vibe in a studio, yeah, and come up with the with the melody for that. No, he had him, he had a melody. Okay, okay, so you just vibe and playing it out.
Pelham:But the view how we the approach of it, the key that song is, and how you approach it, we it come like you're breaking. Now, if a song if a song have or two songs or three songs have the same movement, right, you have to make one song different to the next. Right. You know what I'm saying? You can have an album with the same kind of things all the time. Yeah, people get bored. You know. And if you listen to Tambu too, you hear Tambu will um free up this part, use it, and they don't know we ain't going. It's a whole different different feel. I arranged for, let me see, you arrange for Super Blue, Rudder, and Tambu. Let's take those three people. And that had to be about 12 or more songs, and all of these songs are different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And some of them is the same kind of code structure. I did a I did a um I did an album for Alvin Daniel. We it's because the pantunes is how you came up with the idea of making an album with pan tunes, right? Right? And the whole album, 10 tunes or more of a tunes, the whole CD song different with everything sound different intro, yeah, different key, different way.
Corie:That is hard to accomplish, and like that in general, the musicality in it.
Pelham:So it it the thing like how people ride in rhythm now. I don't really go with that. You have one song. Look, people go into they go into um Red Boys now. Red Boy doing most of the overproduction, right? Of course, thing. So you have um Dotish, you have Betman, you have saddle and sounds in the middle.
Corie:It's the same with them and the same music.
Pelham:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who they tell Napi they listen to? Charlie Roots. Serious? Yeah. He won't even want you must bring they tell it, they tell Napi must be he must bring me over there. But I went, I went Barbie that plenty time. I had the grant and all that kind of thing.
Corie:You must go. Because that is one of the few, and you know, when like today in Carnival now, people do things like that. Like that rhythm and everything, even though, as you say, it's a rhythm and plenty of people sing on it, it had a different feel and a different energy when it played out there because it's sung in more like a live band than anything else here. I was telling Kenny Son to Casey. Slowly but surely it seemed to be be coming back in because um there was a year Marshall and sing a song with a bottle of rum, and Casey was saying that it's a live, a church band he brings in and they play. But the way it's feel, I feel like we're missing, and I guess I get it tail under some of it.
Pelham:And like you said, I will I will personally like to record again with live people in a studio. Yeah. You feel it coming back. It might be caught in the trying to best cause. Because if somebody, if somebody can't ask me to do a product and I tell them I want live guitar, live bass and live juicy, they won't want to pay. You know, they don't want to pay. They want brass, I have that problem and all. They want they're what they start off. But I'm gonna want to do a demo.
Corie:Right.
Pelham:I tell you all right, a demo. When they done the demo done, well, I feel like we'll put light brass in that, you know. Then pay for that, you know. Well when they put they call libraries, how much of the light brass? So they want the they give little true, true up, true up, true, pay for the brass, pay for the time, they still pay me for a demo, you know. But I had to produce that. More work for less money, of course. And then they want a guitar in it. Then they have a full production now that they pay only for demo. So it's a kind of smartness, of course. But I would like to record with live drums and all that kind of thing, right? Yeah, and they get you get vibes. Look, um uh tram dog record by me, you know. Yeah, really? I do a whole album by this tram dog by me, and he sings when he should go tram dog, do it by me recorded. Serious, boom, boom, boom. Or that piano fame. I play my piano on the keyboard, two piano. Tony Vozer, Albert Bush, Von Rick Winard. And we play live by me.
Corie:Before I get back to some of the songs, let me talk about teaching. Because uh, one of the things I always wonder about is like places like UTT, UE, and them now, they uh they have plenty musicians coming out. But I wonder if they teach people style. Is it that they they they have a class where you could go and understand some of Pelum Goddard's style and thinking and the way he plays, or how Tony used to play, or how Junior used to play? That exists at all.
Pelham:I think UE teaching mostly production. Right. Because Iran Duncan and then went there and do production. Alright, nobody um and the music part here, they still tried in production. Because when they come out of UTT and you hear them on the phone and they play, they listen to music, they're not listening to uh old old school according to them. You know, they're in their own school, new school. You know, and and you know, they're they're really into the music like how we was into the music. Music is a serious thing. Music is a serious, serious, serious thing. Yeah, I was talking to you about that before we start because it's it's a situation where you can't really, you know, I never fall out or get vexed or want a done. You understand what I mean? Uh uh-uh. You know, musicians from long time who used to play in combo and thing. They just fall out, they don't play again, they do this thing, and the thing happened.
