Standing before the microphone in a slinky evening gown, her voice soft and silky, she sings a Spanish love song. Her trademark plait frames her face as she sways to the music. With her closest colleagues backing her, she holds her audience spellbound as she works her way through jazz, a sultry rhythm and blues, a lulling ballad. Yet in an instant, she can shout to any audience anywhere: “Let me hear the militant raggamuffin caalll!”, and the crowd screams its readiness.
This is Alison Hinds.
She has the seductive look, the comfortable stage demeanour and the real-life sincerity that the stage loves. She controls a crowd, getting hundreds of people to do just about anything. That power, coupled with some red-hot party songs over the past few years, has brought Alison regional stardom and household-name status.
She grabbed consecutive Barbados Road March titles in 1996 and 1997, and the 1997 Party Monarch crown. This is definitely Alison’s time.
Alison has yearned to be on that big stage since she was a child, yet that childhood goal might not have come to pass without the band she launched her career with 11 years ago. Alison and Square One are like mother and child.
Fellow lead singer Andy Armstrong recognised her raw talent soon after his own 1985 climb to national fame as the youngest calypsonian (Youngblood) to reach the finals in Barbados’s Calypso Monarch competition. Says Andy, “I knew Ali a few years but didn’t know she was interested in singing until she called one day and said she wanted to get into it. I said “Why you don’t sing to me over the phone ?'”
The shy teen sang a Stevie Wonder song so well that Armstrong urged her to enter the Richard Stoute Teen Talent competition. But, says Alison, “I certainly would not have had the courage to do it myself, so he entered me, then chose a few ballads and helped me through the rehearsals.” The effort won her a third place tie.
Each band member’s first step was made in the Richard Stoute Teen Talent, but the group itself was born at Lodge Secondary School, where games master and popular entertainer Mac Fingall encouraged and guided the youngsters. Mac grins when he says that while Terry Arthur was studiously developing his music skills, “George Jones and Anderson Armstrong were busy hiding in the back of the class to keep from doing exercises – and because they looked bony in their short pants. That is how they caught my attention.”
Soon, a group emerged and played at school shows. “I had Anderson in the Untouchables tent from 1984 and Alison came in as a background vocalist while she was still in school in 1987.”
To get permission for Alison to join the band was serious business, akin to a “marriage proposal”: the boys had to seek her mother’s blessing. Says Marsilla Hinds, “Since she was the only female, I had to be satisfied with how she would be treated. I asked questions, and after talking to the boys, they showed me they were nice, respectable young men. So I had no doubts about letting her join the band.”
Yet a name evaded them. Turning to their mentor, they fretted that each time they tried a name it didn’t work and they were “back to square one”. Mac’s reply was, “That’s the name then, and if things go wrong, just start over.”
Square One backed the Untouchables tent despite protests they were too young. Mac stood by them. “I had confidence in them, and the exposure served them well, because tent work is a serious grind.” The group cut their teeth on the hotel circuit, then in the clubs, which, Alison says, “helped build my confidence and repertoire.”
In 1992 Alison and John King won the Barbados Song Contest with the original love song, Hold You in a Song. The two went on to grab the CBU Caribbean Song contest title as well. Says Alison, “It felt very good, especially to be the first representatives from Barbados and to do it in Trinidad. It was a perfect collaboration.”
Though a ballad first dropped Alison’s name in the Caribbean, soca shot her to regional fame. But she first had to find her own stage persona. “I had very few female influences – the style of Trinidadian women just wasn’t me. So I looked to male artists like Machel [Montano]’ because of his stage energy, Iwer George for his stage personality, David Rudder for how he controls an audience and mesmerises them, and Edwin [Yearwood]. I like to see him perform and the way he gets people involved, pumping all that energy.”
Alison knew she had work to do. “I know I wasn’t seen as an outstanding singer, mainly because I didn’t know how to communicate with an audience. I didn’t know what to say or how to get people involved.” Eventually though, she says, “I began to get more comfortable, and the rapport started to flow. Then I realised people want you to talk to them and they want to feel they know you.” But the trick, she says, is “coming across to people without being too forceful.” That’s a skill Alison has fine-tuned to the point where other female artists try to emulate her.
Leading Trinidadian promoter Mike “Big Mike” Antoine imports Square One for his Carnival costume band each year. The Legends leader says, “Alison is a real force in Trinidad. We don’t have any woman leading a soca band. She’s cutting new ground there and in casting off the typical vulgar approach. Now many women here are trying to adopt that style.”
Mac Fingall agreed. “Alison Hinds is sex on stage. But although she’s sensual, she never allows it to become vulgar.
And I believe so long as she retains that style, she will hold the level of respect she has now.”
But it isn’t just Alison’s sexy image that’s appealing, says Square One pannist, composer and percussionist Terry Arthur. “What drives her popularity is the energy she throws from the stage. She is very approachable and it comes through in her performances … It all comes down to one word: confidence. She always had the talent but every year she gets more confident, and now she can compete against any man, especially in party music, Marsilla approves of her daughter’s clean-cut wuk-up style. “I go to many of Alison’s shows and I have never been dissatisfied with the way she performs. She can wine, she can move, she can wuk up, but she does it in a decent way.”
A gregarious and straightforward woman, Marsilla has guided Alison well. “I always tell her, ‘any time you do anything, you have to first respect yourself and then others in order to get respect back’. She knows that if she did anything on stage disrespectful to herself or anyone else I would pull her up on it later. .. I know my child, and she would never grieve my heart or her audience.”
Alison has no problem with Marsilla’s watchful eye. “My mother is the backbone, the main influence and character-builder in my life. She is always there for me, and she gives good advice. It may not be what I want to hear, but she shoots straight from the hip.”
