SAN­DRA L BLOOD

In ap­pre­ci­at­ing every­thing he re­ceived, be it good, bad or in­dif­fer­ent, in­clud­ing dai­ly bread, San­gre Grande na­tive, res­i­dent, cul­tur­al ac­tivist and ca­lyp­son­ian Er­ic Tay­lor, 65, says, “My Lord con­tin­ues to pre­pare a ta­ble be­fore me in the pres­ence of my en­e­mies.”

Stage-named Pink Pan­ther (Pan­ther) for the 50 years he has served in ca­lyp­so at the Ka­lyp­so Re­vue Tent (Re­vue) and has re­mained loy­al to to­day, he will be re­ceiv­ing a “gold­en ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tion” dur­ing the tent’s pro­gramme this year, cov­er­ing five nights, and con­tin­u­ing af­ter Car­ni­val.

It will start this Fri­day (Feb­ru­ary 6) dur­ing the tent’s grand open­ing at the Ari­ma Velo­drome and con­tin­ue on Feb­ru­ary 7th, 8th and 13th (judges’ night) at the SWW­TU Hall, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain and on Feb­ru­ary 14th (Valen­tine’s Night) at Queen’s Hall, S Ann’s.

Un­der the theme “Come Cel­e­brate Pink Pan­ther’s 50th An­niver­sary in Ca­lyp­so,” the Re­vue and Pink Pan­ther are invit­ing lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al fans to come ex­pe­ri­ence and en­joy mu­sic su­prema­cy.

Join­ing Pan­ther will be his long­time friends Sug­ar Aloes, Chalk­dust, Skatie, De­von Seales, Lord Nel­son, Baron and Trinidad Rio. Spe­cial fea­tured acts in­clude Fun­ny, Michelle Hen­ry, Maze, Make­da Dar­ius, Mighty Di­a­mond, Alana Sin­nette, Singing So­nia, Nao­mi Sin­nette, Sasha Ann Moses and oth­ers. Mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment will be sup­plied by Cum­mings & The Wail­ers, back­ing vo­cals by the Re­vue An­gels and Mar­cus Bap­tiste will share mas­ter of cer­e­mo­ny du­ties.

Pan­ther said he’s a proud San­gre Grandeian and took plea­sure in reach­ing SWW­TU night­ly to per­form through the years. He said reach­ing this mile­stone is not sim­ply a dream come true, but a bless­ing that many have not been priv­i­leged to ex­pe­ri­ence. In his Life in San­gre Grande ex­posé, he ex­plained how the jour­ney de­vel­oped, which in­cludes how he got the so­bri­quet Pink Pan­ther.

It was while at North East­ern Col­lege as a stu­dent, when the tele­vi­sion car­toon Pink Pan­ther was pop­u­lar, that his class­mates some­how de­duced that he was Pink Pan­ther. He said at a par­tic­u­lar time his teacher, Miss Sargeant, need­ed some­one to rep­re­sent the class as a ca­lyp­son­ian, and as his peers re­alised he was al­ways writ­ing short po­ems to girls, they nom­i­nat­ed him.

“Miss, look Pink Pan­ther!” they shout­ed.

The teacher then told him he has to have a name like ‘Mighty’ or ‘Lord some­thing’, but he calm­ly told her the stu­dents were al­ready call­ing him Pink Pan­ther, so why not keep it at that. Ca­lyp­son­ian Pink Pan­ther was thus born.

Tay­lor said his main­stream ca­lyp­so ca­reer start­ed from that time when he was em­braced by the San­gre Grande Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (SGCC). He be­gan par­tic­i­pat­ing in their com­pe­ti­tions, which were held at AS­COT Cin­e­ma. There, he met fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Scrunter, Pos­er, Mat­a­pal, Soft Touch and Pup­pet Mas­ter, de­scribed as great ca­lyp­so­ni­ans.

Pan­ther said he ac­tu­al­ly beat Scrunter in a maid­en at­tempt at a com­pe­ti­tion, but there was no an­i­mos­i­ty. In­stead, he was grate­ful to Scrunter for in­tro­duc­ing him to Port-of-Spain and to Lord Kitch­en­er.

“Scrunter in­tro­duced me to Kitch­en­er as, ‘This is the young boy that beat me.’ That’s how my jour­ney with Kitch­en­er’s tent Ka­lyp­so Re­vue be­gan,” Tay­lor said.

In 1992, Pan­ther copped the Na­tion­al Young King ti­tle with Ah Cyar See; the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle in 2013 with Trav­el Woes/Cry­ing in the Chapel, com­posed by Chalk­dust, and was a Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nal­ist in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Some oth­er mem­o­rable Pan­ther hits in­clude Mis­print, The Apol­o­gy, Laugh­ing in the Ghet­to, The Con­sti­tu­tion, Chalkie Say, For the Good Times, and Ten Hon­est Men.

While nav­i­gat­ing his cul­tur­al jour­ney, he grad­u­at­ed from the Arthur Lok Jack School of Busi­ness and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, and al­so held a se­ries of high-pro­file pub­lic ser­vice port­fo­lios, in­clud­ing di­rec­tor, chair­man, man­ag­er and su­per­vi­sor (II). He is al­so the founder/pres­i­dent of the San­gre Grande De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (SGDF) and its Youth Arm, and it was his “ad­vo­ca­cy, con­fi­dence, ar­gu­ments and di­rec­tions that brought the San­gre Grande Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in­to be­ing on March 12, 2012.”

Tick­ets for Fri­day’s tent open­ing are avail­able at Michelle’s Fash­ions; Massy Stores, Broad­way Ari­ma; and SWW­TU Hall, PoS.