Fresh from its highly successful show celebrating the late Lord Kitchener, The Little Carib Theatre continues its celebration of icons and their musical children, with the show A Bassman in Meh Head featuring the music of The Mighty Shadow, performed by his son Sharlan “Dread Wizard” Bailey and his 12-year-old granddaughter, Innesha Bailey, with a guest appearance by Mistah Shak.
The show to be held on Saturday 16 July 2022, from 6.00pm, will be hosted by actress and Cacique Award recipient, Cecilia Salazar.
Considered a legend within the calypso art form and an icon in Caribbean music, The Mighty Shadow (Dr Winston Bailey), was born in 1941 and died in 2018, following complications from a stroke. He was 77 years old. Born in Belmont, Shadow grew up with his grandparents in Les Coteaux, Tobago, a village much associated with the African spiritualism colloquially referred to as obeah, the influence of which could be heard in his music.
In a five-decade career during which he made more than a dozen albums and ran his own Master’s Den calypso tent, his arsenal of hits include Tension, a statement on corruption in the soca business; Poverty Is Hell, and Bassman, the song that brought him to widespread national and international attention and won him the 1974 Road March crown. Shadow would go on to win the Calypso Monarch in 2000 with What’s Wrong With Me” and “Scratch Meh Back and Road March in 2001 with Stranger.
A recipient of countless awards throughout the Caribbean and its Diaspora – including The Hummingbird Medal for his contribution to the arts in 2003 – Shadow died shortly before he was due to receive an honorary degree from The University of the West Indies, which was then conferred posthumously.
Asked how his father would have felt about this tribute, Sharlan Bailey said:
“I think he would have felt pleased and honoured. The whole mission was about the music, reaching people and connecting with them in a positive way. I can see him reflecting on his career, because his mission wasn’t just making good music, but good calypso music. To see a taste of some of his works celebrated in a tribute show makes me think that ‘pleased and honoured’ would be the right adjectives to describe how he would have felt.”
Tickets to A Bassman in Meh Head: A Tribute to the Mighty Shadow are $150 and are available at: the Little Carib Theatre box office, corner White and Roberts Street, Woodbrook and online at https://form.jotform.com/littlecarib/a-bassman-in-meh-head
Or call: 784-5269 or 622-4644
