IslandMix - Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Caribbean Entertainment

RAS SHORTY I--PIONEER OF SOCA
A TRIBUTE TO THE MAN WHO CREATED SOCA
Ras Shorty I who was born Garfield Blackman in Trinidad started singing calypso as the LORD SHORTY as early as 1963 with his tune "Cloak and Dagger" in Trinidad. He won his first title in 1970 in South Trinidad when he beat former monarchs Bomber and Black Stalin who placed second and third respectively. He was crowned King of San Fernando at that event. However he was unable to beat Calypso Monarch, The Mighty Duke at the National finals in Port of Spain that year.

In the 1970's he began writing calypso songs for other young calypsonians including "MAESTRO" and his cousin "BARON" who had a hit called "SEVERE LICKING" produced by Shorty. Trinidad and Tobago has been renowned for its magnificent carnivals,calypso and in this century's only musical invention: the steel pan. A prolific musician,composer and innovator, Ras Shorty experimented with the calypso beat for nearly a decade before unleashing "the soul of calypso,"...soca music. Shorty had collaborated with Dominica's 1969 Calypso King, Lord Tokyo and young Calypso lyrics writer Pat Aaron in the early 1970's on a visit to Dominica and released a song called "Ou dee moin ou petit Shorty" meaning "you told me you are small Shorty", a combination of Calypso,Cadence and Creole(as reported in Exile One Gordon Henderson's book, "Zoukland" 1999 edition).

Upon the release of his first album "Sweet Music" and his next "Endless Vibrations", Shorty became more popular with young audiences who followed his revolutionary masterpieces of soca. One composition called "Om Shanti" caused such an uproar in Trinidad that it became very controversial.

However, Soca, not the American soul and calypso,according to RAS SHORTY, is the depth and life of calypso,a bridging of the two major ethnic groups of T&T--the African and the East Indian. Soca is the "Indianization of calypso". Shorty described it as "SOHKA" according to King Wellington's son Vernon Quashie (he reportedly feels that his Dad was better than Shorty). (A short note-"KAISO" is really a short way of saying or pronouncing Calypso without getting breathless. There lies the difference between Soca and Calypso or "Kaiso").

By 1984 Shorty had commanded respect and trust of other Calypsonians.Shorty who had become known as "the Love Man" in the 1970's, changed his name to Ras Shorty I after the "Money Eh No Problem " and "Om Shanti" releases.He had become disenchanted with the image and music he created, saying that soca was being used for the wrong reasons. Among his influences and those he inspired were Soca Monarchs David Rudder,Tambu, Charlie's Roots, Machel Montano and Xtatik,SuperBlue,Colin Lucas,Marvin and Nigel Lewis,Traffik, Atlantik,Anselm Douglas,Blue Ventures and a host of other soca enthusiasts around the Caribbean.

Shorty became deeply religious and retreated to the back hills of Trinidad where he settled with his wife Claudette and children whom he called "The Love Circle". He released "Watch Out My Children" in 1997 after many soca followers had seen a live television footage on "CultureShare" produced by Grenadian born Gentle Benjamin. This anti-drug song that was translated into several languages became very popular in the Caribbean and North America holding on to the number one position for several weeks on the music charts.

Sadly, Shorty passed away on July 12, 2000 at the age of 59. He had just released a new CD in June one year after he appeared at the Aristocrat Ballroom in Brooklyn, New York with the Love Circle.The doctors had found that Shorty was afflicted with multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer. Many friends including Calypso Superstar, the Mighty Sparrow, Calypsonians Bill Trotman and Penguin appeared to be grief-stricken.May he rest in peace. Shorty will be missed tremendously.



Earl Lawrence
www.sensay.com
SENSAY DOMINICA

http://www.angelfire.com/ny/Playmas/shorty.html

Wow, he and Baron were cousins!!! Talented genes runs in that family boi!"In the 1970's he began writing calypso songs for other young calypsonians including "MAESTRO" and his cousin "BARON" who had a hit called "SEVERE LICKING" produced by Shorty."

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I'm very impressed.

Shorty became The Love Man, after an album so titled and took to dressing in pastels and designer bell-bottomed suits. In that vein, he ran afoul of Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams.



It happened at a Dimanche Gras show, when he snag "The Art of Making Love", a song enhanced by unambiguous graphics, which offended Dr. Williams, particularly as he was entertaining Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley and his wife, the latter having taken objection to Shorty's demonstration.



Dr. Williams reportedly asked than attorney general Karl Hudson-Phillips to look into the possibility of bringing the calypsonian before the courts for embarrassing him and his guests.



But Shorty was not to be silenced. The next year at the national calypso king finals he followed up with a song called "The PM Sex Probe", which poked fun at the Prime Minister for his response to "The Art of Making Love". It would be the last time that Dr. Williams attended Dimanche Gras.



It was not the only idiom in which Shorty operated, although songs like "For Kim" did follow. He was equally strong on social and political commentary. His "Money Eh No Problem", another response to a comment from Dr. Williams, remains one of calypso's all-time classics.



Dr. Williams had used the saying as part of a promise to build what is now the Hasely Crawford Stadium and Jean Pierre Netball Courts, offering to do so at a time when the oil-boom had properly set in.



By the turn of the 1980s Shorty became disenchanted with the very image and music he had created, saying that soca was being used to celebrate the female bottom, rather than uplift the spirits of the people. His comment was taken by many as a dig at calypso grandmaster Kitchener, who at first had treated the new music with disdain, then turned around and released its biggest hit in "Sugar Bum Bum."



He turned away from the bright lights going back to nature. He became Ras Shorty I, a spiritual person and took to wearing robes. He also took his children out of school, (he is said to have fathered 20 children), on the premise that the system was not teaching them useful things. He moved into the Piparo forest and began a crusade against the very things for which he had become famous. It is still his campaign.
..... http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Biography/bi...yI_illness.htm

Inspired by a Kevin Lyttle post and all this talk about Soca.. I juss had to look fuh a post from mi Socachat past and bring it back up for the newbies or newbies to the arena of soca...
Enjoy n' Bless!

Great thread! Thanks!

you should hear what I playin now...

some Baron n' Sparrow!

Sweeeet music...all hail the greats I am all for growth & change but most of the soca I hear today just cant touch those classics of the past.

it makes you wonder what happend to the music! I mean music today sometimes is so microwaveable or soo ummm what's the phrase CLICHE'! Even some fetes today can't touch what it used to be in de past!

Any soca collection without music made by this great man is incomplete.