Corie:You know. Yeah, they just fade away.
Pelham:Yeah, if you never come into music, you come into music. Music is is is a serious thing. Yeah. Look at the I see a guy last week. I went to two weeks or Fridays ago, I went to a funeral. Boogie was there. And the guy comes in, a guy comes and said, Boogie, you're still playing, boy. He says he's still playing. Yeah, he said Boogie's still playing. Booksie don't play the the the music. He rearranged any music, the band player, and he plays to the band.
Corie:Yeah, well, it's a ten year ten year. I don't know that, I don't know that they have a retirement, no?
Pelham:Right, it's not a retirement. Yeah, material. And the young people I don't know, they should go and because every time I do an interview, I don't think they say the young people should come to see you or less than or wherever, whatever, alone this, alone that, alone that, and that, that, but they they know what they want to hear. They they have their own thing they want to hear, and what we'll tell them.
Corie:Well, I find that's good too. But the thing about it, I find it lacking is if I do look at Aaron Duncan as an example. If you're going through formal training, Aaron Duncan start with me too, no? Well, that's what I mean. Some of that shows. Yeah, this is what I say, you know. If you're learning music in this country, you should do a university that have people like you, whether in book or in person, yeah. So a man could know, all right, this is done, this is done. It shouldn't be pen on interviews like these, so people learn a little bit about Pelam. I find that real unfortunate. Unfortunate.
Pelham:But I glad I meet in my time, Bradley, Adi Koto, Ed Watson, Ul Rodney, all of these guys was recording in his studio, all of them I play with any studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? And it was you because you're actually seeing how the music is created and how the music is made. Yeah, yeah. Through manuscript paper and stuff. You know what I'm saying? Not a cut and paste situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like people can have the benefits of doing both. If you learn the the I I on the technology, you know. I have the latest technology who writing. I'm a Mac mini. Sure. It's heavy loaded. I need one. I'm a laptop heavy loaded, I have M audio, I have everything. Right, just like them. But you know both sides, right?
Corie:But I had a foundation too in my backpack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had to figure out a way to transfer that foundation because it's something else. So that era again, you're talking about Super Blue coming out of Soka Baptist going with Ethel Rebecca was you too, or you went somewhere else and do that at the point?
Pelham:We went uh in studio New York too and do Rebecca. Nothing man happened in Brooklyn, right? So at that at that point, again, opening us up. You see that Rebecca album, that whole album good, yeah. Swing and all that kind of thing. So I do know or you do the whole thing, the whole album. When they come here to do album, it's the whole album I do it.
Corie:That again is also very different to now. You don't find that much again where you have a uh no, it costs you know, people can't do no whole album again. No, but even more than just a whole album, you might find that a whole album is 10 different people.
Pelham:According to um Gypsy, and he was relating to me to her, but I didn't because when I tell him about it cost now to do an album, he said they make computer for all they work together easier and only want to charge all the set of money. I like that. He said they make computers, only work easier now with computer, and only want to charge a set of money, and and we are selling no record, we are selling no CD, yeah, yeah, yeah. You ain't selling no CD. It's true, but you're making money outside.
Corie:You're performing all about, you're performing all about, we ain't performing about. I will say too, especially if you make classics. If you make classics, you perform forever. Right. You know what I mean?
Pelham:You don't retire, you don't want to retire. Marshall lucky, Marshall could go all about and and and what I like about what Marshall is doing though, Marshall carrying a whole cast of people with him, right? Yeah, guess what black speaks good because really and truly the the long time California and them these are coming boosts of how they the first to do this, the first to sing in um too, the first to do so and so, the food to do so and so. But uh you don't hear Marshall talking that right, Marshall did go all about right now. He had a big show in um Barclays Center, you know.
Corie:Yeah, and I remember too. You remember last year was when he had done the Calypso Monarch and You Win, right? I believe you and the Apollo, yeah, and did Calypsoans, not so cards. So it's a good look. I like I like I like the way he's that was good, yeah. Of course, of course, of course. So uh that that that line in engine room about good on Clarence and Gepellum got it. You used to play any engine room in truth, or you used to be dung and you used to be ironic?
Pelham:I did iron thing too, no thing. Yeah, so for maybe between some real iron men or not.
Corie:Well, yeah, all the names call.
Pelham:Yeah, when he was here, he said um become them kind of fella, so yeah.
Corie:Yeah, you know, he said um he said any line he had to say a short raster from Newton's, yeah, and he said that was his name.
