Pan in Barbados

Does anyone here know how pan first came to Barbados or Jamaica? Steel bands are very popular in those islands, but who took the instrument there in the first place on why? and when?

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  • Can't say when the first steel and was formed in Jamaica or Barbados, but I went with a band (Dixie Stars) to Jamaica in 1953. As I remember there were no local bands at that time. Also to Barbados with Tropitones in 1955 to play at the opening of a new nightclub. Don't think there were any steel bands operating there at the time........ But who knows? Somebody in those islands may have the information .
  • Well if you ask the Bajans they will tell you that they were the originators of both steelpan and calypso

    • Hi Mr Cezair.  I believe you were speaking tongue and cheek and that is okay.  I will not enter a debate about calypso and its originators.  You would have to talk to Chalkie about that one.  Re steelpan, I cannot think about any right-thinking Bajan who would claim to be the originator of this great instrument.  We can claim Joseph Griffith, who accompanied those players to the Festival of Britain in 1951.  Even if we wanted to make the claim, it would not make us look too good in the steelpan world, simply because we have not made many strides in this arena.  We do not even have a Panorama.

      So no Wayne we will NOT tell you that we created steelpan.

      • I once had a Bajan Girlfriend that made a remark ( in our Queens Park Savannah, Panorama  Night, while WITCO Desperadoes were on stage in 2000). The remark was that Barbados was the land of the Steelpan. I asked her if she said that for me to laugh. 

  • When did Nerlin Taitt emigrate to Jamaica?
    • Taitt moved to Jamaica in 1963. Though he was certainly a pan man in his youth (even winning the soloist prize in the 1956 Festival), I don't believe he brought pan with him to Jamaica. By that time he was touring in Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, and elsewhere with his combo (Nearlin Taitt Orchestra).

      There's at least one recording of a Jamaican steelband that predates Taitt's arrival there, "Steel Band Jump Up" by the steelband at UWI Kingston from 1957 (Decca).

      • However, it is said the characteristic strum of reggae guitar came from the strum of the guitar pan, brought over by Taitt...

    • I think that when Trinidad was given the Capital Site to be the head of the Federated West Indies, Jamaica protested and breakaway from the federation. They invited Trinidadian to be part of their culture and give Trinidadians residential Visas to work in Jamaica. We had lost one of musicians saying he got an offer to work in Jamaica. In 1967, a band I was playing with on the way to Expo 67' in Montreal, I met some of these musicans playing in the red light area in Kingston, Jamaica

      .

  • Hello All

    When I was conducting studies on the development of pan in Barbados, one of my interviewees asked me "what development" and although it sounded a bit harsh, it was true, we have not developed very much in the pan arena at all.  The below was taken from the A-Z of Barbados and this was also what I learnt during my studies. 

    Steelpan was introduced to Barbados in 1945 by the late Albert Shilling Grannum who had been exposed to it while serving in Trinidad with the South Caribbean Regiment during the Second World War.

    With more enthusiasm than musical talent, Grannum could do little to promote the art which progressed slowly, though there were a few bands established before he died in the Mental Hospital.

    Trinidadian pan-tuner Randolph Simmons, otherwise known as Croppy, subsequently came to Barbados where he was associated with the All Stars Steel Band, transforming it into the top local band. By this time sponsorship from soft drink companies and friendly rivalry through competitions had further developed the steel pan until it reached a peak during the 1960’s though it never reached the height found in Trinidad, and it actually declined during the 1970’s.

    Steel band or steel pan has again been on the rise in Barbados,but only during the Crop Over festival.  We once had a competition called Pang-a-lang. During the 1990’s the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) and the UWI produced a number of pan workshops which resulted in significantly more people playing the instrument.

    Pan is now mostly concentrated in the hotels and were it not for this industry pan would be practically dead in Barbados.  By the way Barbados All Stars steelband still plays on the hotel circuit.

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