Replies

  • Andy Narell brought DAVID RUDDER out here when RUDDER was RISING. The audience was about 99 percent WHITE and Andy knew that he was taking a gamble because HIS AUDIENCE was HIS AUDIENCE and basically a JAZZ audience. So he was kind of hedging his bets when he played his set and then introduced DAVID RUDDER.

    (Andy's band provided the accompaniment.)

    Well, I was on PINS and NEEDLES to see how this thing was going to work out. (Allyuh know how I LOVE CALYPSO.)

    The BAHIA GIRL did not go so good. However, in my mind, RUDDER was holding his own with this FOREIGN AUDIENCE. And he was impressing me as a CROSSOVER ARTIST -- which is hard for any TRINI ACT to do with me!!!

    But later on in the show before he sang "OFFICER ONE MORE" -- he talked to the audience and explained the context of the song before he began to sing it!!!

    I tell you, he had that audience in the palm of his hands!!! I was mesmerized!!! They kept wanting ONE MORE and ONE MORE. (I have to say that RUDDER came quite close to BREAKING THROUGH INTERNATIONALLY -- but that is another discussion.)

    Dem WHITE PEOPLE ate up that song!!!

    Yet, I I have to go back to my theme that he did not have enough EXPAT HELP to push him over the top.

    After the show there was a little TRINI get together at the home of SHIELA CHARLES who lived in SAN FRANCISCO at the time. And somehow I was nominated to drop RUDDER by SHIELA. When he got in the car and I told him where I was carrying him and who he was going to meet -- he was FLABBERGASTED!!!

    He told me that he did not know that RUDOLPH CHARLES had a SISTER named SHIELA -- and he was in a state of artistic euphoria. Now, to people who love and follow and memorize CALYPSO LYRICS -- one thought should come to mind.

    In THE HAMMER, RUDDER wrote and sang: As we gather round that day/Ah hear SISTER SHIELA say/How last night she see ah sign/she see THE HAMMER and it doing fine ... I am sure that BRENDA HOSANG and CECIL HINKSON got A THOUSAND more stories to tell like that!!!

    I have about TWENTY FIVE!!!

    I LOVE CALYPSO!!!

    • Andy Narell - De Long Time Band

This reply was deleted.