The music of the Christmas season in Guyana is sacred and secular. It has folk, popular, and classical roots, and it is public and private.
Christmas is much more than a season of carols. The music also delivers messages about the state of our culture. At one time, the music of the Christmas season was dominated by rhythms and images that were external, primarily British and American. Over time, additional rhythms and images have been added, especially in the music composed by Guyanese.
Guyanese composers have experimented with many rhythms. In the 1950s, The Four Lords used the 'Bion' beat developed by Al Seales and Bassie Thomas to deliver the perennial Happy Holiday. Others have used calypso, soca, reggae, masquerade, and other regional and international rhythms.
Over time, the lyrics have also changed. Guyanese and tropical themes have been added to snow, sleigh bells, and mistletoe. The lyrics of Guyanese compositions, especially those by musicians in the diaspora, identify a peaceful Guyana. They celebrate the nation's cuisine and legendary hospitality. The lyrics encourage Guyanese to return home for the season.
One of the leading exponents of this genre of Christmas song is Berbician-born, Florida-based John 'Slingshot' Drepaul. His Christmas in Guyana and A Very Merry Guyanese Christmas remind Guyanese about the legendary Guyanese Christmas season not from a Georgetown perspective but from the perspective of rural Guyana. Drepaul's lyrics reaffirm the fact that the season is celebrated by all Guyanese, including non-Christian rural residents.
If Drepaul's soca and chutney-rhythmed lyrics motivate the return home, Deryck Bernard tells us what happens when the Christmas Invasion takes place:
Every Christmas in Georgetown, the place does always
feel strange,
with men cutting Yankee, fat women in shorts...
They drinking you rum as if it can't done
And stuffing black cake like joke.
Christmas Invasion's chorus reminds us:
That is why they come back home with fuh Christmas
Even though they go way and leave us
They really miss home this time of year...
The new songs of the Christmas season are clearly about reconnection and forgiveness. It is about making the family whole again.
Christmas music of the season has been delivered and continues to be delivered through a number of channels (carol singers, record stores, the mass media, public concerts, street performances, and fetes). Some traditions such as the steel band tramp, which flourished during the 1950s, are no longer present in Guyanese society.
Carol singers have been part of the Guyana Christmas music scene for the most of the 20th century. Members of churches, social groups, or neighbours would go singing from yard to yard. They helped to establish carols such as (O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Away in a Manger, and While Shepherds Watched their Flocks as primary carols in the Guyanese Christmas music repertoire.
Choirs such as the Woodside Choir and those associated with St George's Cathedral and the Brickdam Cathedral also contributed to the establishment of this musical repertoire through their public concerts at venues that at one time included the 'Big Tree' on Company Path.
In addition to presenting the majestic carols of our European heritage, these choirs, especially the Woodside Choir, have expanded their repertoire to include works by Caribbean composers such as The Annunciation Carol, composed by Guyana's Brother Pascal Jordan. On its 50th anniversary CD, Woodside Choirs Sing at Christmas, the choir presented Deryck Bernard's Christmas Invasion, along with many of the carols from our European heritage.
Carol-singing has never been limited to Georgetown. Bernard Heydorn reminds us in Longtime Days how wonderful it was be part of a congregation singing Adeste Fideles in a backdam church at Diamond Estate.
We must not forget the part played by bands such as the British Guiana Militia Band (now the Guyana Police Force Band) and the Salvation Army Band in popularizing the music of the Christmas season in Guyana. For example, in December 1914 the British Guiana Militia Band introduced the now immortal Little Drummer Boy to Guianese audiences during a concert at the seawall. The Salvation Army Band, performing on the busy streets of Georgetown, brought Christmas cheer and reminded us to make a contribution to the less fortunate.
During the Christmas season, music has always been taken to the people. The BG Police Male Voice Choir launched their illustrious career with a concert of Christmas carols for patients in hospitals in Georgetown in 1944.
Christmas has always been a season for the gathering of family and friends, and music is an essential ingredient in these gatherings. Before the arrival of radio broadcasting in Guyana in 1932, the piano, the barrel organ, the violin, the concertina, and the gramophone were important vehicles for spreading joy at Christmas time.
During the first decades of the 1900s, The Daily Argosy carried many advertisements for musical instruments and musical equipment starting from around October. The ads reminded the public that these items were necessary for Christians and even offered 'easy credit.' Among the establishments engaged in this commerce were The Argosy Co, Hack's Cycle Depot, Pradasco Cycle Store, and RG Humphrey & Co.
This pattern would continue across the early pre-radio decades and beyond. For example in 1925, Pradacso Cycle Store had a special promotion for the Christmas season. It offered "25 records free" to persons who purchased "one of our Dulceito English-made Gramophones." The advertisement also identified a wide selection of Gennett, Regal, and Columbia records for "your Merry Christmas Parties."
