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BARBUDA'S FIRST CARIBANA - Antigua & Barbuda

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58<br />

Calypso<br />

Barry<br />

King Scorpion<br />

Mas<br />

Music<br />

F a n t a s y<br />

Edwards<br />

Valerie Harris-Pole<br />

Scorpion always considered his<br />

singing ability as a gift handed<br />

down genetically from his mother,<br />

Innocent Edwards, a former fixture<br />

on the Ebenezer Methodist Church<br />

Choir for many, many years.<br />

Naturally, he became a member<br />

of the church’s Junior Choir and<br />

was coached by the late Cleve<br />

Simmons.<br />

Calypso was always a love in<br />

Scorpion’s household where<br />

internal ‘competitions’ used to take<br />

place quite frequently between his<br />

older brother who was Lord Melody<br />

and himself the Mighty Sparrow.<br />

The first exposure and adventure<br />

into public calypso singing,<br />

however, was when Scorpion<br />

attended the University of the West<br />

Indies, Cave Hill Campus in the late<br />

1960’s where the Campus Carnival<br />

was a substitute for the other<br />

islands Carnivals that the students<br />

were missing.<br />

In 1971, his calypso name was the<br />

‘Snorer,’ as he was affectionately<br />

known after abandoning the<br />

moniker ‘Lord the Physics Too<br />

Hard’ when he won the Campus<br />

Calypso King title. With that win<br />

under his belt, Snorer became very<br />

popular, and with engagements<br />

in a few night clubs in Barbados,<br />

the most memorable of which<br />

profile<br />

was when he<br />

was chosen<br />

to be a part<br />

of the Mighty<br />

Sparrows’ Young<br />

Brigade revue for<br />

four nights. Snorer<br />

was definitely on his<br />

way to bigger things.<br />

That break gave him<br />

the confidence to pursue higher<br />

heights in the calypso world, and<br />

encouragement to stay with the<br />

art form coming from the Mighty<br />

Sparrow, and also from King Short<br />

Shirt, who came from <strong>Antigua</strong> to<br />

be a part of the grand finale at the<br />

National Stadium in Barbados, was<br />

all Snorer wanted to hear.<br />

Before returning home in 1975, he<br />

changed his name to “Scorpion,”<br />

a name he gave himself to fit his<br />

zodiac sign. Liming with some<br />

friends one night, someone dared<br />

him to be a guest performer at the<br />

popular “Maurice’s Night Club”<br />

which was situated on Market<br />

Street, on a show with Johnny<br />

Braff and the likes of Kaiso Joe,<br />

Franco and Lord Lee. Scorpion<br />

was so good that night when he<br />

performed, it was inevitable that the<br />

jitters of performing at home would<br />

disappear and the latest recruit for<br />

the Calypso Pepperpot, was found.<br />

That year he sang “Carey the<br />

Crazy man” and thereafter, “Oii<br />

yii,” “BamBaLayLay” and the<br />

unforgettable “Joke Dey Making”<br />

in 1978. Family<br />

commitment took<br />

Scorpion first to the UK for a few<br />

years where Calypso took a rest,<br />

and he became the resident singer<br />

at the Top Rank Suite in the resort<br />

city of Brighton for two years. In his<br />

personal collection are photos on<br />

stage with Prime Minister Margaret<br />

Thatcher when he performed at the<br />

Conservative Party Convention,<br />

and at her birthday function, which<br />

remain the highlights of that period.<br />

In 1982, Trinidad was the next<br />

stop for Scorpion, and for three<br />

years he was the lead singer in the<br />

then most popular Soca Band in<br />

Trinidad, “Shandileer.”<br />

<strong>Antigua</strong> was calling, and in 1986,<br />

the name Scorpion was back<br />

on the local landscape and was<br />

included on every list of finalists<br />

for the Monarch competition<br />

from 1987 until he chose not to<br />

compete in 2000. As President of<br />

a revitalized Calypso Association,<br />

he led a boycott of the Carnival<br />

Development Committee’s (CDC)<br />

run Calypso Monarch Competition,<br />

and organized a rival People’s<br />

Calypso King Competition.

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