Happy Birthday Anthony Williams, O.R.T.T.

Innovator, pan player, composer arranger Anthony Williams will be celebrating his 81st birthday on Sunday (June 24) as well as the 50th anniversary of his triumph with Pan Am North Stars winning the 1962 Steelband Music Festival with the band’s rendition of Johann Strauss’ “Voices of Spring”.

The double celebration organized by his care-giver, Judy Arthur, will be held at the St. James Amphitheatre, Western Main Road, from 6:00 pm.

During the event, Williams will honor five (5) pan legends – Robbie Greenidge, Ray Holman, Len” Boogsie” Sharpe, Pelham “PG” Goddard and Earl Brooks – with The Spider Web Award.

There will also be live performances by St .James Tripolians, St. James North Stars, Scrunters Pan Groove and WITCO Desperadoes.

Williams who has often been described as “a man ahead of his times” is credited with the invention of a pan with notes spaced at intervals of thirds, fourths, fifths and sixths apart.

“Tony in his prowess as a steelpan tuner was the inventor of a pan called “the spider web”. This pan had as many as 60 notes and has never been able to be duplicated or reproduced.”

Anthony Williams along with Dr. Brian Copeland and Bertie Marshall were bestowed with the country’s highest award, Order of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, for distinguished and outstanding service to Trinidad & Tobago in 2008.