Dave Martins & the Tradewinds

The story so far.

Written and edited by Smokiller

Dave Martins & the Tradewinds were the calypso band led by singer and songwriter Dave Martins. Martins was born on the West Coast of Demerara in Guyana and attended St. Stanislaus College in Georgetown before working at Atkinson Airport. He moved to Canada in 1956, where he answered a Toronto newspaper advertisement from someone hoping to start a Caribbean band. The group began as four players hired six nights a week, and Martins steered it away from a mainly Latin repertoire toward a mix that took in calypso. His best known song, Not a Blade of Grass, became an anthem against Venezuela's claim to Essequibo. Other songs credited to him include Cricket in the Jungle, Civilization, It's Traditional, Copycats, Guyana Coming Back, Wong Ping and West Indian Alphabet. The University of Guyana awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2022. Martins died in Georgetown in August 2024 at the age of 90.