“I preach that all the time, don’t be ashamed of your dialect, it is a powerful (means of) communication…it’s a language, it’s not ignorance.”By Michael JordanAn elephant bowling off a half-mile run-up to a cricket-loving donkey? A flock of sex-starved hens harassing a rooster to death?Welcome to the world of singer/songwriter Dave Martins, a Guyanese icon who has been making us laugh, reflect on our shortcomings, and take fierce pride in our Caribbean heritage for over five decades.He’s produced over 100 songs, several advertising jingles, and an award-wining play.Dave Martins at homeAnd with the creative ideas still flowing at the age of 75, he has no intention of slowing down.Dave Martins grew up at Hague and Vreed-en-Hoop on West Coast Demerara; the third of four children and the only boy in the family.He attended the Sacred Heart Primary School and later St. Stanislaus College, travelling the long journey by bus and ferry.He insists that he was a quiet student, instead of the prankster that one would have envisaged him to be.Growing up in the country, young Dave had none of the luxuries that children now take for granted.“It was a very simple life. Nothing much to do; no electricity, no running water, not even a radio in the house,” he said. “At Hague, I lived in an uncle’s house, which had a big yard and lots of trees.”His interest in music began when the family moved to Vreed-en-Hoop. There was nothing going on at Vreed-en-Hoop in those days. They had one cinema, maybe once a week and by eight o clock everybody in bed.”But there were two brothers, Joe and Jack Henry. They knew to play box guitars, and, around the age of 14, young Dave was fascinated by the sound that would eventually lure him into a career.“I started hearing these guys. They would go around the village playing music. I fell in love with the sound and that drew me to them.”The upshot was that they formed a five-man instrumental group.“We played a lot of Latin music, a few calypsos. We used to go to people’s houses just for fun…Vreed-en-Hoop, Poudroyen; we even went to Berbice a few times.”Family members were encouraging, though his mother, Zepherina Barcellos, referred to the calypsos he sometimes sang as ‘jungle music’. Nevertheless, she never stopped him from singing.He left school at the age of 16 and began to work at Booker Shipping for a year and then at Atkinson Field (now Cheddi Jagan International Airport).The love for music was still intense. He still saw his guitar-playing skill as a hobby.All that changed dramatically when, at 21, a sister who had migrated to Canada suggested that he join her there. He studied some music theory and made friends with a musician from the Bahamas and another from Toronto.The three friends started a group called The Debonairs.“We were just doing it for fun, but people who heard us rehearsing said, “You boys are good. So we auditioned at a couple of places and got a few jobs, and before we knew it we were having enough work to play music full time.”He was a West Indian in Canada but the music from the Caribbean kept drawing him back to his roots.“What happened was that from playing these different types of music—some R&B, some Caribbean—in the process of playing in that band I gradually began to feel more of a pull to the? Caribbean, which eventually led to me giving up that band for a couple of years and forming a band to play nothing but Caribbean music.“The parallel to that was I started writing songs for a music publisher in Toronto. They were all North American songs, and in that process, I found I wanted to be writing Caribbean stuff, so I formed the Tradewinds in late 1966, which was a kind of an oddity. “We were living in Canada,Wholesale Jerseys Free Shipping, and I had formed a band aimed at Caribbean people.”And when stardom came, it arrived quickly.The Tradewinds, which included two Trinidadians,nfl jerseys china, decided to make a trip to the birthplace of calypso music.By then, Dave had written and recorded four songs, including “Meet me in Port of Spain” and “Honeymooning Couple.”“We…thought ‘Meet me in Port of Spain’ would be a big hit, but nobody paid any attention to it,” Martins remembered with a laugh.“Then we went back to Canada, played a lot of free shows, and we thought that was that.But about two months later I started getting calls from Trinidad. “Honeymooning Couple” was a big hit; all the stations were playing it.“In the space of six months we went from being a nonentity to a chart-leading band in the Caribbean.”That was followed by a string of hits such as “Mr. Rooster,” (about 16 ‘sexy chickens’ chasing a rooster) “You Can’t Get”, “Copy Cats”, “Cricket in the Jungle.”“Fortunately, I was able to continue writing songs over the next 12 years.”But where do these ideas come from?“Music is how I express things,<a href="http://www.wholesalejer