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Troubadours of the Caribbean

This month marks the 35th anniversary of Foxy's Tamarind Bar on Jost Van Dyke. It takes more than good drinks and a prime location for any beach bar to survive that long. And Foxy's has not only survived, it has thrived and steadily expanded. The secret has always been the man himself. Foxy Callwood is at the bar most afternoons, greeting guests and chatting with them. Whenever the time feels right -- whether he's at a table, in a hammock or on stage -- he picks up his well-worn guitar and strums a few chords.

Foxy is an entertainer from the old school. He engages the audience, which can consist of couples that just dinghied in from their chartered sailboat or a full-house regatta crowd. Foxy wants to know where people are from and what they do. And suddenly they're part of the act. He is the Caribbean king of improv, using his vast knowledge and quick wit to include hometowns, jobs and maybe a current event or two to instantly invent a song. The rhymes are grade-school simple, but the songs, like the jokes and stories he tells between numbers, are delivered with Foxy's trademark wide-eyed mischievous grin and supremely mellow demeanor, a combination that never ceases to charm. After all these years, Foxy is still doing exactly what he wants to do, where he wants to do it. "I wouldn't trade places with anyone on earth," he says with a smile as if he can't believe his luck.

Foxy is not the only Caribbean troubadour with staying power. For more than 30 years, Grand Cayman's George "Barefoot Man" Nowak has been storytelling his way through a huge repertoire of humorous calypso and soca songs.

Nearly every diver in the world knows Barefoot's Scuba Do album. The disk includes such classics as "That's A Moray" (sung to the tune of "That's Amore"): "See that thing in the reef with the big shiny teeth, that's a moray / Put your hand in the crack and you won't get it back, that's a moray."

Nowak, like Foxy, keeps his material fresh by using current events. The latest Barefoot Man release, Dirty Belly Button, features a track called "Where's Bin Laden?" The prolific entertainer has even recorded children's albums, which have Caribbean kid classics such as "Peanut Butter and Jellyfish Sandwiches" to supplement his adult-oriented songs like "Kentucky Bourbon and Jamaican Grass" and "Big Panty Woman," which hit the UK pop charts. Nowak accurately captures the expat island experience in the song "I'd Rather Be Here," with the lyrics: "It's hot, hot like hell, hurricane season here / The freight boat be late, I'm all out of beer / Gossip so thick it burn up your ear / But there's no place that I'd rather be, than in the land of the sun, sand and sea."

With its legacy of slavery, cruelty and corruption, the Caribbean also inspires songs with a deeper message. Most people are familiar with Bob Marley's advice, "Don't worry about a thing 'cause every little thing gonna be all right," but may not know of his angry protest songs. The alternating themes of no problem in paradise and let's rock the world continues in the works of other serious Caribbean artists.

Anyone who has visited Anguilla knows Bankie Banx. His beach bar/restaurant The Dune Preserve, on Rendezvous Bay, is the magic candle of Caribbean landmarks: Hurricanes persist in blowing it off the dune -- four times in six years -- but Bankie nails it right back up and keeps the flame burning. Visitors to The Dune hear Banx play good-time reggae tunes and funky island-infused rock, jazz and blues. But the 50-year-old singer/songwriter has also received international acclaim for his recordings like "The Battle's On" with the spirited lyrics: Destroy the land / Destroy the food / You must destroy the man / So take a stand / And be prepared to fight / To defend your plight.

Bankie Banx has traveled the world with his music, and he has a collection of songs that speak to being homesick for Anguilla. Tortola's Quito Rymer also spent time away from the Caribbean and, like Banx, returned to his home island to open a successful beach bar/restaurant that doubles as a venue for his music. Rymer made his first music on a toy ukulele. He's now recorded five albums.

People from all over the BVI flock to Cane Garden Bay when Quito and his band play. The crowd at Quito's Gazebo starts out touristy, and Rymer accommodates them with reggae standards and his more accessible original tunes. As it gets later, the crowd gets progressively more local as islanders pour over the mountain from Road Town. Quito transitions into his edgier, political songs such as "They Don't Know Nothing." The serious lyrics don't take anything away from the danceability though, and the bar stays sweating-room-only late into the night as the crowd parties with one of the Caribbean's entertaining troubadours who can carry a message as well as a tune.

Posted online 03/26/04.

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