Ensure Andre’s music lives on

The Editor: Andre Tanker’s passing has left a chasm in the many lives he touched, either personally or through his music. 

Andre first penetrated my consciousness as a child in the, 60s, with songs like Linstead Market and Living for Lena. He rocked my teenage world with the funky groove of Basement Party and the patriotic Come Back Home  (later changed to Forward Home). Once I attended my first Tanker concert, I was hooked for life. Memories of concerts at the Pelham Street and Little Carib Theatres, Astor Cinema, Normandie Car Park, Queen’s Park Savannah and Cascadia Club, are etched on my brain forever. 

His music lives on, it is true, but it is hard to imagine a world without another Andre Tanker concert.  When I learnt of his death, I envied the hundreds who were privileged to attend his last performance at the Mad Hatter’s fete. His 1996 CD, Children of the Big Bang and subsequent work with Rituals, temporarily satisfied our hunger for a tangible memento of his exhuberant performances. What is needed now, is an anthology of the work that allowed him to reinvent himself over and over and bridge the generation gap like no local artistehas ever done.  A compilation that will do justice to his invaluable cultural legacy to Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean and the world.

Cathy Shepherd
Long Circular Rd