‘Calypso king’ lived life to his own beat
He played with his own passion for music, but never got wealthy from his art
Calypso music was a major part of Dave De Castro’s life, even during the only night he ever spent in jail.
It was after midnight in 1950s Montreal. De Castro, his calypso band mates and some friends were walking through the streets singing and playing their instruments. The police passed by and asked them to quiet down. De Castro and his group complied. Once the cops were out of sight, the band started up again. The police returned and this time took the scofflaws to jail.
As De Castro’s daughter, Mercedez, tells the story, the cops kept the cell door open, gave the players their instruments and asked them to start playing. The police ordered hotdogs and coffee for their new inmates and invited officers from across Montreal to come watch the show. De Castro called it one of the most fun performances of his career.
In another notable performance a few years later in front of thousands of spectators at Maple Leaf Gardens, De Castro was crowned Toronto’s first calypso king.
De Castro died on May 5 at home in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., several hours after starting to feel tired and weak. He was 80.
“He lived every second to the fullest,” said Mercedez. “He lived every single day the way he wanted to.”
In a 2009 interview with Michael Eldridge, currently an English professor at California’s Humboldt State University, De Castro said: “The way I live my life, I don’t live like other people: I eat when I’m hungry, I sleep when I’m sleepy, time means absolutely nothing to me because it doesn’t control me, I control it. So I’m very, very fortunate.”
De Castro was a prolific songwriter, with hundreds of calypso songs to his credit.
“His passion in life was calypso and creating calypso,” said friend Dave Mahon.
David Noel De Castro was born in 1936 in Port of Spain, Trinidad.
He moved to Montreal in 1955, met up with other Trinidadians and, with three of them, formed a band called King Caribe and his Steel Bandits. After a few personnel changes, the band’s name changed in 1957 to The Fabulous Calypso Bandits. De Castro, who ended up playing the cuatro, became the Bandit.
De Castro and his band recorded two albums and for the next dozen years toured Quebec, Ontario and the eastern U.S. as far south as Florida.
“He just loved the art form,” said friend George Maharaj, who likened De Castro to a cultural ambassador for Trinidad and Tobago.
De Castro moved to Toronto in1968 and the following year entered the first Caribana calypso king competition. His decision to participate was made at 1p.m. the day of the competition, said Mahon. Within an hour, he’d written “Caribana, Caribana,” the song he would sing.
The audience thought De Castro was the best, chanting “The Bandit win, the white boy win,” even before the final two singers finished performing, wrote Borel. After some hesitation, the judges finally agreed, and De Castro received $250 and a cardboard crown.
Despite his artistic success, De Castro never became wealthy. As was common then, many of his songs were popularized by musicians who gave him neither credit nor royalties.
“One does not get paid for a love of calypso,” he told the Trinidad Sunday Guardian in 2002. “The last thing you’re looking for in this thing is money, and that is the last thing I want.”
De Castro leaves behind his second wife, Jennifer, three daughters, two sons and 14 grandchildren. A fourth daughter died of cancer two years ago.