By SEETA PERSAD Friday, December 15 2006

Chutney diva, Drupatie Ramgoonai will pay tribute to the late Sundar Popo on Saturday night at Big J Entertainment Centre, Barrackpore.

The show which is entitled, From One Legend to Another will see Drupatie doing her top chutney and calypso selections of yesteryear. She will also release her two new selections for the upcoming Carnival season. This event produced by Lotus Promotions will feature the talent of SSL Melobugs with Ras Nancoo Singh and Andy Singh. Ramragie Prabhu will also perform.

Chief Coordinator of this tribute, Jairaj Singh said Popo set the pace for chutney singers in this country, “He was responsible for taking chutney music to great heights. And chutney music is now popular in Trinidad and Tobago and many parts of the world,” he said. He noted that while many of the local singers chose to sing the songs created in India, Popo remained the first artiste to have his songs dubbed by Kanchan of India. “He was that good with his composition and music, that it caught the eyes of an expert from India who later re-recorded his songs in a CD,” Singh explains.

Drupatie, on the other hand was responsible for taking the chutney one step further and mixing it with calypsos to satisfy a mixed audience in TT. In 1988 Drupatie dominated the local charts with her own composition entitled, “Mr Bissessar.” The song described her admiration of a certain Trinidadian tassa drummer by the name of Bissessar. Singh said that “Mr Bissessar” hit number one in every country in the English-speaking Caribbean, from Antigua to Guyana. A few weeks later, the success of this song sky-rocketed on the soca charts in the United States, Canada, and England. Drupatie also blended her voice with soca monarch, Machel Montano for the song, “Wapan Jayee.” This also appealed to a mixed audience in TT.

“If Sundar Popo was the king of Indo-Caribbean music, then Drupatee was its queen. And this is why we saw it fit to present this artiste on stage to pay tribute to Sundar Popo, Singh said.

Popo started his singing career during his childhood days. It was not until he was 16 that he recorded his first local composition, “Nana and Nani.” Singing that popular number on Mastana Bahar for the first time in 1971, Popo’s rendition caught the imagination of television and radio audiences with his lyrical blend of Hindi and English and spicy rhythmic beat.

The demand for Popo to perform at both local and foreign concerts pushed him to international stardom.

Of his four children (three sons, one daughter), only two of them, Hemant Sundar, and Harripersad Sundar have taken up singing. However, daughter Sundari and last son Jaiknath prefer to be good supporters and listeners.

Popo recorded hundreds of songs during his career which spanned three decades. For his contribution to music and culture, he was awarded the Humming Bird Medal (silver) in 1993.

Popo became the godfather of local Chutney songs and in 1995 calypsonian Black Stalin was inspired to sing “Tribute To Sundar Popo,” in which he called on Popo to compose a song that could bring him a lot of money. Stalin eventually won the national Calypso Monarch title with this selection. One of Popo’s greatest hits remains, “Your Mother’s Love.” The most popular songs recorded by Popo include “Sundar Fever,” “Sweet Sweet Guyana” (which was produced with Anand Yankeran), “Children Respect Your Mother,” “Heart Break,” and “Sundar’s Screwdriver.”

Popo’s son, Harripersad lives in Miami, Florida and has his own collection of chutney songs in the United States.

Sundar’s granddaughter, Chandra Sundar, is now following in her grandfather’s footsteps.