First of all, as the WISE MR. LAWFORD DUPRES pointed out: It is more of a COLLATING PROJECT than a BOOK WRITING PROJECT. Although I do intend to present to BUGS and MERRYTONESTOTHEBONE and WHENSTEELTALKS and AQUIL ARRINDELL and PAN TRINBAGO and MR. DUPRES and ODW a first draft of the project in BOOK FORMAT.
After which the document could be REWORKED to anybody's vision.
So let me outline how I see the content, from my perspective.
Some people say that PAN has spread all over the world; so my objective would be to find as diverse a series of stories as possible -- spread as far around the world as I can identify. Which means that if I was in total control of MR BUGS PROJECT -- i would not use 10 STORIES from NEW YORK. Three would be a stretch for me. And then I will use ONE from the WEST COAST and that is the end of AMERICA for me. And no more than two from CANADA and two from ENGLAND.
Hence, I prefer the title GLOBAL PIONEERS OF STEELDRUM MUSIC!!! (And that gives me the LATITUDE to add some NAMES from TRINIDAD who networked PAN MUSIC across the globe from their base in THE MECCA.)
At this point we have AUSTRALIA and SWEDEN and DENMARK and CANADA and AMERICA and ENGLAND. We need ASIA and AFRICA and that will be good enough for me.
But when I think about the EXPANSION of PAN around the GLOBE, I have to consider EXPATS other than the ones who PLAYED THE PAN. And even though I never talk about REGGAE and JAMAICA, I will tell a short story about a Jamaican Man named JOHN BENT who lives out here in Northern California.
JOHN BENT love REGGAE more than I LOVE CALYPSO (and that is a stiff competition, eh). And he spent his life PROMOTING REGGAE in the BAY AREA. All the grunt work involved in promoting a REGGAE SHOW -- John Bent did it. But his name will never be called in a BOOK talking about the promotion of REGGAE in THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. Because he was never on THE STAGE or in the NEWSPAPERS or on THE POSTERS that he spent hours tacking to POLES and PASTING to STORE FRONTS along the streets advertising the next REGGAE ACT coming to town. But in my book he did more to promote REGGAE than half the performers who came in to town and did their show and got paid and left.
So I feel the need to recognize some "JOHN BENTS" of PAN. And that might include a PAN TUNER or TWO and some ordinary PAN LOVERS (like Cecil Hinkson and Brenda Hosang) who contributed SILENTLY to the promotion of PAN MUSIC around the GLOBE.
That is my idea for the CONTENT of this FIRST DRAFT.
I am sure that MERRYTONESTOTHEBONE and WHENSTEELTALKS and BUGS and ODW and all the other contributors have their vision of what should be included in a PROJECT like this.
But I am going to continue working on this project within the PARAMETERS that MOTIVATE ME. Everything else could GET FIXED from that point forward!!!
Now, we need some HELP with some stories from AFRICA and ASIA!!!
Claude
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