Percussionist Ralph MacDonald is visual and sometimes quietly intense but always expressive, and is a compendium of unique island and conventional percussive rhythms. The When Steel Talks (WST) crew was privileged to sit down with the dynamic musician in his Stamford, Connecticut home and preview Mixty Motions his newest CD before its release. MacDonald has done a lot of interviews, but only here with WST, in addition to the detailed look at Mixty Motions, does the world get the inside scoop on his full relationship with the steelpan, and his intimate connection with what is the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, and hear him proudly proclaim that his favorite orchestra is the mighty Desperadoes Steel Orchestra nestled in the hills of Laventille...
Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. As one of Harlem's famous sons, three-time Grammy Award winner Ralph MacDonald is of Trinidadian parentage and grew up in the ‘Black Capital of the USA.’ Born March 15, 1944, MacDonald has lived both the New York and Caribbean-influenced lifestyles, juxtaposed as they were during his youth in Harlem. His African heritage was never too far away, with his paternal grandfather hailing from Nigeria. MacDonald was in step with his father as soon as he could walk, and admired by audiences who were charmed upon seeing and hearing him play drums with his father’s twelve-piece orchestra. In fact, dad Patrick MacDonald was himself a calypsonian who opted for the sobriquet The Great Macbeth, and so popular, he had two orchestras for ‘gigging’ on the same nights.
Moving easily between the Trinidadian/Caribbean and New York/African American worlds, MacDonald was also growing up within the Harlem Renaissance. When acts like the Three Degrees and the Four Tops awed audiences at the historic Apollo, MacDonald was there. And his observations and experiences were being codified while absorbing the charismatic, empathetic and militant Malcolm X who would be regularly schooling the disenfranchised Harlem masses, right next to the subway at 116th Street and Lexington Avenue. The young Ralph MacDonald was also noting the goings-on in the artistic and entertainment worlds, such as the flow of white comedians coming up to Harlem and catching all the famed black acts like Red Foxx et al, and stealing the acts/routines of blacks, taking it downtown to their white audiences, where blacks were conveniently disallowed.
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