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List of Nominees/Inductees for Sunshine Awards Hall of Fame

Reading Time 7 minsBDN Interview Sunshine Founder Gil Figaro THE NOMINEES / INDUCTEES FOR THE SUNSHINE AWARDS Hall of Fame Frankie McIntosh – St. Vincent & the Grenadines Musician, Arranger, Producer and Teacher McIntosh, a national of St. Vincent and the Grenadines was introduced to music at the age of 3 by his father, saxophonist, Arthur McIntosh who founded the popular Melo Tones Orchestra Band in the 1950s in St. Vincent. By age 14, Frankie founded the Frankie McIntosh Orchestra which included some of his school mates. In 1968, Frankie migrated to the United States to pursue a degree in… Read More »List of Nominees/Inductees for Sunshine Awards Hall of Fame

BDN Interviews Sunshine Awards Founder Gil Figaro

Reading Time 2 minsBDN Interviews Sunshine Awards Founder Gil Figaro   The SUNSHINE Awards will usher in its 27th annual event October 3, 2015 at the AXA Equitable Center , NYC. Founded and produced by Gilman Theophilus Figaro (Sr.), this Caribbean institution is endorsed by the (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), the organization that produces the Grammy Awards, and the United Nations. The New York Carib News regards the initiative as a “cultural bridge from the Caribbean to the world for the 21st century.” Big Drum Nation sat down with Mr. Figaro on the eve of this… Read More »BDN Interviews Sunshine Awards Founder Gil Figaro

Producer Dalton Narine’s Black Stalin Moment

Reading Time 1 minsProducer Dalton Narine’s Black Stalin Moment  By Dalton Narine First published September 24, 2015. I was working on the Mac several weeks ago when an email from a friend in Cayman [Islands] flew in. “Pan on D Avenue Live on TV,” it said. So I clicked the link, and the remainder of the night enthralled me like no other in recent memory. Each band played two songs, one of choice and a Black Stalin composition. So I figured the pan-affair was a huge hug and big-up to the resident bard. Well, I took it all in till 1.30 a.m.,… Read More »Producer Dalton Narine’s Black Stalin Moment

Hurricane Janet, September 22, 1955

Reading Time 1 mins Sixty years later today Janet smolders in the Grenadian mind. “Janet”, the Hurricane, stands for fury and apocalyptic fire! Curiously, the word “hurricane” is derived from Harucan, the  name of a Carib “Indian”  god who shot calamitous winds.   Poet Derek Walcott acknowledges the Carib deity in a poem entitled “Huracan”.   Once branching light startles the hair of the coconuts, and on the villas’ asphalt roofs, rain resonates like pebbles in a pan, and only the skirts of surf waltz round the abandoned bandstand, and hear the telephone cables hallooing like fingers tapped over an Indian’s mouth, once the… Read More »Hurricane Janet, September 22, 1955

Phyllis Shand Allfrey

Reading Time 1 mins Dominican Phyllis Shand Allfrey, 1907-1986, poet, journalist, editor, novelist and politician, was the only woman to hold  a Cabinet post-Minister of Labour and Social Affairs – in the Grantley Adams’ led Federal Government of the West Indies,1958-1962. Ms Shand held the ministerial office in the face of much heckling from some of her ministerial colleagues, who believed the woman belonged in the kitchen. Before going to Port-of -Spain, site of the federal government,  Ms Shand published The Orchid House in 1953, a novel that has won the status of ‘Caribbean classic’. Shand, founder of the Dominica Labour… Read More »Phyllis Shand Allfrey