The Art of [Pan] Tuning is Alive
with Andy ‘Mad Max’ Neils
In the Spotlight
Revisited - Originally published - 10.21.06
Trinidad - One of the pan tuning greats Lincoln 'Delgado' Noel has recently passed, but the art of tuning the steelpan instrument is alive and the torch is passionately carried by some of the other greats of his generation, including Bertram 'Birch' Kelman, Wallace Austin and Bertie Marshall, to mention just a few. And then there are those of the 'next' generation - such as Andy 'Mad Max' Neils. 'Max' as he is also known, is one of the most sought-after pan-tuners in the world, regularly declining job offers to tune entire orchestras and even individual pan instruments, both at home in Trinidad and Tobago, and abroad. The likes of Desperadoes, Exodus, Invaders, Skiffle Bunch and CASYM (New York) steel orchestras, and many more in the US Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Aruba and Antigua - all bear the mark (and sounds) of his expert skills.
But like many steelpan tuners, there is much more to Andy Neils than the present phase of his involvement with this unique instrument. As he worked at tuning a pan at his Barataria-based workshop, When Steel Talks (WST) got an in depth sense of the life of Neils, before he became the master craftsman he is today.
At age seventeen in 1981, as a soon-to-graduate student of South East Secondary School in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, a young Neils had spent a short while with Blue Diamonds steel orchestra, before joining his school's steelband a mere two weeks before the annual national junior panorama competition. A sign of things to come was one week later, when, after he got the tune down on the tenor pan, he was asked to change instruments and learn the panorama selection all over again on the double tenor instead because players were needed in that section. With an even more challenging voice of the instrument, Neils now picked up and 'aced' the tune on the double tenor in that one week before the competition. The arranger for South East panorama that year was Trevor 'Inch High' Ballantyne.
The tuner says he was 'hooked' on pan since then, and his love for the instrument led him, not to Trinidad All Stars, just up the road from South East, but to Renegades. While he was still at South East, Neils had a visit from Renegades personnel who asked him to join their stageside. The present-day pan tuner would spend about fifteen years with the regular panorama orchestra and as a member of its prestigious and world-traveled stageside. It was here, according to Neils, that legendary Renegades arranger Dr. Jit Samaroo, stood looking at him playing a particular bit of music one day. Samaroo then shook his head at his skill combined with speed on the pan, and dubbed him 'Mad Max.' To this day, Neils says, many people who knew him as a player, do not know who Andy Neils is, but are fully familiar with the pan player 'Max.'
Replies
I own three lead pans. One pan is set aside which I only use for gigs - My Andy Neils pan. I bought it from him back in 2001. It has a very even and clear sound throughout its full range. Thank you Andy!