Pamberi Remembers Godwin Bowen…
by Andre Moses
It seems that more and more these days we have to confront the fragility of life. Recently, we said goodbye to Winsford ‘Joker’ Devine and then Brother Resistance and now we say goodbye to Godwin Bowen. In eulogising a lifetime contribution, third party subjectivity comes in, but in chronicling the story of the Bowen/Pamberi partnership, we can refer directly to Godwin’s own words, as he memorialized the significance of the connection in the lyrics of his 1993 original composition “Raisin Dust” vocalised by Jonny Douglas.
Each year on de radio
On de television also
Phil Simmonds keep sayin, dis small band raisin dust
Pam…Be…Ri
Listen to de commentary
Pat Bishop speak freely
She point out dis small band sound like a symphony
Pam…Be…Ri
Sweet guitars and cello, and arrangement also,
Dey soundin so heavenly, people want to know
Are they from Laventille, or deep in de city?
Everyone I ask, answering the same
Dis is a small band from the Croisée
Hope to get a sponsor some good day
Look de raisin de dust again
The Bowen Pamberi partnership began on a rainy Corpus Christi in 1982. Most of Pamberi’s core stage side members lived nearby, but when members had successfully ‘timed’ the rain and started to filter in, Bowen was already in the Pan Tent, stretched out on a bench. The implication that ‘this man serious’, ‘while we breaksin rain dis man here already’, was not lost. We were preparing for the 1982 Steelband Music Festival and he began a stylized version of Stalin’s Play One, as our tune of choice offering.
A few months later, Bowen and Pamberi were back at it again, this time for the 1983 Panorama. When Pamberi made its appearance in the Savanah, there were questions about, ‘Who is dat band?’ You see, Pamberi had only just been formed two years earlier, as a merger between San Juan Hill Finland and Petit Bourg Mazicans. Neither of the names rang a bell with the then Panorama audience. Miraculously though, after the National Semis Finals, the new, unsponsored San Juan steelband with the strange name, had raised enough dust in the National Semi Finals to qualify for the Panorama Grand Finals alongside the likes of Desperadoes, Renegades, Phase II and Casablanca. The band played a Bowen arrangement of Sparrow’s 100th Anniversary. By 1986, a then six-year-old Pamberi had made two more trips to the Panorama Grand Finals, placing 8th and 6th with Godwin Bowen arrangements of Pan in Danger and Pan Here to Stay respectively.
By that time too, Pat Bishop was on board as a music advisor, particularly for the Steelband Music Festival for which she researched and recommended pieces for Pamberi. None more dramatic than the Excerpts from Aaron Copeland’s Ballet suite Billy the Kidd, with its Gun battle segment that had the large 1984 Steelband Music Festival audiences sitting up taking notice of the small band from the Croisée.
First dey start off wit de intro
Den de riddum start to leggo
Den the verse and chorus follow
And de variation come so
Now dey goin to de minor
Den de raise de key up higher
By dis time de stage on fire
Dust for so in de Savannah
Dey raisin dust, in de panorama
Dey raisin dust, dey doing it again
De raisin dust, spreading music fever
Dey raisin dust, yuh better pray for rain
As a relatively new entrant to the Panorama arranging stage, Bowen was pushing the boundaries. Instead of using the double second voice to strum as was traditional in those days, he constructed a top envelope of three part harmonies with the double tenor, double second and six-pan voices. He also experimented with not always using the verse/chorus structure in his development section and sometimes opted to build his variations from fragments of the melody. Even some of his jam segments sometimes strayed from the Panorama’s strict thematic confines. With an up-tempo musical style, characterized by driving basslines and virtuoso pan playing, Godwin Bowen’s Panorama arrangements were high octane stuff, with one sufficiently impressed announcer enthusing after one of Pamberi’s Panorama performances, ‘You could fry a egg on the stage, heat in de place!’
Ah never see such a great assembly of Steel on Wheels
An exposition of music fortitude and skills
Yuh better hear dey come for bacchanal
Dey come to support their band in de Finals
Panorama time is here again, let the music play
Play pan, take de sticks and jam de tenor pan
Sweet pan, jam it out to shake the pavilion
Yuh kick it out and pans will play
Tenor pans will join the fray
Cello pans will dingolay
We fell in love wit de steelband,
So we come out to support pan today
For they are the jewels of our nation,
And we come to cause a sensation today
Look ah band! Look ah nudder one!
Look ah band! Look ah nudder one!
Look ah band! Look ah nudder one!
Steel on Wheels in 1988 was the first of Godwin Bowen’s original pieces composed and arranged for Pamberi in the Panorama competition. It was followed by Posse, Ten Minutes of Glory, Bun Down, Panman Forever, Raisin Dust, Rite of Pan, Ah Talkin Meh Mind and Pilgrimage. Seven (7) of Bowen’s nine (9) original compositions took Pamberi to the National Panorama Finals, with Posse earning the band the highest Panorama placing 5th in 1989.
For each of those nine (9) original pieces, Bowen composed the song and the lyrics and also arranged both the calypso demo version and the Steelband Panorama version. The titles of the songs and the lyrics show an arranger and composer who had taken the time to observe and understand the Panorama tradition and the essence of its dynamic, in order to do justice to it in his music.
Pamberi is grateful for the opportunity that we had to partner with such a gifted and thoughtful musician. That period from 1982 to 1997 is etched in our DNA and is the foundation on which we strive to make ‘new history’. To Godwin’s family and to his children in particular, we offer our empathy and the hope for healing with time. Godwin you did good, in fact you did better than good, and students of the steelband, its music and the Panorama tradition owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you and Nuff Respect!
Replies
May he rest in peace my condolence goes out to his family, what a great guy met him many many years ago when he was doing some arrangements on an Explainer album in Semp Studios and who could forget his masterpiece Raising Dust.
Godwin Bowen- Unsung Hero of Pan: No Fast-Food Music for Him
Author: Joseph, Terry
Godwin Bowen has been with the Pamberi Steel Orchestra since 1982 and has contributed to the status the band currently enjoys. Pamberi, under Bowen, has just launched its second compact disc in Japan. Bowen, a highly respected musician, is quietly going about the business of trying to improve the image and viability of the Steelband.
https://uwispace.sta.uwi.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2139/40584/FD6...
Godwin Bowen unsung hero of Pan
No fast-food music for him.