The new double-sides records included Christmas carols, Christmas hymns, and "Christmas Selections." Other records available included Dear Demerara March composed by Sgt Nichols of the BG Militia Band for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 and a range of foxtrots, waltzes, and other popular music for dancing.
The gramophone was clearly an important musical artifact in Guyanese life, especially during the Christmas season. The Motor Garage and Bicycle Warehouse announced in The Daily Argosy of November 7, 1915, the availability of "Reno Record Reviver," which made "old Gramophone Records equal to new."
The advent of radio in British Guiana in 1932 added another channel for the dissemination of music. In the very early days of radio in British Guiana, listeners could receive five channels of programming - the BBC from England, W2XAD and W2XAF from the United States, and two local channels, VP3MR and VP3BG. These channels exposed British Guiana to classical and popular music. Guianese heard programmes such as 'Rudy Vallee's Variety Hour' and 'Bing Crosby's Music Hall,' which provided a diet of non-sacred Christmas music, such as the perennial White Christmas.
For the past 70 years, radio has played a pivotal role in promoting Christmas music in Guyana. By the middle of November the radio waves would come alive with this music, although some efforts were made in the mid-1970s to "de-emphasize" Christmas. That effort, like so many others at social engineering in the post-independence era, failed because of popular resistance.
By the mid-1970s, more Guyanese had access to the record players and stereo sets assembled by GRECO, a subsidiary of Bookers Stores located at Victoria on the East Coast, and these sets ensured that 'Salsoul Christmas' was heard across the land. It is impossible to stop Christmas in Guyana.
Street performances have been another important Christmas tradition. The music of the masquerade bands is absolutely necessary for the season, with the boom, kittle, and flute to accompanying flouncers, stilt men, Mother Sallies, Mad Cows, Budhu Jaundoos and Marajeens.
Masquerade music requires musical and verbal improvisation. A good masquerade flautist is a special kind of virtuoso. So is the Toaster - Guyana's prototypical rapper. The toaster has to be topical, reflecting on the state of the society. In the 1950s when masquerade bands were still referred to as santapee bands, the Toaster could not help reflecting on "the poor people in the jail drinking their sour ginger beer and eating salt fish tail." In the 1970s when the economy took a dive, a Toaster in Kitty Village was heard to say: "Plantain is a ting a doan eat at all/But, when starvation come, I does eat skin an all!"
In the early 1950s tramping on the road was one of the highlights of Christmas Day. Those were the days of the Quo Vadis and Invaders steel bands. Those were the days when Guyanese demonstrated that everybody, irrespective of race, colour, or class, could enjoy themselves together in a steel band. It was natural. It was not state-sponsored.
The Guyanese Christmas season extends beyond Christmas Day. There is Boxing Day, Old Year's Night, and Twelfth Night, each with its own special music. The Boxing Day picnic demands 'jump-up' music. The Boxing Day fetes were held at a range of dance halls. Bernard Heydorn has provided a comprehensive list - Frolic Hall, Garland Hall, Haley Hall, Prospect Hall, Rest Hall, and Tipperary Hall. According to Wayne Jones, "Boxing Day was another big day for Buxtonians." It was the day for 'Teacher' George Young's annual dance at Tipperary Hall. This dance was held annually from 1941-1969 and attracted patrons from outside the village. Attendees wore their "best outfits and tried to outdo one another in the various dances - foxtrot, flat waltz, square dance and tango." Music was provided by popular orchestras from Georgetown. These orchestras knew that they were expected to play music of a high standard. Jones has written, "City orchestras had a way that when they were playing in town they played the best music but in the countryside they felt anything could pass as good music. Not in Buxton."
Old Year's Night required a range of music and the obligatory Auld Lang Syne. Harry Whittaker's rendition is obligatory in some Old Year's Night parties in the Guyanese diaspora.
Some of us liked to extend the spirit of Christmas well into the New Year. However, 'Sir January De Broke' would always upset those plans. So, after a short pause, waiting for January's pay-day, Guyanese returned to a procession of barn dances, souse parties, 'Come-as-you likes,' '2 to 10s,' '3 to 12s,' and barbeques in preparation for the next Christmas season.
There is so much music associated with Christmas. If we pay attention to it, we can find out so much about our history, our aspirations, and our possibilities. Yes, Christmas comes but once a year, and everybody must have a share! So have a happy Christmas, and support a masquerade band. Who knows, there could be tramping in the streets next Christmas.
A version of this article was first published in Guyana Folk (December 2002)
Sources
Deryck Bernard Christmas Invasion from the CD Woodside Choirs Sing at Christmas.
E-mail from Ken Corsbie, December 13, 2003.
Bernard Heydorn When the Dance Hall Bruck Dem Up in Longtime Days. Newmarket, Ontario : Learning Improvement Center, 1998.
Wayne Jones Prophet Wills: The Walking Dictionary. Guyana : Damon Publishers, 1995.