Forty Years of Steel: An Annotated Discography of Steel Band and Pan Recordings, 1951-1991

(Hardback)

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Description

This discography covers the history of steel band and pan music on recordings from their beginnings. In more than 725 entries, it comprises recordings on phonograph records, cassettes, and compact disks in which one or more steel pans is featured or used in an accompanying role. This includes steel bands of any size and configuration, pan soloists, and small ensembles in a variety of settings. For each entry, information is provided on location of the recording session/studio, release date, record company catalogue number, and complete contents. Indexes facilitate access to artists, arrangers/conductors/musical directors, record titles, years of release, and compositions; and appendices provide additional information on record manufacturers and distributors, calypsonians, and sources. A reference bibliography completes the work. Because the creation, teaching, and performance of most of the pan music of the past belongs to an oral tradition and there is little written preservation of work, audio recordings often provide the only documentation of the art of many composers, arrangers, performers and tuners; additionally, they constitute a primary source of information regarding past performance practices, evolving playing styles and techniques, and pan tuning innovations. While serving as a guide to locating these recordings, this discography should also function as an aid to research into many other aspects of the steel pan movement. As such it aims to be a valuable resource for scholars, performing artists, educators, tuners, composers, arrangers and enthusiasts.

Reviews

Forty Years of Steel is an admirable accomplishment that does justice to its subject. Not only does it provide research with an invaluable reference tool, but it furnishes indisputable proof of the richness and vitality of the Caribbean steel band tradition, and gives an idea of the considerable inroads it has made elsewhere in the world. One can only hope that it will not be long before other Caribbean musical styles and traditions can boast discographies of a comparable caliber.-Notes
This discography is worth having, especially for its broad compilation of steel band LPs from a wide variety of sources.-New West Indian Guide
"This discography is worth having, especially for its broad compilation of steel band LPs from a wide variety of sources."-New West Indian Guide
"Forty Years of Steel is an admirable accomplishment that does justice to its subject. Not only does it provide research with an invaluable reference tool, but it furnishes indisputable proof of the richness and vitality of the Caribbean steel band tradition, and gives an idea of the considerable inroads it has made elsewhere in the world. One can only hope that it will not be long before other Caribbean musical styles and traditions can boast discographies of a comparable caliber."-Notes

Author Bio

JEFFREY THOMAS is a freelance drummer/percussionist and a composer of percussion music. Trained as an ethnomusicologist, his thesis was A History of Pan and the Evolution of the Steel Band in Trinidad and Tobago. In addition he has published articles on related subjects in journals and reference books.