One Family

One Family defected from the Saxon Superstars in early 1993 and in the same year participated in the Boxing Day Parade.  One Family’s leadership consists of a steering committee whose chairperson changes annually.  According to Mr. Jackson Burnside the reason One Family broke away from the Saxons was that the group grew too large.  One Family need to expose their talents and an opportunity to express their creativity.

Roots

www.rootsjunknoo.com

Roots Junkanoo group is the realism of an ideal dreamt up by four young men who were stagnated within the old-time despotic machinations of one of the powerhouses in the Junkanoo World.

Leslie Johnson Les”, Kevin Rahming “Dribbs, Anthony Smith Chinese” and Wendell Francis Guts” persuaded three other icons in the field, Paul Knowles Diamond”, Peter Turn quest Gold” and Quentin Woodside Barabbas”, to form a new democratically run organization.

At its inception meeting held in a backyard, Dribbs, a costume builder, gave the new entity its name and identity, ROOTS.

Since the group’s appearance in the annual parades the competition level has risen, as it was proven that a newcomer could be a force to reckon with.

Roots continues to increase in strength and magnitude, even though two smaller groups have developed from this mother, Barabbas and the Tribe and Colors. Performance and presentation are constantly being enhanced by technology and exposure to other cultures and festivals. ROOTS, never a novelty always a phenomenon continues to step out front and be the forerunner for new sounds and fantastic costuming. We do all of this for Junkanoo aficionados, ROOTS fans and the Bahamas our country.Roots first appeared in 1991

Shell Saxons Superstars

a Bahamian Tradition

A group of young men are working furiously in the hot shed.  Hanging in the air like a blanket is the almost unbearable heat and the smell of contact cement.

Despite the heat and closeness, the mood is light.  There are jokes and loud laughter as nimble fingers manipulate shears, cardboard, glue, wire and styrofoam spread all around them.  Everywhere cardboard and styrofoam are taking on lifelike shapes, then covered with multicolored paper and sparkle. Who are these people?  What are they doing? They are, if you please, the brains behind the costumes of the Shell Saxon Superstars Junkanoo group.

Most of them have never had any formal art training, but are still considered among the best artists in the country.  They are working on a six-month project that takes them away from their families, jobs and most social activities.  They are preparing for Junkanoo.

Junkanoo is a Bahamian festival of dancing, costumes and the music of goat skin drums, cowbells, and horns.  It is but a fragment of an almost forgotten African ancestry.  Junkanoo is the closet most Bahamian will get to the culture of their African heritage.

The men and women of the Saxons are keeping this Junkanoo culture alive with the same unbending determination as many other Junkanoo groups in the country.  But the Saxons, with membership numbering in the tens of thousands, are special for some very special reasons.

For thousands of Bahamians, the Saxons represent a culture unto themselves.  Recruiting many of their numbers from Mason’s Addition and the surrounding grass root areas, the group exemplifies an identity of pride and belonging.

A typical example is veteran drummer Anthony Green Senior.  Green is a long-time resident of Mason’s Addition.  For him there is no social activity more important than his involvement with the Saxons.  For as long as he can remember, he has been a part of the group, traveling with them living among them.

Over the years, Green has impressed upon his family the pride of belonging to the Saxons.  Today at 40 something and a grandfather, Green still retains the Saxons fire; only now the fire has spread over his entire household.

For Green his wife and four children, they are a part of the Saxons and the Saxons are a part of them.  Simply put, said Green “I’ve always been a Saxon and I will die a Saxon.”

This is what being a Saxon is all about, achieving great prestige as a member of a team which would likely be out of reach for the individual.  Being a Saxon is as real as any other “over-the-hill” experience can get.

Over-the-hill or not the leadership and ranks of the Saxons are bulging with professionals and intellectuals.  There is Dr. Philip Thompson, Chief Surgeon at the Princess Margaret Hospital.  There is Jackson Burnside a gifted American trained architect, and there is Dr. Emmanuel Francis a dentist, who makes a smooth transition from the dentist office to Junkanoo dancer, and there are numerous other examples: Teachers engineers, bankers and brokers.

Professional or not, educated or not each member of the Saxons has a specific role to fill.  Working side by side, the same loyalty is expected of everyone and each person is expected to carry his load.

Valley Boys

a Historical Perspective

There is no doubt about it.  Junkanoo has evolved into our “Super Bowl” of the Bahamas.  Due to the participation of all the current groups, there is no local event that matches it in terms of intense preparation, spirited competition, media hype and spectacular color and performances.

That was not always the case, for at one time Junkanoo was not widely accepted.  Participation and attendance was sparse and while the costumes of long fringes and tossil hats exhibited color, there was no true artistic content.

In 1958, a visionary in the form of Winston “Gus” Cooper formed a Junkanoo group along with friends from the Centreville area of New Providence, all mere teenagers at the time.  Ms. Gwen Fountain, mother of one of the members was employed with Malcolm’s Garage and obtained sponsorship for the small group in the amount of fifteen pounds for the Boxing Day parade.  The group received a consolation prize.

In 1959, Gus’s recruitment efforts continued and he attracted Doyle Burrows and Edward Fritzgerald two personalities who contributed significantly to the group’s initial stability and growth.  In fact Doyle’s brother Deyanza, gave the group its name The Valley Boys, as the area from which the group originated was “a valley” between three hills, Centreville, Hawkins and Sears Addition hills.

The late Mr. Lenny Bartlett was an invaluable source of ideas and design concepts for Gus.  He encouraged the use of crepe rather than tissue paper cut into three strips, for costumes and also advised on construction techniques.

The structure was established for The Valley Boys and at the Boxing Day 1960 parade, the group got its first taste of many victories with its theme Scottish Highlanders.  With this victory, the group had changed the face of Junkanoo forever by cementing in the minds of competitors and judges alike the theme concept in Junkanoo, the artistic nature of crepe paper, and dance and performance movements, never before witnessed on the parade route.