Neville Jules Speaks on Pan
Mr. Neville Jules being interviewed
< Prev | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | Next >
TrinbagoPan.com Reporters
Interview Date: May 26, 2007
Posted: June 11, 2007
TRINBAGOPAN: Would you share with us how you first became involved with the Steelpan?
NEVILLE: It's a long story but I will try. As a little boy, I grew up on the hills of Laventille; right here. I was fortunate enough to experience the Tamboo Bamboo. I followed them around Christmas time. After Christmas, when the young men of that time discarded the Tamboo Bamboo, we the kids would take it out from the canal and imitate what they did. After a while, my mother came to live right here in a place called Mango Rose near Duke Street Bridge; I think that was around 1939. I remember hearing these pans playing, beating out in the distance and I followed it. I came out to the bridge on Duke Street and I walked across to the panyard here and stood right across by the wall behind us. The men were beating the pans right here in Hell Yard. The yard was all filled up but it was not the way it is now, it was a hollow. I stood here and I listened to them and that was the first time that I really heard the pan. Of course, they were not playing any music; it was just drumming, rhythm and stuff like that. Then I walked away.
Not very long afterwards World War II started. There were air raid wardens going around telling people to turn off the lights and so on. That year, the government decided there should be no Carnival. But the men who were playing the pans decided to come on the road and still play. Some of them were beaten and locked up. The people who were here in Hell Yard gave up the Steelband after a while and they went away. We as kids took over whatever drums they left. At that time, there was a guy called Hamilton Thomas who was the youngest person in the Steelband they had in Hell Yard. The name of the Steelband was Second Fiddle. In those days all the bands started naming their bands after movies. Steelbands like Second Fiddle, Back to Batan, Desperadoes, Invaders and North Stars were all named after movies. We decided to take over and we moved from here and went a little higher up near the Salvation Army. We eventually changed the name to "A Cross of Lorraine". Back then, a guy called 'Fisheye' was the captain and with about fifteen or twenty guys, we formed this band.
We came on the road on V-E (Victory over Europe) Day. But before that, we used to go over the hills and play also. Sometimes you would just get the urge and somebody might say, "Let's go over the hill." We used to go down the river, climb up the steps and go all over. We used to meet other bands up there. After the victory in Europe, the people were so happy that they could have come on the streets again. They started singing, "Five years and eight months we eh play no Mas; whole day whole night we go play de Ass."
That was to the tune of 'Whole Day, Whole Night, Miss Mary Ann' which was a sort of Calypso. The people used that same melody and put their own lyrics to it. When the V-J (Victory over Japan) occurred, that was when I really started to do something in pan. I tuned a four note 'ping-pong' pan that could have played the choruses of two Calypsos. One was by 'King Radio' and the other one was by 'Lion'. Back then, nobody else was playing songs. I told 'Fisheye' to play those songs because I was playing a lot of pan that was called the 'tenor kittle'. This was a pan before the 'ping-pong' playing songs.
Continue...
< Prev | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | Next >
Neville Jules | Neville Jules Photo Gallery | Homepage
|
|
