In­nis Fran­cis

A name syn­ony­mous with the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and who stood in the are­na along­side sev­er­al oth­er strong fe­male front­line acts who helped to pave the way for many of the tal­ents hap­pen­ing to­day, is Car­lene Wells.

Wells, dur­ing her sec­u­lar years as an en­ter­tain­er, is a for­mer Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch win­ner, placed third as a pre­vi­ous Song Fes­ti­val fi­nal­ist, and a fe­male front­line act with sev­er­al of the lead­ing ca­lyp­so bands in the 1980s, in­clud­ing the William Munroe-led MEC­CA Tent, Ca­lyp­so Re­vue and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion tent. She lat­er dab­bled in the Chut­ney/So­ca are­na, per­form­ing with bands JMC Triveni, Ruk­shun, She Bang and Dil-E-Nadan.

Wells was one of T&T’s fe­male en­ter­tain­ers to have dom­i­nat­ed the par­ties with her voice, cap­ti­vat­ing au­di­ences with her smooth, sul­try voice that lent it­self well to her 2003 hit, Par­ty Mood.

A change of di­rec­tion

Through care­ful in­tro­spec­tion and com­ing from a place of be­long­ing, she de­vel­oped a deep­er sense of faith, bat­tled with the harsh re­al­i­ties of life and fam­i­ly is­sues, and de­cid­ed to make a de­ci­sion.

She did, and was bap­tised ten years ago; Wells has been min­is­ter­ing to a dif­fer­ent au­di­ence and singing for the Lord as she con­tin­ues to lift her voice in praise.

Feel­ing a sense of ac­com­plish­ment and ful­fil­ment, Wells said she is not ashamed of her be­gin­ning, but she is con­tent with where life has tak­en her as a born-again Chris­t­ian.

On Sep­tem­ber 26, she is set to raise the roof at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce in West­moor­ings with heav­en­ly songs, with mu­si­cal sur­pris­es in Japan­ese and reg­gae.

Mem­o­ries of Japan

Wells said when the all-girl band She Bang was formed, they were giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to vis­it Japan to per­form, and there she was asked to sing in Japan­ese. She said she learned to sing a song in one week, and grad­u­al­ly she learnt the lan­guage.

“We made three con­sec­u­tive trips to Japan, so when I was there we sang at this huge club; and there was a pop­u­lar Japan­ese singer, It­su­mi Os­awa. She used to come to the club to see us per­form, and she want­ed me to learn one of her songs, and that is where I learned Japan­ese and how to sing in Japan­ese, and one of the Japan­ese songs I did, I would be per­form­ing it to a reg­gae beat at the con­cert. I nev­er did any­thing like that be­fore,” Wells said.

Find­ing her faith

Wells is heav­i­ly root­ed in her spir­i­tu­al side; she said she is a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny that life’s cir­cle does not keep you in a loop, but redi­rects your path on­ly if you want the change.

She said, “Af­ter all those things, I got bap­tised and start­ed singing gospel, changed my life, got to know the Lord, and I am a gospel artiste now. I did my first gospel song four years ago, and it was part of the gospel awards at SAPA. I was one of the con­tenders in the awards; I was in the first five, up there with Jaron Nurse. It was a song called Take It All Away From Me.”

She con­tin­ued, “How I used to sing in the world, I tell God, take it all away from me, and I want to sing for him. All the gospel songs I did are about me. I just want to serve him. And an­oth­er one I did is I On­ly Want to Sing For You. A pas­tor told me we need to do a car­di­nal con­cert, where you were be­fore and where you are now. To let the peo­ple see the tran­si­tion. I prayed about it. But the Lord guid­ed me to show the peo­ple where I am now. I want it to be an in­spi­ra­tion for peo­ple.”

Leav­ing the world stage

Wells spoke of an ear­ly tox­ic re­la­tion­ship in her ca­reer. She felt un­filled and in­com­plete. She felt alone, and it was at this point, dur­ing a qui­et mo­ment, that she called on the Lord for re­newed vi­sion and per­spec­tive for her life.

She said, “I have been off the world stage for more than 20 years. I had just gone in­to the church; I didn’t miss it (world stage), for how it hap­pened. I have been a vic­tim of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, and peo­ple are go­ing through the same thing. I was away, went through prob­lems and be­cause of that, I am free from it now. One day I sat qui­et­ly and tell the Lord, I had no one, and I tell the Lord, Fa­ther, I don’t want to sing for the world any­more; I on­ly want to sing for you, and that is when the tran­si­tion came. I was des­per­ate to turn to the Lord. I didn’t want to go back any­more, be­cause of what I went through; I don’t miss it.”

She said she can­not imag­ine her­self still per­form­ing as a lo­cal artist, ca­lyp­so or so­ca, giv­en the per­for­mances ex­pect­ed of artistes to­day. Jok­ing­ly, she said, “I would be naked,” look­ing at per­for­mances by en­ter­tain­ers and artistes to­day. She said, how­ev­er, she is not at­tack­ing any­one for their cre­ativ­i­ty, but “it’s just not for me.”

She said her tran­si­tion is more than the dol­lars and cents; it is about find­ing self and serv­ing the Lord. She is the proud moth­er of two chil­dren, one 25 and 15 years old. She runs her own stu­dio, CWG Stu­dio, and re­mains a res­i­dent of Bel­mont, deeply root­ed in do­ing the Lord’s work.