Rudolph Commissiong and his Dixie Stars were Trinidad’s highest-paid steel band in 1955 when they were booked to play at the Alibi Room in the Windsor Hotel on Queen Street, Hamilton.
They were engaged to perform for only a few months, but the months stretched into years. For more than three decades, they were the dominant steel band in Bermuda, pulling in crowds from the start with their unique style of music.
Their popularity spawned several homegrown bands, but none matched their longevity or level of success.
Their singular contribution to entertainment was recognised in 2005 when they were recipients of a Founders Award from the Bermuda Arts Council.
Fittingly, at the same ceremony, Don Gibson, the transplanted American actor and impresario who was responsible for bringing the Esso Steel Band to Bermuda, was also a recipient of a Founders Award, along with his actress wife, Elsbeth.
The Esso Steel Band came into existence in 1948 as the Dixie Stars. It was one of scores of steel bands that had sprung up in Trinidad in the 1940s.
The steel pan, a descendant of a musical instrument made of bamboo, is a Trinidadian invention that dates back to 1939 when it was first spotted on the streets of Port of Spain. The following year, it made its debut at Trinidad’s Carnival.
Trinidadian musicians used discarded oil barrels to create the new musical instrument that proved to be more durable than the Tambo-Bamboo, which had been a staple of Carnival celebrations from the 1880s to the 1930s. The steel drums were also amazingly versatile— musicians found they could beat out a range of genres from classical music to calypso.
Commissiong, who had no musical training, was a 17-year-old tailor when he heard a steel band playing in his neighbourhood. Captivated, he formed his own band, the Hit Paraders with a group of friends.
When the Hit Paraders broke up about two years later, he joined the Dixielanders, out of which the Dixie Stars emerged as a separate band in October 1948.
The Dixie Stars soon became Trinidad’s highest-paid band. They played at the famed Bel Air Hotel, which was based at Trinidad’s international airport, for four years. There were numerous performances at nightclubs and the US base in Trinidad as well as a command performance for Princess Margaret.
There were also tours to Barbados, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands.
And when oil company Esso sponsored their appearance at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in 1954, they were renamed the Dixie Stars Esso Steel Band and also won a gold medal for their performance.
Bermuda came calling in 1955 thanks to the rave reviews of a British Overseas Airways Corporation radio officer, who had heard them at Carnival the previous year.
Bermuda was one of the stops on the BOAC (the forerunner of British Airways) route that began in London and took in Caribbean countries such as Antigua and Trinidad along with stops further south.
During his Bermuda layover, radio office Tom Collier told Don Gibson about the band.
Gibson, who with wife Elsbeth, had arrived in Bermuda the previous year, was manager of the Alibi Room.
Gibson flew to Trinidad, was reportedly “electrified” by what he heard, and booked the band for the club.
Only six members of the 14-strong band were hired, and the sextet was advised to tone their music down for fears their sounds might “dislodge the rafters” of the small nightclub, that later became the Jungle Room.
Gibson’s hunch that the band would be a hit was correct. Tourists lined up on Queen Street to hear the new and novel sound. (Byllee Lang, a close friend of the Gibsons, created a sculpture of Commissiong—which is now owned by the Bermuda National Gallery—the same year.)
After a year or two at the Alibi Room, the band moved with Gibson to Smuggler’s Lair nightclub at Coral Island Hotel in Flatts.
They left Bermuda to pursue opportunities in Jamaica—where Don Gibson had a brief stab at owning a nightclub—and Cuba, but they eventually returned. Bermuda became the permanent home of four of the band members after they married Bermudian women.
Commissioning married the former Vera LeGall. The couple had three sons, but later divorced. They played a significant role in Bermuda’s social history as members of the Progressive Group, which in 1959 jumpstarted the desegregation movement with the Theatre Boycott. (In 1999, Rudolph and Vera Commissiong, along with fellow Progressive Group members, were awarded a Queen’s Certificate and Badge of Honour.)
Their eldest son Rolfe Commissiong, speaking at the Bermuda Arts Council’s Awards ceremony in 2005, said that when the band returned to Bermuda after performing in Cuba, Conrad Engelhardt, owner of Inverurie, called with an offer.
Rolfe Commissiong continued: “Through the Hotel Association, he had brokered an agreement that would see the band play a roster comprised of most of the major hotels in Bermuda. The original format saw the band play the Inverurie and the Elbow for two nights each, and the remaining two nights split between the Castle Harbour and the Bermudiana Hotel.
“And this would be the format that sustained the band successfully during its golden era from the mid-‘60s right up until the early ‘80s.”
He added: “The Esso, along with other major local acts, certainly contributed more than their fair share in making Bermuda one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world.”
The band’s personnel changed over the years but the original members comprised Commissiong, Carl Borde, Mervyn Oliver, Kirby Rambert, Ivan Nelson and Maxie Perez.
Later members included Steve Dupres, Hubert Smith Jr., Kelvin Dove Herman “Rock” Johnston, Maurice Nearon Jr., Neville Paynter, Rudolph Benjamin, Roosevelt Antyne, Carl Rodney, James Martinez, George Ngwai and David Cannonier.
With the addition of Bermudians like Smith, who joined the group as lead singer, Nearon, Paynter and Cannonier, the band became a vehicle for local talent as well. Another contributor was pianist Lance Hayward, who was the group’s arranger for jazz numbers in its early years. Commissiong’s training as a tailor was an asset when selecting the band’s costumes.
Opportunities for the band, as for all groups, began drying up in the 1980s as Bermuda lost its footing in the industry, and musical tastes changed.
Commissiong, who remained leader throughout, eventually moved with his second wife to Hawaii, where he found a new audience for his music. In 2005, he was presented with the Bermuda Arts Council’s Founders Award in recognition of the band’s contribution to music.
He eventually retired to Cape Cod, Massachusetts—but retains fond memories of his years in Bermuda.