Pelham:Yeah, he in he in he in supernova. No, I'm sorry, Monday, Sunday. Seriously.
Corie:Well, rather say he uh he said he had to take out the ad telling people he's not with newtons no more because his songs immortalize him so much, yeah. And I think he's a libo family calling from Australia. He eat yeah he that that is nice, man. That is good. So your own pan, because you have a unique thing. I was looking at your some of your history. You have songs where you work from composing the song all the way through to the artist singing it, the artist winning competition with it, you winning panorama with it with excellence. That's a unique. I don't know if you have anybody else who might be able to say they take a song through the whole thing and just win everything.
Pelham:Well, it had to get you see what happened with a song too, been it popular. You do think so. I had a uh I don't want to boast about um knowing what people knowing what people want. Yeah, sometimes you get a feeling of you know people want this and you know people want that. And you put that in the music, you know. Right, right. You know, they will like that, they will let it jump, you know, make people move. Right. Yeah. And all that kind of thing. You know, calabash, really carabash, and you know, you put reframes in it now, right? When you man with the hammer going, you know, you make a laugh, for them to sing, right? Die for the people to sing. Right. Bamba, we make people sing that, you know. You know, you so you you make reframes for people to sing.
Corie:So when you're doing that, you know, because that's amounts. It's a I heard you talk about that with Alvin Daniel too. Because when you like a panorama arrangement, for instance, you take into consideration how the crowd will feel about a part of the song, how the players will feel about part of the song, and how the judges will feel. You have all that in mind going in when you when you're doing it.
Pelham:Well, the judges is a small percentage in my mind too. Really? Like, you want to do music for you, you want to you want to do music free. You understand what I mean? For the people first. Right. Right? Because the the judges want to tell you what they want to hear. You understand? So sometimes I just say when you finish a panorama tune, sometimes it's in your read. Maybe some parties is where your judges tell you to put more reader, put more arms. It's not really your audience. When you hear your telling you what they want to hear now. Uh-huh. Yeah. If you don't find any cellos and gizapan, be telling you that in the comment. You know what I'm saying? So the judges is thing. And uh, like I did an interview in the open uh carnival conde. I said, why are Carnival starting, we gotta talk about judges. It's a free up thing. It's is is is it's our festival. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? The judges in the last thing about me in my mind. But um you gotta give the people what they want to hear first. You understand? Don't make the tune, uh, you know, so you can tease them with some little harmonic backgrounds and things, you know, like bass lines and all that kind of thing. So right? And make them move, you know. And when when they go now, the judges might tell them, let me show you how curious the judges in my mind. A guy going new week, but he was in Exodus, right? So he tells me, um, tell him what you help me with some four-part harmony and all kind of thing, have an exam, so on, so on, so and so. So I sit down in the yard and I helped him think and I write a baseline. When he gone, the teacher failed him because she had like the baseline was too much. He failed him, and because the baseline was too moving too much or the score. He failed for that. Wow. I said, Well, you know, that's how they think. You want to know our basis, this, and then I started learning the European style or crutch it and minimum heart and thing. Then I take up when I take up bookly now, then I realize why we ain't go a a quarter note, a half note, a whole note, a so and so and so. You know, and and that that is the easier way to know to know how to divide each the the the notation then, right? Because the minimally semi-brieve and all kind of thing, that's the European side. Yeah, British. Right? That was hard. Even though when my mother was playing piano and thing and I trying to follow it, you know, I don't know. So I I know how to divide the bars then into things. But they still have that kind of European feeling into the music.
Corie:Yeah, but in the teaching, you mean?
Pelham:Right. Because the classical people can't understand what we'll do. Classical people can't understand chords and all kinds of things like that. So uh a panorama tune I ended in a with a a big jazz code because I want a big ending, right? I and Pap Bishop argue from the yard to which you were living in in Woodbrook. You see that foreign code they put in the con? I don't like it. It don't dissolve into nothing. I say, well, you never hear you never hear Duke Ellington and um take the H train, and when he went, a sharpie lemon called. We don't a sharpie level call. Why don't you that triad? Uh-huh. So all they say triad, they don't hear no extension codes and all kind of things. So they will fail you for that. The judges who study them kind of thing will fail you or mark you low, mark you hard, so to speak.
Corie:I has always wondered why we just we could also study myself. Let me say that. You could learn what the Europeans did, right? But we could also sit down and learn what Bradley does, what you do, what what what people doing here.
