He changed the face of Calypso music in 1974 with the release of "Bassman" a tune in which Bass and magnificent horn line took central stage changing Soca music for ever. Shadow broke all the traditional musical rules and made his own and that made him a musical giant. “The first time we met for me to arrange his music we had a heated argument on the arrangement for one of his songs I was theoretically correct but Shadow was musically right. But after a while Shadow teamed up with more innovative arrangers, including Arthur “Art”de Coteau, who followed their and Shadow's intuitions resulting in a long line of hits. In the early days of his career Shadow’s style was cramped when working with some of the more conservative music arrangers who felt that calypso and soca should fit a mould. To his family’s initial chagrin he chose calypso over church music but his talent and drive were undeniable. Shadow came from a humble but musical family and started writing songs as a youth while tending cattle in the fields. Calypso has also given birth to several other music genres, including soca, with its uptempo beats and festival context.
Calypso, the indigenous folk music of Trinidad and Tobago, has roots in West African kaiso rhythms, French Creole influences, and the hardships endured by the African slaves brought to Trinbago, whose descendants still use it as a tool for satire, self-expression, and social commentary. A truly enigmatic artist, he first emerged in Trinidad and Tobago during the 1970s, becoming a part of the tapestry of Caribbean music and reinvigorating calypso at the time. Remastered and cut by Frank Meritt at The Carvery the album is truly a masterpiece.īut who is this Shadow behind Sweet Sweet Dreams? Shadow is a man of understated magnitude. Now, more than three decades later that cosmic dance-floor UFO is about to take off again, change all that and set the record straight. Undeservedly it was panned by critics and, unable to reach markets, disappeared into the dusty record collections of a few music aficionados. When it came out in 1984 the far-out album Sweet Sweet Dreams by Trinidad & Tobago’s Shadow (aka Winston Bailey) was described as “way ahead of its time”. But I ain’t trying to do anybody’s music. I’d finally managed to “hook” the legendary Shadow - also known as Mighty Shadow - whose very first sentence in a thick Trinidadian accent was “I take my guitar and strum and sing some tings and blow people’s mind. The generally crackly phone connection between Dublin and Port-of-Spain, the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago, was as good as I’d expected it would be.
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