Summer Rose

"The voice of the devil"! It's difficult to imagine that in the 50s some obtuse people labelled Calypso like this, especially given the carnival-esque attitudes to music in Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela, where she is from, but indeed, they did. Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis, aka Calypso Rose, swam against mainstream tradition and her father's wishes by adopting this typically masculine style as her own, and infuriated her critics when she became its brightest star. In Tobago nowadays she's a figurehead, a role model, a semi-mythical musical figure who inhabits a whole other milieu while retaining an approachable touch. Time then, surely, to hop across the channel and share her festive soul. While her music is festive and engaging, it never loses itself totally to wild abandon and always retains a semi socio-political edge. The one they call "lioness of the jungle" has always housed a fiery temperament, and just because she's over 75 now doesn't mean she's quitting any time soon. Far from Home is further proof of her vivacity and verve, not because she has anything to prove, but because she can...

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