Pelham:Look, the other day I I in my kitchen and I listening to Andrew Ankle Chanka plenty good music. That we, you know, and he had a tune that they used in a test piece. Um where bum pam. You know, that's all that was a users and a test piece. And if you play, you study these guys, and even though you want to use things, but the European style of music, it too, it's just triadic. Classical music is good. I will knock it at all. Right? But it's a scale-wise situation, right, yeah, yeah. Major skills and minor skills and things. Unlike if you listen to Telonius Monk.
Corie:Right, yeah.
Pelham:He will add something. He finger will spread on the piano. You know how I mean? Yeah, of course. Yeah, in different intervals.
Corie:Right? He might be bored if you ask him to play so. So there's you'll get bored. Yeah, of course, of course. So, in that pan, because you had a run, you had a run of the road matches, yeah. I don't think it'd have a competition, your name not next to. But in pan, it seemed as though you had a good relationship with the fasto, with the first two music with some of the earliest arrangements and stuff.
Pelham:Defuso be that Pandora. And then we did um War 2004. Right. Yeah. For him. And then the next year.
Corie:You would have composed the song all the way through, then do the arrangement for Exodus 2?
Pelham:Or no, he come, he died. Right, right. That was on, you know. And we take that. Then I went and tried out um destroy that song name Max It Up. For a different type of thing because, you know, the choker coming into play, don't come into play, and they're popular. So I went and then I had max it up. When I went to Max It Up and Pat Bishop was Julie Nova the time, she said, you all you know they went to this tune. This is not a pan panorama song. So the term did have your two main things. Either way you call a panorama song. Yeah, pan song. And that way, what is not a panorama song. So they gave us problem with with Maxita because she know that they ain't gonna take you on with that. But we don't looking for a difference in it.
Corie:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you said the pan song thing wasn't always the case. People didn't used to say that back in the day.
Pelham:The pan song song was just if you mention, if you mention, if you say something like, Um, I wanna went by desperados, yes, we had them on the toes, that's a pan song.
Corie:But it's funny to tell you. If you mention a panthe, it's a pan song, or plenty, plenty chords and plenty variations. But look how destroy sings so much of what they would call pan songs over the years, too.
Pelham:I mean, so it wasn't a pan song, and she said that and they give her pressure, we'd max it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we tried something else, and and we were it was vibrant, I was satisfied.
Corie:Okay, good, good, you know. Well, David, at some point we had a little because we are planned for the six hours, but at some point we had to let him go. But he's a man of the travel and them kind of thing. So I don't actually like we're working on this year.
Pelham:We have in the Yeah, no, nothing, I yeah, I had nothing working on.
Corie:Are you relaxing?
Pelham:No, not at a relaxing. Uh huh. Right now, because I did a song, I did um a song for our client in Antigua. I did fame in the he make the final for the first time this year. So nice. A guy named Richie Francis. Then he called me the other day, you have a next song. He did buy songs from GB and things. Yeah, all right, nice, nice. So he has a song that I did fame because they might have a um the independence coming up, and they might have an independence competition. Right. So I did have song fame, but uh nothing long time. I used to have songs for next year then. I do have that again because the young people then want the old school. Yeah, they want old school.
Corie:When you say it's old school again, Fatty Man QRC.
Pelham:Fatty Man QRC, yeah. They want Fatty Man Cry Fatty Man.
Corie:So, like how you work on oil and music, next uh you come back here later on yeah, you have those types of things.
Pelham:I have a little concert to do um that they call me to do in the third of December. I think that by um the president, ground dodge president. Oh nice, yeah. She point on that. Oh, so the president, okay.
Corie:Yes, good.
Pelham:Christmas music, though. Okay, good, good, good. That we play rehaul man and them on it.
Corie:So nice. Well, we're looking forward to seeing them things. I appreciate I appreciate you coming through this. When we we've been trying to do this for a while, you're flying all the time. Why is that man always here? You know, so I say it's why every time I call him, he says, Why back in New York? I back so it's good to see that you're still around and doing the thing, you know. I mean, yeah, so nobody can have to like booksy if you're still playing. If you're still playing, yeah, you're still playing.
Pelham:You come to ask Booksy if you still play, right? It's a great question.
Corie:It can't be that. And thanks beyond that for everything that you do and you continue to do. I appreciate it. Can we claim St. James boy? We can claim that, David. We are not we, David, and from St. James. You and up, you end up Finland Street. Where you born?
David:Super Blue.
Corie:I'll tell you where you're born. Where you're born. You're from St. James? Where are you from? Where you're from.