Profile of Mick Stokes 1985 & 1991 Road March Winner
(Extracted from Celebrating 65 years of St. Kitts & Nevis Carnival publication)
Michael Stokes also known as, Mick Stokes, originally from Lodge Village (village in St. Kitts), showed a keen interest in music as a child while in the company of his uncle, Len Harris also known as “Lord Mikes”, a former Road March King. Consequently, his mom named him after “Lord Mikes”.
“I remember sitting down on his lap under the lamp,” Mick expressed. “In those days we didn’t have any current. I would sit there and listen to him, and I would be knocking on the table. Maybe that’s why I became a drummer. Members of a steel band called “Triangles” had their rehearsal sessions in the same yard where I was living as a child, and the band and my uncle were the influencing force that got me started in music.”
It was in 1969 when Stokes was about eight or nine years old that he recorded his first song “Jumping Jack” on ZIZ Radio. The song became a number one hit on the local chart from amongst top American artistes. He explained that every Saturday morning ZIZ Radio had an open house where persons who were interested in singing could sing any song they liked on the airwave. “That’s how people started knowing me at a young age,” Mick conveyed.
Around that time, Rex Harrison, a Grenadian, who was a bicycle stuntman and who normally travelled throughout the Caribbean performing at schools, had shown an interest in young Stokes after hearing him sing at his school.
“He basically ‘stole’ me from my mother,” Mike expressed. “We travelled to islands like St. Vincent, Petit Martinique and so on. I travelled by boat and it was for a good three years.” After the completion of his tours he returned home to St Kitts with an appetite and love for music. Stokes knew that he could not have continued living without playing music, so he linked up with the “Thunder Birds” in the yard of a man named Sebratty who had owned a guitar.
He then moved on and played with the Joseph Liburd Orchestra as a drummer, but it only lasted a month and then he became a member of the “Group Impressions”, popularly known as GIs Brass.
“I was one of the lead singers of the band, along with Ellie Matt who sang calypso, Tamboura Kitwana who sang reggae and I sang everything else,” he said.
“We had a combination of four guys who were vocalists; everyone in the band was able to do two things such as singing and playing an instrument.” Mick is also a prolific drummer. Stokes said the band’s fame grew and they often travelled to different countries including Sweden, France, Belgium, Denmark, Alaska, Vancouver, England, and the United States.
“I have more than 10 passports. They filled out very quickly; that’s how much we travelled. We would leave St. Kitts and wouldn’t come back until November-December for Carnival, and we would leave in January as our year was fully booked. That’s how good we were!”
“We not only catered musically for black people, but white people as well. Every time we played, there were ten to twenty thousand people in the crowd,” he said. Songs like “Shang Shang”, “Tune for de Children”, “Annie Bumsy” and “Shake Ya Booty”, a soca version to the KC and the Sunshine Band hit, always evoke a reaction.
“Shake Ya Booty was what we actually broke into the American market with. We added a calypso flavour and the white people loved it along with the blacks. It was number #1 on the radios for three months. The white people loved it when we visited the U.S. and promoters fought to book us . . . we had a following.”
An End to the GIs
Stokes conveyed that people chartered planes to St. Kitts just to see Ellie Matt and GIs Brass in December because of their talent. However, after being together for about two or three generations the band members began settling down and were not able to travel as much as before.
“We were getting older, having children and getting married. When we started we were just young guys living at home with our mothers, so we had no worries. Some even went off to college, so that’s basically how the band stated fading. We have a record here in St Kitts. We were the first and only band to be invited to perform in Trinidad, the land of calypso for 10 years straight! That’s how great we were. Trinidadians looked to St. Kitts for music.”
Most recently Mick Stokes performed at the 15th Annual St. Kitts Music Festival and it was an explosive performance!
“I was in dreamland. I was on a high. I didn’t want to go out so dry, I really wanted to go out with a bang so I guess this was my way of pulling out all the stops for what just may be my last performance,” he expressed. The crowd responded well to Mick Stokes’ antics and vocals especially when he performed his Road March Hits “One Shot Man” and “All Kinda Tings”.
“He still has it! He still has it,” a fan from the 70s raved as she rushed through the crowd for centre stage. What was so touching as well, is that some of the original members of the GIs Brass were the backing band such as guitarist Vincent “Jofe” Payne whose remarks can be found in the early stages of this book.
What people may not know also is that Mick Stokes started out as a limbo dancer, bottle walker (walk on bottles) and fire eater. He was taught by the top magician Tunka Abdurama from St. Kitts, as a youth. Mick Stokes is just a natural performer and the Thursday night of the 15th Annual Music Festival was recorded as one of the most memorable nights in history; after all it was the night of Mick Stokes’ sterling performance.
Condolences to his family.
Article extracted from the book below:
In this publication, you will explore the culture of St. Kitts and Nevis, by tracing the Christmas Festivities from slavery, to emancipation, colonialism, statehood, independence and post-independence.
Interviews with veteran calypsonians, historians, pioneers, and musicians are also featured in celebration of the Anniversary of Carnival which started in 1957.
Click cover if you would like more details. This is an electronic book.