Straker’s indelible mark on the Musical landscape at home, abroad

Over the last few days, persons connected to the music world shared the sad news of the demise of a legend in the Caribbean music business, Granville Straker. To a lot of the young performers of Soca and Ragga Soca across the region, the name Granville Straker may not evoke any particular emotion, but not so for those who laboured in calypso tents or in bands of the 70s and into the early 80s in Trinidad and Tobago and right up the island chain.

Opportunities for recording music were severely limited in St Vincent and the Grenadines up to the early 80s. We recall that just a few performers locally managed to produce recordings which were on vinyl. Back then it meant going next door to Barbados at West Indies Records Limited (WIRL), or “south” to Trinidad which also had recording studios.

Even up to the time of the much celebrated change of dates for carnival in St Vincent and the Grenadines from the pre-Lenten period to June/July, recordings by locally-based artistes were limited. And up till then, we depended on calypsos released for Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival which often become considered road march for our carnival.

Meanwhile, there was a Vincentian record producer operating out of Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, the virtual “Caribbean Republic” where the largest population of West Indians and naturally, Vincentians, resided. Granville Straker, who hailed from St Vincent and the Grenadines, had built his record label, simply called Straker’s Records, with a reputation for producing hit records for a host of top artists from Trinidad and Tobago.

It was the fortuitous teaming of Granville Straker, Frankie McIntosh and Brooklyn-based Vincentian calypso singers who began flooding our own carnival with excellently arranged, recorded and produced material which began to make a difference to the music we danced to on the streets and elsewhere. Vincentians making music of a very high quality from Brooklyn was a welcome game changer. It was not an invasion of non-Vincentian music, but a reimportation of Brooklyn produced Vincentian artistes on the Straker record label. We also recall the popular All Stars show for Carnival; and artistes based in SVG sought to head north so they could record with Straker’s Records and Frankie McIntosh. The late 70s saw an exodus of home grown talent of musicians and singers heading for what seemed like greener pastures in Brooklyn. The upside was that their loss to the local musical bands was a boon as we were soon reimporting their productions recorded by Straker’s Records.

Granville Straker had by now acquired the nickname of the ‘Godfather of Soca’. After all, his arsenal included Maclean ‘Short Shirt’ Emmanuel from Antigua and Barbuda, Shadow, Calypso Rose, Explainer, Hollis ‘Chalkdust’ Liverpool of Vincy extract, and Kelvin ‘Duke’ Pope from down ‘south’.

They all had the skills of Frankie McIntosh on arrangements produced by Granville Straker. Then there were the Vincy exports Cyril ‘Scorcher’ Thomas, Ziggy, and of course the “Rolls Royce” Winston Soso alongside Errol ‘Man Age’ Rose, and others. Straker had a stable to compete very favourably with the bards out of Trinidad and Tobago.

Not only was he recording top artistes, he also opened Straker’s Records in the heart of Kingstown as the third of his chain of record stores, the others being in Port of Spain, and in Brooklyn, New York USA. All three of these locations became meeting places for calypso singers and music lovers as Straker’s rolled out hit after hit.

The shift came later on with the rapid changes in technology that made it more affordable, and opened up opportunities for bands and artistes to record right here at home. We therefore saw the reverse where, rather than importing the Brooklyn produced music made by Vincentians, the folks in Brooklyn awaited the home-grown and recorded productions each year from SVG.

But Granville Straker will long be remembered for his pivotal role, in conjunction with Frankie McIntosh which has placed musical productions of the highest quality on the Caribbean and international markets. Surely we can expect that during the 2027 celebrations of 50 years since the introduction of June/July Vincy Mas, Granville Straker would be among those honoured.