Your Ultimate Guide To Barbados

The Mighty Gabby

Anthony "The Mighty Gabby" Carter was born on March 30, 1948 in the sland of Barbados and is a legendary Barbadian calypsonian and Cultural Ambassador for the island of Barbados.

His Musical Career

Gabby is well-known throughout the calypso arena for his seemingly sarcastic style of writing. He is one of the most creative melody makers working alongside a body of regional arrangers including the likes of Frankie McIntosh, Eddy Grant, Andy Williams, Nicholas Brancker, Mike Sealy and the late 'Patches' Mendoza. This crafty lyricist readily strikes out at politicians who have failed miserably in suffocating his open utterances.

Gabby has been writing calypso for more than forty (40) years and in that time has written more than seven hundred (700) songs. This legendary calypsonian and the Cultural Ambassador was the youngest calypsonian to win the calypso crown in Barbados at the 'green' age of nineteen (19) way back in 1968. Since that time he has gone on to win the Calypso King title in 1969, 1976, 1985, 1999, 2000 and 2010. He was awarded Folk Singer Of The Year in 1977, 1978 and 1979.

He won the first ever Crop-Over Road March title in 1979 with his catchy tune 'Burn Mr. Harding' and again in 1982 with 'Jack' (dah beach is mine).

In 2005, he received the 2005 Clement Payne National Hero Award and was also awarded the Living Legend Award at the first ever Barbados Music Awards in January 2006. He is a vocal Pan-Africanist.

2010 Calypso Finals

Interestingly enough, The Mighty Gabby had no intentions wahtsoever of participating in the Pic-O-De-Crop competition in 2010 as he would have much preferred to throw his attention towards the development of the youth in this particular art form.

His involvement got on the way when he was informed that his calypso tent hadn't lived up to the outlined expectations on opening night of the festival. This prompted Gabby to now get involved as failure and embarrassment was not to be a part of their game. He quickly kicked into gear and swiftly memorised two songs hours before the start of the semi-finals. These two songs were written by him. Going forward to the semi-finals and then the finals meant he was more than ready for the National Stadium. As quickly as this all unfolded and as unreal as it may have seemed to others looking on, Gabby was quite confident in his ability to convince the judges that he was indeed the man for the night and hence he carried away the Calypso Crown for the eight (8th) time.

Although his songs 'Haiti' and 'Ole Ashe' were quite impressive according to the judges, the same wasn't the case for the crowd as boos were heard loud and clear at the announcement of his win. Gabby was noted as saying that the crowd didn't understand the music and for that he has forgiven them.

He went on to explain that the music was a fusion of Brazilian flavour, spouge, calypso and African rhythms that only a trained ear would detect.

Gabby's talents are not just restricted to the art forn of calypso as in 2005, he has starred in the multi-award winning documentary 500 Years Later, starring Maulana Karenga.

Further information on the Mighty Gabby cand be sourced at the following website http://www.myspace.com/themightygabby.