Welcome back 'home' Gene

Sixty-four-year-old entertainer Gene Lawrence, who paid a musical visit to our shores last week told People that musically, he enjoys composing, stating that is where his soft spot is. “Performing is not as exciting as composing for me so I intend to compose much more and will probably write a few books on what I have done, and on the history of the music as well.” Lawrence and his wife Catherine,  left Trinidad 14 years ago for St Lucia but have been in and out of Trinidad once or twice a year, given the number of activities taking place here.  Lawrence was born in St Vincent, grew up in Guyana, then moved to Trinidad before going off to England. After spending some time in England he came back to TT, but now resides in St Lucia. “But Trinidad is like the home of all the activities; the pan, the parang. When I’m here, I use local crack shot musicians who have played with me in the past,” he said. Those musicians include Douggie Reddon, “Ming,” and Jerry Banfield. He admitted that he doesn’t have a permanent band in St Lucia but said: “I do shows mainly, and I write a lot of music for the theatre over there. We started a theatre with Helen Camps who has been in St Lucia for the past few years. With her help and energy, we started the tent theatre like what we used to have here many years ago. The French government kindly sponsored the tent for us and we have it going. Quite a lot of young people are now involved in the theatre so we have like an outlet where we can express the theatre material and I do most of the composing for the theatre.”

Lawrence has produced five albums to date, which are now on two CDS, plus new material. He just released his latest CD which is now on the local market. Lawrence has published 26 original pieces but has as many as 70 pieces that have never been published. Those pieces were used in theatres and special performances. When Lawrence started in the music business, it was with the late Andre Tanker that he played guitar when they were in their teens in the late 50s. He continued entertaining local audiences everyone back then was familiar with his popular “Rio Manzanare,” until his misfortune in his other career in construction. He said: “When the bottom fell out of a barrel here, I was unable to get another job for the next two years so I went up the islands and fortunately St Lucia was having a mini boom and I got in there and I must say, it was a very successful move for me.” Lawrence and his wife now have a home there and with their children all grown, he said: “I don’t know if we would make a permanent move back here (to Trinidad) but I certainly enjoy coming and we are very close by, so it’s easy to visit regularly. We have quite a lot of family here.”

His son Barry is married with three children and his daughter who just completed her Masters in Education, now lives in Florida. About the music now coming out of Trinidad, Lawrence said that he thinks it’s starting to turn around and improve, after going through what he called a “funny” period with rap music. He said: “We just swallowed everything in its path, and I didn’t think it had a lot of music. It had a lot of rhythm which is what everybody went for, and I believe we were influenced a lot by the USA and Jamaica, which was not true, true Trini stuff. But now I’m seeing some stuff coming back out, and what is most interesting is the influence of the East Indian music on our music here. You only have to listen to some of the calypso melodic lines, they have that East Indian/Trinidad inflection in the melody line which is really nice. Denyse (Plummer) has done a few pieces, going back to the days of Ras Shorty who started the whole trend.” He added that Trinidad is an eclectic kind of country, where things move at such a pace all the time. “It’s like a pot-pouri, all these cultures mixed. The pan is very strong, the East Indian music is very strong, they influence each other and out of it is coming real Trinidad music. It’s great,” Lawrence said. He added that the music has to be international and worldwide in the future.  “I don’t know if we will be as lucky to sweat the world as reggae did. Reggae was lucky that they had a 4-fourth bass. Our calypso has much more syncopated rhythms to which the world is now getting accustomed. I have a very optimistic view that in the near future, Trinidad music will be spread even wider than it is now,” he said. For now though, Lawrence said that he just wants to live a very happy life and to enjoy it fully.