How I got the name “The Mighty Yachtie”.

From its origin in the early 1900s, calypsonians have taken on stage names that were associated with royalty or power. We had calypsonians with names such as the Mighty Bomber, Lord Nelson, Lord Superior, The Mighty Sparrow, King Cobra, and Roaring Lion. In 1999, I sailed my boat from Pensacola, Florida to Trinidad, island hopping all the way down. Cruisers in the islands are known as yachties since they live on yachts (sailboats). Since I was considered a Yachtie, as I was about to perform at a Taste Of Carnival presentation in Trinidad in 2002, the MC introduced me as “The Mighty Yachtie”,

The majority of the music I write and sing is calypso. Calypso in it’s truest and purest form is story telling. Taking the story of an event and singing about it. You are also likely to hear a few island ballads on my CDs.

Most of the songs I composed came to me as an idea and I was able to compose the lyrics and music within 30 minutes to an hour. Over the next couple weeks I would fine turn the lyrics and music to what you hear today. The two songs that I deliberately tried to write, “Susanne’s Song” and “Tribute To The Steelband” took months. With “Susanne’s Song” I wanted to write a song for my wife for her 60^th birthday. Although at the time we have been married over 25 years, and you would have thought that I had lots of material to draw on, it took over 6 months to complete. In the end the song was nothing like I had originally planned but produced the message I wanted to present. The shortest song I ever wrote was “Dumb Monkey” which came to me while taking a shower. Within the span of taking the shower, I composed the tune. I will admit I probably took a longer shower than I usually would have.

I play all the instruments on my CDs. I cannot read music and play by ear. I do not consider myself an expert on any of the instruments and I am the most comfortable on the guitar and cuatro, a Venezuelan instrument similar to the ukulele. In my CDs you will hear, a tenor pan steeldrum, a duddop, a two note bass steeldrum, bongos, a guitar, cuatro, and a keyboard. For percussion, I use a scratcher, maracas, claves and the cowbell.