Arrow (musician)
Encyclopedia
Alphonsus Celestine Edmund Cassell MBE
(16 November 1949 – 15 September 2010) was a calypso
and soca music
ian who performed under the stage name Arrow, and is regarded as the first superstar of soca from Montserrat
.
Cassell began to fuse calypso with other genres such as Zouk
, R&B, and salsa
, resulting in some criticism, with accusations that he was destroying Montserrat's calypso traditions. Others argued, his updating of the genre brought it to a new audience.
In 1982, Cassell began working with arranger Leston Paul, and, with his Multi National Force band, recorded the album Hot Hot Hot, the title track, "Hot Hot Hot", becoming his first pan-Caribbean
hit and the biggest selling soca hit of all time. It was adopted as the theme song of the 1986 FIFA World Cup
in Mexico
, and was later covered
by David Johansen
(in his Buster Poindexter alter ego
), Menudo
, and Babla & Kanchan
.
He capitalized on this success with 1983's Heat album, and the "Rub Up" single, and 1984's Soca Savage album, from which the international hit "Long Time" was taken, a top 30 hit in the United Kingdom
. He enjoyed further chart success in the UK with a remixed version of "Hot Hot Hot", which reached number 38 (the original had stalled at number 58). By this time, Arrow was also incorporating Latin brass into his music. Subsequent albums also saw the incorporation of merengue
(1986's Heavy Energy), and rock
(1988's Knock Dem Dead). Heavy Energy was his first album for Island Records
' Mango label, with two further albums released on the label.
Cassell also established himself as a businessman in Montserrat, owning the Arrow's Manshop store in Plymouth
. When this was destroyed by the Soufriere Hills volcanic eruption, he relocated to Salem. He organized a fundraising calypso festival on the island in 1996, in response to the devastation caused by the volcano.
Cassell co-headlined Bermuda
's Soca '96 festival, and continued to regularly release albums. In 1988, he was awarded the Living Legends award by the organizers of the Caribbean Song Festival and the Bahamas Tourist Board.
Cassell continued to be much in demand in the Caribbean
. He last performed at the Cricket World Cup 2007 opening ceremonies with Shaggy
, Byron Lee
and Kevin Lyttle
.
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
(16 November 1949 – 15 September 2010) was a calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
and soca music
Soca music
Soca is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago. Soca is a musical development of traditional Trinidadian calypso, through loans from the 1960s onwards from predominantly black popular music....
ian who performed under the stage name Arrow, and is regarded as the first superstar of soca from Montserrat
Montserrat
Montserrat is a British overseas territory located in the Leeward Islands, part of the chain of islands called the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies. This island measures approximately long and wide, giving of coastline...
.
Early years
Cassell first performed aged 10 in a concert at the Montserrat Secondary School. He began singing calypso in 1967 and took the Junior Monarch title that year. He took up singing professionally in 1969, and in that year he was runner up in the Montserrat Calypso King competition, going on to win the title the following year (following in the footsteps of his brothers Justin (a.k.a. Hero) and Lorenzo (a.k.a. Young Challenger). He would go on to take the title a total of four times.Career
He released his first single, "Dance with Me, Woman" in 1972, and set up his own Arrow label in 1973. 1974 saw the release of debut album The Mighty Arrow on Target, followed in 1975 with Arrow Strikes Again. He won the Road March competition at the 1975 St. Kitts festival with "Rummy Song".Cassell began to fuse calypso with other genres such as Zouk
Zouk
Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe & Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the...
, R&B, and salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
, resulting in some criticism, with accusations that he was destroying Montserrat's calypso traditions. Others argued, his updating of the genre brought it to a new audience.
In 1982, Cassell began working with arranger Leston Paul, and, with his Multi National Force band, recorded the album Hot Hot Hot, the title track, "Hot Hot Hot", becoming his first pan-Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
hit and the biggest selling soca hit of all time. It was adopted as the theme song of the 1986 FIFA World Cup
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, and was later covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by David Johansen
David Johansen
David Roger Johansen is an American rock, protopunk, blues, and pop singer, as well as a songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the seminal protopunk band The New York Dolls and also achieved commercial success under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter.-Early life:Johansen was born in...
(in his Buster Poindexter alter ego
Alter ego
An alter ego is a second self, which is believe to be distinct from a person's normal or original personality. The term was coined in the early nineteenth century when dissociative identity disorder was first described by psychologists...
), Menudo
Menudo (band)
Menudo was a Puerto Rican boy band that was formed in the 1970s by producer Edgardo Díaz, releasing their first album in 1977. The band achieved much success, especially during the 1980s, becoming the most popular Latin American teen musical group of the era....
