Review
Gone, Gone, Gone, could today, be aptly re-titled Coming, Coming, Coming for its prescience. Shorty laments the local preference for foreign music at the time of the recording (circa 1972) and ironically, he too dabbles in it on the same album. That, and the many messages in this recording’s short playing time – unintended pun – is characteristically Shorty and examples of the experimentation that was taking place musically.
Bajan Girl an unmistakable calypso love song is followed by an Isaac Hayes sounding introduction to Loving You. The Memphis soul sound is enhanced with a calypso type scat; but it is soul music, as is This Song which has Otis Redding and Percy Sledge stylings. Even I Who Have Nothing, which starts with a calypso beat, succumbs to the contemporary soul style and electronic gimmicks.
Shorty the innovator is inimitable in Bajan Girl, Soul Calypso Music, The Art Of Making Love, and Indrani which is plunked in the middle of Medley. The latter is a reprise at the end of the CD of some of its earlier tracks, most likely added to extend the CD recording.
The confusion, or extreme self confidence, surrounding the lack of “cultural consciousness” as Shorty calls the paucity of support for calypso music is remarkably obvious today. On the 40th Anniversary of T & T Independence it is garishly manifest.
My first listen to Gone, Gone, Gone is on the same day that I read that the Army band played a foreign song in the 40th Anniversary Independence parade. It must be Trini self confidence at work in this strange scenario. Perhaps Shorty, and others, are overly pessimistic about how embedded is their local music in the local psyche. How else can one open-mindedly reconcile the big, private promotion of a hip hop artiste concert and the Army band playing a rendition of an American based composition on Independence Day.
Gone, Gone, Gone also reminds its listener that today’s technology not only gives life to a “Collector’s Item” as the CD cover proclaims but is unforgiving to technical flaws evident in the editing. Preserving the masters’ work should be done well now, now, now. [eCaroh/Ron]
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