In Tribute to Lord Creator
- Brent Clough
- Jul 4, 2023
- 2 min read
In honour of the late Lord Creator, I played some 45s at a recent well-attended Dub Club session in Sydney Park in the inner-west suburbs of Sydney, Australia. The crowd of families and ageing Jamaican music fans tapped their feet as they sprawled on picnic mats beneath towering chimneys from the former brickworks - the last signs of the area's heavy industrial past.
As the old discs played, I thought about how much I admired Lord Creator's brilliant musical craft, the songs that live up to his none-too-humble sobriquet. What a marvellous singer and songwriter Kentrick Patrick, aka Lord Creator, was!
Had he been an American, his effortless doo-wop croon might have been known to a larger audience, but he remained true to the Caribbean. Though his immaculate presentation - sartorial as much as vocal - owed much to North American stars like Nat King Cole, his gentle wit, cheerful slackness, and precise turn of phrase were undoubtedly nurtured in the calypso tradition of his Trinidadian birthplace (his version of "Obeah Wedding" is the best, surpassing composer Mighty Sparrow's; his 1969 'Pepper Pot Calypso' LP is full of enjoyably trashy innuendo.)
To his adopted country of Jamaica, where he moved in 1959, Creator brought the optimism of the migrant (his half dozen joyful songs for national Independence) and occasional frontline bluntness that coincided with the explosion of ska (the song "Back O'Wall" is searing ghetto reportage that foreshadows roots reggae.) On paper, his songs should have been sentimental and sappy. In practice, with that magical voice, they never were (even the cheesy "The End" stands up with moving pathos).
At their best, Lord Creator's songs ("Evening News", "I'm Holding On", and "Such is Life" ) are pearls made perfect thanks to their gritty surroundings, anthems of hope and survival against adverse circumstances. Once upon a time, Creator even converted a gritty, post-colonial city into a backdrop for eternal romance ("Kingston Town"). Now that was some kind of art: musical creativity as good and lasting as any in the Jamaican songbook. Rest in peace, Lord Creator.
Kentrick Patrick, aka Lord Creator, was born on August 21, 1940, and died on June 30, 2023.
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