Profiles: Heroes, Role Models and Pioneers of Trinidad and Tobago - by Nasser Khan

84 arranger, player and musical pioneer. He began his career in the 1940s with Nob Hill steelband and later moved to Sun Valley then to North Stars, where he became the leader. He was one of twelve selected to join TASPO as the Trinidad and Tobago representatives at the 1951 Music Festival in England. He worked hard at developing the “spider-web” pan design, a soprano pan with the notes laid out in a cycle of fifths and, by 1962, achieved great success when his North Stars won the Steelband Music Festival. After the Panorama competition was initiated in 1963, North Stars won the championship the first two years in 1963 and 1964. He tuned a tenor bass using three standard oil drums to replace the “tune boom” which was made from two smaller biscuit drums of inferior quality metal. At this time he also made an epic discovery and identified the octave within the note itself. He was also the first to make a pan from flat sheet metal as opposed to a drum and the first to make an “oversized pan”. He was the first tuner to compose complete tunes especially for the steelband and recorded the album Ivory and Steel with celebrated pianist Winifred Atwell. • 1969 Humming Bird Bronze Medal • 1991 Humming Bird Silver Medal • 2008 Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago DUNSTAN “DEW” E. WILLIAMS (1935-2004) P oint Fortin born, he spent his working years as a master cartoonist bringing readers much joy and laughter. Such was the importance of his cartoon drawings that there is a collection of his material stored at the West Indiana and Special Collections Division at UWI. He touched many with his great humour. He drew cartoons about the environment including the killing of the leatherback turtles which he was deeply concerned about. He won several awards, and his work was exhibited in Bulgaria, Greece, Canada, Cuba, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Yugoslavia and of course here at home. In 2009, the Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association awarded him for media excellence.