, and Babla & Kanchan
Babla & Kanchan
Babla & Kanchan were an Indian husband-wife musical group best known for work in the chutney music and Desi music genres. They performed together for forty years until Kanchan died in 2004...
.
He capitalized on this success with 1983's Heat album, and the "Rub Up" single, and 1984's Soca Savage album, from which the international hit "Long Time" was taken, a top 30 hit in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. He enjoyed further chart success in the UK with a remixed version of "Hot Hot Hot", which reached number 38 (the original had stalled at number 58). By this time, Arrow was also incorporating Latin brass into his music. Subsequent albums also saw the incorporation of merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
(1986's Heavy Energy), and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
(1988's Knock Dem Dead). Heavy Energy was his first album for Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
' Mango label, with two further albums released on the label.
Cassell also established himself as a businessman in Montserrat, owning the Arrow's Manshop store in Plymouth
Plymouth, Montserrat
Plymouth is the de jure capital of the island of Montserrat, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom located in the Leeward Island chain of the Lesser Antilles, West Indies. The town was overwhelmed by volcanic eruptions starting in the 1990s and was abandoned...
. When this was destroyed by the Soufriere Hills volcanic eruption, he relocated to Salem. He organized a fundraising calypso festival on the island in 1996, in response to the devastation caused by the volcano.
Cassell co-headlined Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
's Soca '96 festival, and continued to regularly release albums. In 1988, he was awarded the Living Legends award by the organizers of the Caribbean Song Festival and the Bahamas Tourist Board.
Cassell continued to be much in demand in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. He last performed at the Cricket World Cup 2007 opening ceremonies with Shaggy
Shaggy (musician)
Orville Richard Burrell , better known by his stage name Shaggy, is a Jamaican-American reggae singer and rapper. He is perhaps best known for his 1995 single "Boombastic" and 2000 single "It Wasn't Me"...
, Byron Lee
Byron Lee
Byron Lee OD, OJ was a musician, record producer, and entrepreneur, best known for his work as leader of Byron Lee and the Dragonaires.-Biography:Lee was born in Christiana in Manchester Parish to an Afro-Jamaican mother and a Chinese father Byron Lee OD, OJ (born Byron Aloysius St. Elmo Lee, 27...
and Kevin Lyttle
Kevin Lyttle
Kevin Lyttle is a soca artist hailing from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who had a worldwide hit with the interpellative soca ballad "Turn Me On", which was recorded by Lyttle and the dancehall artist Spragga Benz.-Career:Previously, Lyttle had subsisted on day jobs, such as customs officer...
.
Death
Cassell died peacefully at his home in Montserrat with his family at his side, on 15 September 2010 after battling cerebral cancer for two years.Albums
- The Mighty Arrow on Target (1972)
- Arrow Strikes Again (1973)
- Keep on Jamming (1975)
- Sweet Beat (1978)
- Instant Knockout (1980)
- Man From Africa (1980)
- Double Trouble (1981)
- Hot Hot Hot (1982)
- Heat (1983)
- Soca Savage (1984)
- Deadly (1985)
- Heavy Energy (1986)
- Knock Dem Dead (1988)
- Massive (1988)
- O'La Soca (1989)
- Soca Dance Party (1990)
- Hot Soca Hot (1990)
- Zombie Soca (1991)
- Zombie Remixes (1991)
- The Best Of Arrow Volume 2 (1992)
- Model De Bam Bam (1992)
- Outrageous (1993)
- Classics (1994)
- Phat (1995)
- Ride De Riddim (1996)
- Turbulence (1998)
- Beat De Drum (2000)
- Arrow - Vintage Volume 1 (2002)
- No Rules (2002)
Singles
- 1973: "Dance with Me, Woman"
- 1981: "Soca Rhumba"
- 1983: "Rub Up"
- 1982: "Hot Hot Hot" #59 UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
- 1984: "Long Time" #30 UK
- 1988: "Groove Master" #23 U.S. DanceHot Dance Club PlayThe Hot Dance Club Songs chart is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U.S. dance clubs...
- 1989: "O' La Soca" #38 U.S. Dance
- 1994: "Hot Hot Hot (World Carnival Mix '94)" #38 UK
Further reading
- De Ledesma, Charles and Georgia Popplewell. "Put Water in the Brandy?"". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 507–526. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
External links
- Alphonsus Cassell bio
- Arrow discography
- Norman 'Gus' Thomas (August 6, 2004) Soca Superstar Arrow Among Honourees In Antigua.
- Government of Montserrat:
Death Announcement for Alphonsus “Arrow” Cassell
The Mighty Arrow, Soca King of the World, dies at 60 - Obituaries from The Guardian and The Independent newspapers.