Frank Clarke Kids





:: Bassman ::

:: Amalia Rosas ::

:: Rhapsody In Blue ::

Aside from the occasional Sesame Street episode in the seventies, or grooving to DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night” at roller skating rinks in the eighties, the steel drum has played a minimal role in my life. Thankfully, that's all changed as I'm now the proud owner of this platter of percussive gold from 1974, featuring Trinidad’s self-proclaimed steelband prodigies, The Frank Clarke Kids.

Trinidad is a land filled with panyards that most kids become acquainted with at a young age, so that “prodigy” label probably gets thrown around quite a bit in those parts- but there's no denying that these young'uns were extraordinarily talented. Frank Clarke was the group's manager and producer. The band was a mix of his sons, step-sons, a daughter, and other boys from their Cipriani Boulevard neighborhood. We can think of Mr. Clarke as perhaps the Trinidadian Joseph Jackson, without, hopefully, the verbal abuse and ass whippings.


Phil
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Friday, March 07, 2008 4:34:00 AM

I lived and worked in Trinidad for a while in the 1990's, while it's true that Pan music is everywhere, especially at Carnival time, Trini culture is FULL of music from steelpan to calypso (in many varieties) to soca (including chutney soca, an Indian-influenced variant)rapso( a dub variant of calypso) and so on. I love it all, there are a few stores in NYC that carry the stuff.    



Saturday, February 06, 2010 2:38:00 PM

Cool, thanks!    



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