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Winsford 'Joker' Devine Speaks
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TriniSoca.com Reporters
Recorded: on July 19, 2007
Posted: September 12, 2007
TYEHIMBA: In the 1980s, it is said that you averaged forty songs a season. That is an amazing feat. How were you able to accomplish that?
WINSFORD: I used to try to hide from that. Fellas used to come here looking for me and when they calling out to me in the front I would go through the back. I couldn't write for everybody. Every year, people used to come to me to write for them. I still write for a couple of people. This year I wrote for about five people. I write all kinds of trivial and semi-suggestive songs.
These days I have been writing less since I had the stroke and it is becoming very difficult because everybody wants me to write social commentaries and so on. It is very difficult for me to write something for you and then you go and write something else. Then you run into this whole thing about, "You give this man the good song." 'Trini' and I fell out for that. I was writing for him every year and he was going good. The year I came in time to write for 'Crazy' he got vexed because he found that I should have given him the song. It so happened that when 'Crazy' came, I had a piece of an idea from a long time so I finished it and gave it to him. From since that time, I stopped writing for 'Trini'. I had real problems with writing songs.
MR. DOUGLAS: When artistes come to you for a song, do they tell you what topic they want the song on or are you free to choose the topic?
WINSFORD: I used to write songs and wait for somebody to come for them. I have the ability to decide who could sing what song because not everybody could sing the same thing.
The song that I gave to 'Baron', 'Crazy' cannot sing that song. He doesn't have the knack to sing that song. He looks ridiculous singing those songs. 'Crazy' got another guy to write songs for him. Right now I only write one type of song for 'Crazy'. Songs like "Rosie", his song this year "One Foot Cock" and so on. He loves to sing those types of songs so I will write them. He will get songs like that from me. Songs like "Cold Sweat" and so on he goes to another guy to get those songs.
TYEHIMBA: One of your songs "Progress" was voted Song of the Millennium by TUCO. How did that song come about; what inspired it?
WINSFORD: It was an environmental thing. I was living in town at the time and I went down South to visit some friends. Coming back from South to town, I glanced back in the taxi and I saw the San Fernando Hill that I had known from since I was a little boy. That hill looks so ridiculous now. They graded down the whole hill so much, now it's just one little piece of stone up in the air. That inspired me to write about the environment. I was sitting down in my kitchen when the name "Progress" came to me. I told myself that progress is the cause of all these things.
I wrote that song for me to sing. I went in 'Sparrow's' Tent and auditioned with the song. I got picked in the tent to sing the song, but unfortunately, I had a contract to arrange for a W.A.S.A. band in Tobago. They were paying me more money than I would have earned in the tent as a starter which entailed sitting down on the bench waiting to be called on to sing when somebody big who was on the roster didn't appear in the tent. They used to call on you occasionally to fill that spot and you might have gotten about three hundred dollars a week. I decided it was better for me to go and arrange for the band because W.A.S.A. was paying me a certain amount of money.
The guy, Austin, was in the audition in 'Sparrow's' Tent and he heard when I was auditioning with the song. He came by me the next day and told me he wanted a song.
Sometimes it takes years to perfect a song and the first time I wrote the song I gave it to 'Sparrow' and he liked it. He took the song to New York and he recorded it. When he recorded all the songs that he wanted, he said "Progress" cannot make it to go on the album, so he dropped the song. Charlie in New York kept the copy of "Progress" for years until about 2004 and then somebody stole it from his basement.
MR. DOUGLAS: You did another song which Austin sang the following year and I thought that it was even better than "Progress", but for some reason it was never as popular.
WINSFORD: I rank "Progress" as the third best song out of all the songs that I have ever written. I have a song called "Tell Me When" which was never played in Trinidad. I wrote it for a guy in St. Martin and he who won the crown over there. He recorded the song and I have a copy of it. That song was never played on the radio or sung in Trinidad. He came here last year to take part in the Carifesta. I begged him to sing the song but he told me no. He never sang the song here in Trinidad. He sang another song that I wrote for him called "United Caribbean". He was going to sing both songs but he probably didn't want to sing two of my songs. One of the songs that he sang was what he wrote for himself.
There is a song that I wrote way back for 'Scrunter' called "Every Shadow Walk With a Gun". I do not know if you ever heard that song but 'Scrunter' sang it in the King of Kings show and 'Sparrow' won that year. I think that was the very first King of Kings show. I rank "Tell Me When" and "Every Shadow Walk With a Gun" real high. The reason why is because everything that I wrote is what is happening today. "Tell Me When" was written about fifteen years ago and when you listen to it, everything it says is what is happening today. When you listen to "Every Shadow Walk With a Gun" it predicted the rate of murders and everything that is happening today in society. There are a lot of people who rank those songs very highly. That is one of the things that people had credited me for. I write songs beyond the time. Sometimes I think about the lines I am going to put in the song and sometimes and I wonder where these lines come from. If I play "Tell Me When" for you, listen to it and you will hear everything that is happening today in society.
MR. DOUGLAS: Is there a recording of that song available in St. Martin?
WINSFORD: I do not know if it is available but I have a copy of it in my computer and I play it. A couple of years ago, he brought me a copy on a tape. He recorded the song and he has it on a CD right now.
MR. DOUGLAS: You said a lot of the tunes you wrote were because you were planning to perform. Tell us more about that?
WINSFORD: In a way yes because I wanted to sing for myself.
MR. DOUGLAS: But you actually recorded some songs yourself.
WINSFORD: It's not that I cannot sing. I just cannot perform. My problem is performing.
MR. DOUGLAS: One of your best songs I liked is one that you yourself performed which I thought was a gem. The quality of the recording I thought was very good. It was a song about a party and after the party. It was a very nice piece of music.
WINSFORD: It did well on the market. I cannot remember the name of the song right now. These days my mind is failing me. They say I am getting a touch of Parkinson's disease so it's taking me a little while to remember some things.
I recorded about eight songs. But with that song especially, it was a friend who came and told me he heard me singing and said, "Joker ah go record that song for you." Today he and I are still friends. It did well on the market because about nine thousand records were sold. I did two songs on the record. The flip side was a song called "Happy Birthday".
MR. DOUGLAS: Have you ever considered or have you ever tried passing on the skills you have acquired?
WINSFORD: Some fellas came here and listen to me talk and tried to pick my mind but I have never taught anybody formally. I have a friend who comes here and he learned how to write Calypsos. There are others who I showed how to write and rhyme Calypsos and so on. These are things that have also been passed down to me. Don't feel I didn't get tutoring from people. I got tutoring from Joey Lewis. Every evening I used to go by Joey Lewis in Belmont and we would sit and talk. 'Kitchener' showed me a lot of things. When I used to go by 'Kitchener' we would sit and talk and he would show me how to rhyme. 'Kitchener' taught me a special skill that many of the Calypsonians cannot do. I don't know if you ever noticed but 'Kitchener' never rhymed line after line.
Arthur De Coteau and those fellas sat with me for hours talking. He taught me how to score brass and so on. Ed Watson used to come here every evening and talk to me and show me things. I have a little keyboard upstairs I used to bring out when deceased Clive Bradley used to come here. Bradley used to live right down the road and every evening he used to come here. I would buy a little thing for him to smoke and he would sit down with me for hours and show me how to extend chords and so on. And that wasn't too long ago. He also taught me about the PRS (Performing Rights Society) and how to copyright my songs and how to get royalty because I didn't know anything about those things.
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