The Daily Herald
Marigot, St. Maarten - Tributes will be pouring in today for the birthday of Lino Hughes, leader of the iconic bands “Creole Stars” and “Lino and the Hardway” that dominated the island’s musical scene in the 1970s and 1980s.
Radio stations will undoubtedly be playing his songs, among them “St. Martin is my home” recorded in 1983...
“Even at five years old in my mother’s house Lino was drawn to the steel pans that my older brothers were playing,” remembers Dora, the eldest sister. “Even then he understood how to keep time with the music. When my brothers saw that, they took him into their band and let him play a two-note pan. Because Lino was short in stature, they had to let him stand on a box to play.”
Lino would recall in his own memoirs, at the tender age of seven playing the steelpan with the Prickly Boys at the first major hotel in St. Maarten, Little Bay Beach Resort. He would eventually progress years later from leading a steel band to forming an orchestral band which emerged as the Creole Stars. In the meantime, Lino had learnt to play the trumpet, organ, piano and other instruments.
Creole Stars was created in 1966. Among their gigs, they played at Little Bay hotel on contract from 1968 to 1970.
“At that time, he had a bigger vision of what he wanted to do,” Dora added. “He would end up playing the keyboards for the rest of his career. Creole Stars was the bomb in those days around the islands and they travelled everywhere. The island could not get enough of the band. … ‘Let’s go with Creole Stars’ was the chant. The band was a huge success.
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