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• Mystic Prowler
• Scrunter
• Lord Blakie
• Lord Funny
• Mighty Power
• Might Composer
• Lord Brigo
• King Fighter

Look out, the Warlord with the wicked laugh is in town. He and his cohorts came under cover of darkness to conquer Port of Spain, riding great battlehorses like his own Steelband Clash and Ah Comin’ by the Mighty Power.

They went back to a time when South Quay was South Quay and Sparrow and Melody ruled the calypso world. They were the Young Brigade, entering the arena when the Gaza Strip down Wrightson Road was seeing the last of its glory days. They rallied under the guidance of the great promoter Syl Taylor who knew their talent and cued them from beyond the singers’ barrier.

They are back, these survivors of calypso wars and hard times in-between seasons, to champion the cause of good lyrics and impeccable delivery. Men like Mystic Prowler doing No, Is a Jumbie (from Lord Melody’s song book), and Spoiler’s Cat Brain, in tribute to that singer’s unequalled imagination; Power. Never singing without his jacket, while Spoiler looked over his lyrics; stalwarts like the articulate Composer from San Fernando, boldly upping the ante on smut with Supposing.

Brigo first heard calypso, he says, "while still in meh mother belly". Fighter was one of the first to step out in front of the barrier to show the stance he had learned as a boxer, back in Guyana. You can still hear them mugging for the audience, Brigo in Obey and Stuttering Mopsy, and King Fighter snatching the hat from his bald head in Come Leh We Go. Funny’s Farmer Brown is still a killer, and Sweet Trinidad is more than just the sentimental tribute you remember it to be. Though his face remains as deadpan as ever.

Closer to those times comes Scrunter, once heir-apparent to the Kitchener crown. His Woman in the Bass will again beat her way into your hearts. It will be 1979, Desperadoes the only steelband in town.

I asked Blakie how he came to write Steelband Clash. "Ah was dey!" he said.

So here come the Glamour Boys Again, older, but stronger than ever. They are throwing down the challenge to the new purveyors of the art form and calypso lovers everywhere. Stop, stop you mocking pretender! The city is about to fall.

Mervyn Taylor