Neville Jules Speaks on Pan
Mr. Neville Jules and friends
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TrinbagoPan.com Reporters
Interview Date: May 26, 2007
Posted: June 11, 2007
TRINBAGOPAN: From the first four note pan you invented, did you continue developing it?
NEVILLE: Yes, I tried. But here is where Ellie came in. We had the pan called convex. Ellie sink the pan and he grooved it then the old thing changed. He had more notes, better sounding pans and what not. We were all considering that. That is the way we started to do things. I remember I would put a certain amount of notes in the pan and not having enough notes, if I wanted to put a certain song, I had to put a flat or something in it and when I was done, I had to take it out and put another song and stuff like that. When Ellie came, he had more notes so he could have done what he wanted. I like to repeat this a lot. I remember we played in a competition in Tunapuna and I played a ping-pong and Ellie played a ping-pong. This guy came with this 55 gallon drum pan and when he got on stage the whole place was laughing at him. Ellie won that competition. The following competition was held at the Mucarapo stadium and Ellie, 'Chick' Mc Gru and myself entered. 'Chick' won that competition. We all had the 55 gallon drum pan but Mr. Mannette was telling people that he was the first person who invented the 55 gallon drum pan and that is wrong.
The way how I see it, pan belongs to Trinidad. Do not rob the people of Trinidad of the true history of the pan. Everybody is trying to get a little piece of the action and they are changing the colour of what went down. That should not be. It is like anything else. You have insects and animals that are born one way. For instance when a moth develops, it develops into something beautiful. Pan is like that. It was a rough, old, nasty drum. We used to go and steal garbage pans to make pan.
I will give you a story: Back then, a few guys like Prince Batson, 'Fisheye', a few others and myself would walk down almost to the end of this dry river here. We used to cross South Quay and the train line. Then there was a factory we used to go to buy drums from for twenty-four cents, even though we were not working. We would walk down there at night, climb up on the river wall, jump over the fence and pass drums over to whoever was there with us. We had to walk back up the dry river, hide the drums in the bushes and the next day we would tune some pans. I told this to people, especially those who were going to sit with their thesis and so on. Ellie got rid of that. The story I heard was that he rode his bicycle to Carenage and swam out in the sea. Now this was during the time when the Yankees had the base. He waited in the water until the soldiers had gone, climb up on the fence or whatever was there, lift up the 55 gallon drum pan, throw it over the fence and then swim ashore with it. He couldn't have done that. Anyone can check the archives for the information. He also said he was going to play in some function and he put his pans in a crocus bag. He told the interviewer, "…and you can even call that the first pan case."
Now, in the early days, a lot of pan men didn't even want to put sticks in their back pockets. Do you see the greed? He said out of a family out of ten instruments, he invented seven. But how could you invent seven? Ellie came to me when I did the bass. I directed him to the place where we used to go and steal pans. I said, "If you go there you will get these drums." If somebody tunes a double second and a man comes and adds on one more pan, how can you say you invented it? A telephone was invented years and years ago and now we have cellphones. Who is the inventor of the telephone? Radio is the same thing. He wants to take everything and this is what I do not like. I want the people of Trinidad and Tobago [to know] that their instrument was made by more than one people. Rudolph Charles was the guy who chromed the pan. I think Bertie Marshall or somebody put the high octaves on the outside to give it that ring. This beautiful and lovely instrument which we have and the whole world is enjoying now wasn't any one person who did it. You have to give some thanks or something to the person who started it first. Ellie did a great thing when he started by sinking the drums and putting the grooves in it. If he hadn't done that we couldn't be where we are now. We have to give that to him. But why would he want to take things from other people?
TRINBAGOPAN: How did you come about wanting to play classical music on the Steelpan starting the Bomb phenomenon?
NEVILLE: As a little boy, I always liked music, especially classical. In the early days Invaders was a very popular band. They had good instruments. Today it might not sound like good instruments, but in those days they were very good instruments. They had a following but we were 'a nobody'. I wanted a piece of the action, so whenever Ellie was coming into town, I would try to get close to him so that people would kind of compare us. I remember a Discovery Day was when I first started that. I told them to go down Park Street to see where Invaders was coming from. They would tell me and we would try to get close to them. I kept doing that and then decided for the coming year I was going to practice a tune secretly where Invaders wouldn't hear us. One of the guys was arguing with somebody and he told them to wait until we drop the 'Bomb' and that was how the Bomb came about.
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