CALYPSO ROSE
The woman behind the music

Photograph courtesy Selwyn Henry

No one who sees Calypso Rose perform can resist being enthralled by her vivacity and warmth. Small in build, but in possession of a powerful voice, a ready smile, and the heart to match, she has conquered audiences all over the world. But there is more to the Trinidad and Tobago icon than meets the eye. Caribbean BELLE sat down with Calypso Rose as she talked about the woman behind the name and the obstacles that she overcame on her way to becoming an internationally recognised songstress.

Growing up in Tobago

McCartha Linda Sandy-Lewis laughs when she talks about growing up in Tobago in the 1940’s: “I come from a very large family. There were 13 of us...imagine fitting 13 children into a two-room house.”

Her father, Altino Sandy, a fisherman, farmer and Spiritual Baptist minister, was also a bit of a Casanova, having sired seven children outside of wedlock. “He would be away fishing and farming for weeks,” Rose remembers, “so my mother took care of us.” Despite his absences, Calypso Rose remembers her father fondly. “He was a very loving man. He couldn’t read or write but he could preach good,” she laughed.

As a child, Rose didn’t have her father’s way with words: “I couldn’t speak, I would stutter and stammer.” She did, however, have a peculiar gift of ‘sight’. “I had spiritual eyes,” she said, “I would see things and let the family know what was happening before it happened.” Her father, she claims, would have to keep an eye on her while everyone slept to ensure that she didn’t open the door and walk away into the night.

When she was nine years old, a visit from a family friend changed the course of Rose’s life. “My father’s brother had a girlfriend in Trinidad,” she remembers. “Her two sons were in England and she wanted someone to keep her company. My uncle told her, “My brother have a whole bundle of them. Go Tobago and take one.” So she came. Edith Robinson, enthralled by the little girl who sucked a finger while the other hand twisted her hair, took her to Trinidad the following day. “I was so glad,” Rose said, “no more fighting for roast sweet potato for breakfast and bush tea.”

Life in Trinidad

Robinson, Rose claims, loved her as if she were her own child and introduced her to the world of calypso. She recalls her singing and ‘wining’ while preparing a lavish Sunday spread of stewed meats, callaloo, rice and provision: “In those days she had a music box with the gramophone that you crank up and I was the DJ, cranking up that gramophone. My aunt had loved calypso (she starts singing Pharaoh’s “Portuguese Dance”)... Vishti Vishti Vai ...”

It was during these musical interludes that Rose developed her trademark ‘wine’: “She was a party lady, my aunt...that’s how I learn to wine. She used to put me on the table and show me how to wine.”

But not everyone was as accepting as her new guardian. Her schoolmates at the San Juan Government School teased the little dark-skinned girl with the picky hair and the stammer. She recalls: “It was very rough ... I couldn’t speak and they used to tell me, “Small islander, go back to the country you come from.” .... I cried because I couldn’t say what I wanted to.”

Calypso, however, would give her a voice. Recalling the incident that led to her first calypso, Rose said: “My aunt sent me to the market and I saw a guy snatch a pair of glasses from a lady and start to run...That night, I started writing because I had never seen this in Tobago...In Tobago, nobody steals...anybody want something, they ask.”

The new calypso, “My Tobagonian Boys”, warned Tobagonian young men to remain in the sister isle for their own safety. “Jane went into the market to buy piece of ice, and a fellow snatch the glasses from off she eyes,” Rose sang.

A star is born

As the young calypsonian blossomed, so did recognition of her talent, until one day, she sang in front of Trinidad and Tobago’s new Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams. She recalls: “Doctor called me and said, “You are very good. You should sing in the calypso tent.”
Her confidence boosted by Dr. William’s compliment, Rose joined the Mighty Spoiler’s Young Brigade Tent on Nelson Street, Port-of-Spain. There, she was greeted with open arms. “They were elated; they went crazy,” Rose said. “They had me as an asset in the calypso tent – I was so vibrant.” The tent, a roaming one, carried her all over Trinidad and Tobago. “We would sleep in people’s houses on bags on the floor. And I was never abused by any calypsonian, musician or tent manager,” she said.

In Spoiler’s tent, Rose received the primary ingredient of every calypsonian’s bag of tricks - her stage name. “There were two tent managers,” she recalls. “I knew them as “Piggy” and “Spike”. They say, “What is your calypso name?” I say, “Crusoe Kid.” Spike say, “No, no. We will call you Calypso Rose.”

Overcoming challenges

She had overcome a speech impediment and prejudice, but Rose’s ordeals were far from over. In 1958, while walking home from a political meeting, she was accosted and raped by three young men. “I got three broken ribs and a fractured right hand,” she remembers. “They took a knife and put it in my stomach and when one of them said, ‘Leh we take her now,’ another one stammered, ‘N-no, no. D-doh leh we kill her b-because we done use her’.”

The men were arrested and served time but the damage was already done: “That caused me to live the way I’m living up to now. I’m afraid of being close to men. And now, I’m 70 and I have never been with a man since then.”

When asked how she manages to exude such sensuality onstage despite this traumatic event, Rose laughed: “I love my audience ... I embrace them. They give me themselves and I open myself to them as I am.”

Taking over the world

Rose’s songs, undeniable in their wit and jauntiness, have won her national and international acclaim. Her most successful composition, “Fire in Meh Wire”, is a calypso anthem and has been translated into several languages.

When asked to define the high point of her career, Rose answered: “It was when the Government of Trinidad and Tobago changed ‘Calypso King’ to ‘Calypso Monarch’ and when I captured that title in 1978.”

Thirty years later, the singer, who has survived cancer twice in the past two decades, is showing no signs of letting up. Her most recent album, eponymously named, has taken Europe by storm and topped World Music charts. She tours Europe consistently with French company, Azimuth Productions, and is in the process of releasing a documentary about her outstanding career.

But what is McCartha Linda Sandy-Lewis most grateful for? “Life,” she says. “I passed through death, so I have to thank God for life. Fifty-five years in this business and I’m still going strong.”