Artist Bio:
Born in 1953, David Rudder is one of Trinidad's musical visionaries. His songs draw on the rich heritage of Carnival and other aspects of Trinidadian culture, and his unique style rests as much in soca as it does calypso, with wonderful melodies and lyrics that go to the heart of complex issues in Trinidad. From the beginning he has been breaking barriers and stepping outside the roles people make for him.
Rudder grew up in Belmont, an older section of Trinidad's capital, Port of Spain. The son of an oilfield worker, he was raised around music from the Baptist and Shango religions as well as steel drums. He absorbed it all, reshaping it into amazing an amazing sound strikes a deep chord within Trinidad culture. He is also a painter and was apprenticed to the late Ken Morris, a master coppersmith known for his Carnival designs.
Rudder started off singing in nightclubs and was a backup singer in Lord Kitchener's Calypso Revue while he made a living as an accountant for the Trinidad Bus Company. He made a few singles that received little notice in the late '70s and early '80s, but Rudder got a big break when he was asked to serve as a temporary replacement for Tambu, lead singer for the brass band Charlie's Roots. He ended up staying when Tambu returned and together they created one of the most popular brass bands in the country. Charlie's Roots were also associated with Peter Minshall's innovative Carnival bands and David Rudder's compositions become the themes for many of Minshall's Carnival masquerade bands.
In 1986, he joined the Spectakula calypso tent, singing two songs: "The Hammer," a tribute to the captain and tuner for the steel band Desperados, and "Bahia Girl." He was named the Young King, the Calypso monarch, after those two songs were the awarded first and second choices for Road March. "The Hammer," performed by All Stars, won Panorama, Trinidad's annual steel-band competition. He defended his crown the next year and came in second in the Monarch competition and second behind Duke in the Road March. These victories brought him great international acclaim, he was signed to London Records and toured in England and North America. His next album, Haiti (1988), became a best seller and took him on a European tour. He appeared as a calypsonian in the Trinidadian TV series Sugar Cane Arrows and was featured in Peter Minshall's theatrical presentation Santimanitay at the National Stadium. He appeared and performed in the movie Wild Orchid with Brazilian singer Margareth Mendez.
After a few years Rudder's contract with London Records was dropped and he has since she has issued albums on his own Lypsoland label. Over the years, Rudder's compositions have often been used by steel bands in Panorama and he has written of the plight of steel bands without commercial sponsors with his song "The Case of the Disappearing Panyards" He has worked with leading pan men from Andy Narell who recorded an album featuring a pan version of "The Hammer" and one featuring Rudder's "Long Time Band" and more recently with Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, in addition to his long term relationship with the great composer, arranger, and producer Pelham Goddard.
As time went on he seemed disenchanted with Carnival, in 1997, releasing only an EP, Wrapped in a Plain Brown Wrapper but putting on in the Fall of the year a magnificent concert with special guests that was released on video and as a three CD live album, No Restrictions the Concert.. In 1998 his song "High Mas" from his album Beloved - while controversial - remained one of the most heard in the country, and quickly became one of Rudder's most memorable compositions, reasserting the sense that he was on the pulse of the heartbeat of the nation. Rudder married in 2002 and then settled in Toronto. He commutes to Trinidad for concerts and other projects and continues to tour and perform. —Ray Funk
