

We did that last year and this year we did “One Hundred Ways” with Malcolm Boyce and Devon Ocho. We have a recording Moricia did of me and Dave: “You are what Love is”. So instead of just sitting and doing nothing, we decided to just get something on … different venues and do stuff. We will be at We Beat backing up calypsonians because that is what we do too. We do a lot of shows up in Normandie at Carnival time. This is something we are trying because we do not want to be stagnant we want to be playing music all the time.

We have some good stuff so it looking good. We have an engineer … Yoichi … he decided to work with us. We are well rehearsed and all the things are in place. This show we are doing here is a kind of a launch pad. When asked if the band was sponsored and has performed outside of Trinidad and Tobago, he replied: We are having Natalie Yorke and Jason ‘Fridge’ Seecharan from H2O Phlo, guesting with us today. Vonrick Maynard is the drummer, Oslyn Pompie is the bass player, Devon Ocho is the guitarist, Pelham Goddard on piano and Malcolm Boyce on saxophone. We have five members and we have Moricia Cagan … she is our vocalist. We leave the name “Roots” inside of there. It is still Roots, but we are doing “The Roots of Jazz”. The regular band is four horns, percussion, congas and so on. We are doing a different type of show today which is “The Roots of Jazz” with just a smaller size of the band: a five piece, vocalists and so on.

After that we decided we want to play, we want to go and practice…and we are listening to a lot of R&B and Jazz music, and then you could go back in time and see Miles Davis and all this set of music we want to play. We had a tribute to Kitchener for his birthday. We had big nights like when we had Rudder, Black Stalin, Robbie Greenidge, and those were real big, big nights. We called it Caribbean Night which we want to bring back again.

We did some segments on Thursday nights at the Nu Pub year before and early last year. Goddard explained:Īfter, we decided to keep the name “Pelham Goddard and Roots” because the guy who was sponsoring Charlie’s Roots in New York doesn’t do that business anymore so we cannot carry Charlie’s Roots again … we just say Pelham Goodard and Roots. Still under his leadership, Goddard continued to bring musical pleasure to his audiences. The ending of a phenomenal era didn’t stop this veteran song writer, composer, arranger, recording and performing artist from continuing his musical journey. By the end of its era as a road band, Charlie’s Roots was recognized for having won the most road marches in the history of calypso and also for producing the most popular songs some of which include”No, No We Ain’t Going Home”, “Free Up”, “Bahia Girl”, “The Hammer”, “This Party is it”, “Permission to Mash Up the Place”, “Bacchanal Lady”, “Rebecca”, “Ethel”, “Soca Baptist” and many more.ĭevon Ocho, guitarist Vonrick Maynard, drummer Oslyn Pompie, bass player Pelham Goddard band leader on the keyboard and saxophonist, Malcolm Boyce Charlie’s Roots soon became a household name and one of the most sought-after bands both locally and internationally. The success and quality of the work produced by the band under the leadership of Goddard, took the music and entertainment community in Trinidad and Tobago by storm. Following the successful production of the hit songs “Savage” by Cecil ‘Maestro’ Hume and Aldwin ‘Lord Kitchener’ Roberts’ Christmas song “Drink ah Rum”, the small studio band, through the sponsorship of ‘Charlie’ became a road band and was launched in July 1977 as “Charlie’s Roots.” Goddard at the time was New York-based Trinbagonian, calypso producer Rawlston ‘Charlie’ Charles. In 1976, the band was officially recognized as one of the top studio bands in the country. The band, which was a small group of musicians comprised of drums, bass guitar, saxophone and keyboards, was based at KH studios, Sea Lots, Port of Spain where they recorded most of the studio’s products on its Kalinda label. Music stalwart, Pelham Goddard and vocalist, Natalie Yorkeīack in 1975, music stalwart Pelham Goddard, formed a studio band called Sensational Roots.