Offstage, Alison is another person. She shares one trait with her stage persona – an impish sense of the comedic. But she has a serious private side. “There are people who think I just dance around the house. But when I am home I do quiet things.” She is an avid reader and a devout vegetarian with a spiritual outlook. “I read a lot of books with inspirational and uplifting messages. It’s a philosophical lifestyle that helps me stay centered and humble.” She maintains her fitness with a tailored cardio and weight programme, which ensures that she has the look and the energy to wow the crowds.
Born in London of Barbadian parents, Alison spent summers in Barbados as a child and “fell in love with Barbados completely. I used to cry when I had to leave.” Then in 1981, when Alison asked her mother yet again, “Can we stay?”, she said “Yes.” But the move had a glitch; it was due to her parents’ separation. Says Alison, “After building a life in England, then to start all over, I admire my mother deeply for that. She is a strong woman and I would hope that I have inherited some of that strength.”
Fourteen years passed before Alison heard from her father again. Since that awkward meeting, they have forged a new relationship. “He is a born-again Christian now and rakes the blame for his problems. He has finally grown up,” Alison says.
By coping with the family split, Marsilla provided Alison with an example of inner strength and resolve that ultimately helped her to grow. She tells young people from single-parent homes, “Don’t let your circumstances affect who you become. Let them make you stronger and more determined. I had to be diligent and proactive in my life to make my one parent proud of me.”
And that she did. Says Marsilla, “Alison was singing through the house as early as pre-school, then she joined the primary school choir and played violin. I was monitoring the situation, and as she grew up and got more into the singing, I didn’t say it to her, but I thought she most likely would become a singer.”
Says Alison, “As long as I’ve known myself I loved singing. As a little girl I stood in front of the mirror with a brush as a microphone and imagined thousands of people in front of me. I was very clear in my mind.”
Square One continues to gain momentum. This year, the band “mashed up” Trinidad – their best tour in three years of Carnival. Says Terry, “We have a good relationship with the bands there. We go in as part of a Caribbean team and they pick up that vibe.”
Adds Mac, “Their success in Trinidad is so phenomenal it is almost unbelievable, especially with Alison. They almost worship her. And she has
matured to the point where she has the patience it takes to deal with the fans.”
“Thanks to Square One and Alison’s incredible popularity, we are now one of the biggest costume bands in Trinidad,” says Big Mike. “In fact, we won ‘Overall Band of the Year’ and Square One took second place as top band on the road.”
If Trinidad is any example of the band’s future, then global is only a hip hop away. Wyclef Jean, founder member of the internationally-acclaimed hip hop band, the Fugees, breezed through Barbados last year and caught Square One on stage. “I fell in love with the sound and the vibe of Square One. Their music was really moving.” The Grammy Award winner adds, “I like the leadership of Alison and the way she can move a crowd. It’s that wine, you know? She gets everybody doin’ that wine. I even tried that wine.”
In 1996 Square One moved away from the ICE label to go independent and Terry started writing for Alison. “We were not making an impact. So we had to make that break. Terry wrote Raggamuffin and several other songs for Four Sides, and that was the turning point for the band and myself in terms of our career.”
Touring is now a way of life for the group, but Alison takes it light-heartedly. “We catch planes like people catch buses. I could write the book, Hotels of the World. One of the nice things is we are all very good friends. We lime together and look after one another and it isn’t every band that can stay in one house like we do.”
Andy says that camaraderie comes from “the love and respect we have for one another. The rough times we had kept us strong and there’s no one that can tear us apart.”
Terry agrees. “We are like a family, especially on tour. .. Our original material is getting more popular every year, and the strength of the band – the real strength that you can separate from the others – is that each of the three lead singers is solid. In two different years we have had all three lead singers in the Party Monarch finals. That’s a hard feat, and they did it twice.”
Keyboardist George Jones who is the band “archivist” says that aside from the driving rhythms and original music, having a woman in the forefront and doing such an excellent job “is a strong selling point.” Since 1988 it has won a string of national awards as well as the Miami Road March title in 1998. After five top-selling CDs over the years, the 1999 Crop Over album, Fast Forward, is expected to seize top spots on charts across the region.
In fact, this year’s Crop Over may well be Square One’s best yet. Says Alison, “We’re sticking to what we’re best at while trying to fuse our sound with other Caribbean styles.” That is evident in the Terry Arthur songs like the dub and hip hop blend, Rescue, the zouk remake of Can’ t Keep A Good Man Down and the cadance number, If You Really Want It. But Alison shines most with party music like Give You What You Want and Bazzody For Jour O’vert. Says Terry of this latest work, “I’m always searching for variety. We try to be consistent, yet fuse with music from other islands. There’s so much music in the Caribbean that people often do not get to hear it. We’re searching for that big cross-over song and doing more television videos for BET and Much Music.”
Alison is hopeful about international recognition for Caribbean music. “Artists are more willing to experiment and do collaborations, and Caribbean fusions have mainstream international marketability – once the lyrics are universal and they make music for the people. All the fancy riffs and blow-away lead breaks are for the musicians to marvel over. Audiences are interested in the rawness and rhythm of the music.”
Alison herself adopts a fusion of another kind when she slides into foreign song. She sings in French as well as Portuguese and patois dialects. Her exotic ballads come from the heart. Says Mac, “She’s like a musical actress; she portrays any facet of music she sings.”
Right now Alison is preparing for her biggest challenge yet- her first solo concert, which, she says, “will reflect my career and who I am.”
Adzil Stuart, artistic coordinator for the show, and Alison’s personal imager, predicts: “This concert will present the many facets of this incredible young woman. It will be truly Alison; Alison the lady, Alison the entertainer and Alison the soca queen.”
