Lord Kitchener; ‘Grand Master’ of Trinidad Calypso

Lord Kitchener, 77, regarded by many as the “grand master” of calypso music in Trinidad and Tobago. One of six children of a blacksmith, Kitchener was born Aldwyn Roberts. In an era when calypso performers assumed nicknames, Roberts decided to call himself Lord Kitchener after the British army officer who successfully waged a military campaign to win back Sudan in 1898. Kitchener dominated the calypso world in the 1960s and ‘70s with tunes such as “Mama Dis Is Mas” and “Rainorama,” a comic look at the hysteria created among his countrymen when Carnival was delayed in 1973 due to an outbreak of polio. Though he never had any formal musical training, Kitchener was vital in fusing the two most popular musical forms in Trinidad--calypso and pan, the music of steel drums. He composed the first calypso piece played by a steel band orchestra, “The Beat of the Steel Band,” in 1944 and was closely associated with the steel band movement afterward. Perhaps his most famous song, “Give Me the Ting,” is still regarded as a dance hall classic. He retired from stage performances last year, ending a career that spanned six decades, including 14 years in England. In 1994 Trinidad and Tobago released a 50-cent stamp in his honor, and the run of 100,000 was sold out just days after its issue. On Friday in a Port-of-Spain hospital, where he had been admitted 11 days earlier for treatment of kidney failure and bone marrow cancer.