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I met an Elder in the Steelpan movement
Norman Darway
August 12, 2000
By Amon Hotep
For a long time the history of the beginnings of the Steelpan has been shrouded in mystery without a serious effort being made to present the Elders of the movement to the public to tell their story so that proper respect and recognition can be paid to these early inspired inventors. I myself was not aware that so many of them were still around.
Listening to one of the Elders speak yesterday further concretized in myself the need for us to gather from them their accounts of the early beginnings.
Mr. Esmond King brought Mr. Norman Darway, this elderly but rather strong looking gentleman, to my home.
I did not meet with this gentleman before, but that was not strange since most of the people whom Mr. King brings over are people I have not met before. Mr. King normally brings people to hear me explain the fundamentals of Self-development. However, this gentleman was different. He did not seem to be amazed about my youth like most other people, and he did not look like he was in search of any higher knowledge. He seemed rather contented even though a bit concerned about something.
I knew right away that this man was not here to learn but to share something important with me. I decided to stay quiet and let this Elder of some great past speak.
He began by explaining some things he heard about the origins of Steelpan that rather disturbed him and the effort he has been making to have these 'false' claims refuted. He said, "understanding the origins of pan is quite simple, but the numerous people who tried to tell the story did not have the facts and have made this simple history quite complex."
He started to recount from his experience, the beginnings of the Steelpan movement, running through the dates, names of early Steelpan men and places the events unfolded. He was like one of the great elders I read about from our distant African past.
His presence and the ease at which he went about reasoning through the events that brought about the Steelpan captivated me. Normally I have the ability to retain and recall vast amount of information, but this time I felt that just listening was not enough, so I asked him to stop and to allow me time find a recorder.
I finally got a recorder working and Mr. Norman Darway flowed like a river. He had no problem repeating everything he said before. He had this powerful voice speaking from the depths of his soul, so "I reclined to my self" to allow all what he had to say to filter through my soul while recoding everything on tape. When I am quiet on the inside I can easily detect if someone is purposely misrepresenting history and at no time was my spirit disturbed by the facts that this man was presenting. He even gave some details of his involvement in the brutal events that surrounded the early Steelpan movement unconcerned about whether I would have problems digesting such information. He stayed about three hours giving details and presenting photographs and newspapers articles.
He said that he had presented a lot of information to Kim Johnson and he asked me to get in touch with him. I told him that I had spoken to Mr. Johnson who assured me that I could publish his articles.
I thought to myself, here is a real Man, a man who is not restrained by the trappings of poor socialization, comfortable enough with himself to just give the facts. I have met a Man who simply was not bothered by people's perception of him, a Man who was aware of his own greatness.
I met an Elder in the Steelpan movement.
Juct call him Mr. St James
While the discussions continues about what part of Trinidad the Steelpan originated and who first developed the Steelpan, people will have to ask themselves at what stage the beating of any type of iron as objects of percussion be called the birth of the Steelpan instruments we know today. We have to look at the period a person or persons choose to use the pans as instruments by using it as the lead in a musical performance. This has to be determined relatively apart from the use of any type of iron or steel drum in percussions accompanying other leading instruments. We can appreciate that the idea came from the use of tins and drums as objects of percussion. We can also recognize that people may have used anything at their disposal to participate in a melody.
Today I tap on my desk to a melody but I would be foolish to believe that this thumping on the desk should be recognized as the legitimate origin of another instrument that may come along some day because the new instrument is carved out of wood and has four legs. The difference is, I did not deliberately thump on the desk to develop a musical instrument while someone else may have gotten the idea from observing what I did and choose to improve on it and promote it as an instrument. My actions were inspirational and not intentional.
What is the soul of a Man or Woman other than the history of his or her existence that shaped his or her understanding and character?
It is with the deepest respect we present the Origin of the Steelpan and dedicate this work to Norman Darway - The Elder.
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