STEELBAND HISTORY

INVADERS COMING !

"We never played outside of Woodbrook. When Carnival was banned during the war, we played in the yard. When the war ended in 1945, and everybody come out on the streets, we come out for the first time, in the night. Roxy had a movie showing, Invaders. We called ourselves Night Invaders, then just Invaders."

Being a "social" Woodbrook band, they played a lot of Latin music: La Paloma, Ciboney. Then Oscar Pyle from Casablanca invited them to play in San Fernando, a gig every week for about 20 players. No fighters, just people interested in music like Zephrine, Ray Holman, Happy Williams, Roy Horsford. Invaders even went to Aruba in 1950 for about four months.

By then, Ellie Mannette was learning the trade of welding and turning that would blend with his musical ability to make him the most skilled pan-tuner in the world. Wickham was a machinist with Public Works, and later the railway. The first Carnival night that Invaders decided to go in town was a turning point, says Wickham, "from one state of life to another." It was a couple years after 1945. They had played sailor on the streets around Woodbrook and decided to go "in town" in the night.

"We were going up Duke Street to George Street. Tokyo was coming along Duke Street. Well, they mash us up flat. Ellie had a pan he called Barracuda. They carry it up the hill, put it on a tree, and tell him if he want it come for it. It was massacre. We couldn't fight back. All we could do was run."

"Later, when Stanley Hunte, from Luis Street, joined the band, he said this must stop. He was a warrior. Stanley mobilised us like troops, and we marched in town, and we start to beat: Tokyo, Red Army. We mash up a dance in Princes Building where Tokyo was playing."

The most famous clash of all, however, was the one with Tokyo on Charlotte Street, immortalised by Lord Blakie:

And when the two band clash, if you see cutlash!
Never me again, jump up in a steelband in Port of Spain!

It was the second time Tokyo "mashed us up flat!" recalls Wickham.

Then there was the J'Ouvert morning that Boysie Singh and his gang led the band in town to raid Tokyo. Boysie, also known as the Rajah, was later convicted for murder. They got respect. "Six o'clock J'Ouvert morning, the first flag going in town was Invaders, with all Woodbrook behind us, the respectable families of Woodbrook in tow, the Clarkes, Bruce Procope, Ronnie Williams, Norman Tang, Telfers, Springers, Robinsons, Armstrongs. Without them we would have been nothing. They didn't know what they were going to meet. And maybe, we would all have to run back." In the early 60s, Dr Eric Williams had the idea that business should partner steelbands. Invaders was the first band to be sponsored. Shell was the first sponsor to come forward. BWIA arrived at Invaders' yard the day after Shell was committed, so they went down to St James to sponsor the BWIA Sunjets. It gives Wickham comfort to know that after 40 years, BWIA has become their "business" partner.

The movement from fighting on the streets to musical competition was as hard a battle for Invaders. At Queen's Hall, Dixieland beat them into second place by half a point (for stage appearance). Wickham considers their rendition of Ketelby's In a Monastery Garden, arranged by Jocelyn Pierre, one of the best pan performances, alongside Strauss's Voices of Spring played by Pan Am North Stars. Another time, after Invaders had been announced as Panorama winners with Kitchener's Mas in Madison Square Garden (1971), there was a subsequent announcement to say that they had only won "best dressed." Like other bands, Invaders has had to contest rulings in competition.

Ellie Mannette left in 1967. He had already created all Invaders' special pans: tenors, guitar, cellos, high and low basses, made readily available through the business that Invaders partnered: oil. So the period from the 50s into the 60s were years of prolific creativity, experimentation and the development of instruments.

When they visited him in the USA in the early 70s, Ellie was still "stretching" the range of music on the face of the pans. He is now artist-in-residence and an adjunct professor in the College of Music at the University of West Virginia. No one can beat Ellie as a tuner, Wickham says. Top players from Trinidad - Boogsie, Ken Philmore - go to Ellie to get their special pans. His brother, Birdie, was also an ace tuner. He was challenged to get a third octave on one pan, something he worked at until he died.

Pan is being played and standardised in places far from Invaders' breadfruit tree these days. The world is playing its music with this unique Caribbean instrument. But there are some things about pan that still exist only here in Trinidad. The panside "under the breadfruit tree" continues to be a living archive of a process that was first communal, then spiritual, and finally musical.

Corporate partner BWIA West Indies Airways was born in the same year as Invaders, and now continue to soar together under the banner of Caribbean culture. In November 1999, when BWIA started their service between Washington DC and the Caribbean, a set of Invaders pans was presented to the Museum of the Organisation of American States. If you go there, you might even hear them being played. [BACK]