Posted by: Editor on Oct 01, 2004 – 02:04 PM
newsandinfo His Asiatic looking face is easily recognised in The Bahamas. His facial features, however, belie his true heritage; he is the son of the late Nelson Chipman, an English land developer and merchant who migrated to The Bahamas in the early 1900s and Ethlyn Taylor from Long Island.
His stage name is “Chippy.” A prolific drummer, dancer and junkanooer, his career spans 56 years, and at 76, he is still going strong, holding two jobs – weekdays at the Prince George Dock Welcome Centre and weekends at Paradise Island Beach.
John Chipman is a Bahamian “original” who has more than once traveled the world promoting The Bahamas as a tourist destination. Like many of the top Bahamian entertainers, he started at the feet of the legendary Paul Meeres who in the 1950s and 1960s operated the Paul Meeres Club, at Market and Deveaux Sts.
“Paul Meeres was the greatest in the country and if you want to be a good entertainer, you had to go down that area and learn the drums, learn to dance. Everyone who went there went to the top … because they learn from the best in the country.
“I went there as a waiter … and I watched and learned from champion drummer called Stubbs. Peanuts Taylor used to be a little singer-dancer. We learned the drums the same time … we took this drum all around the world, Peanuts Taylor, and me,” recounts Chippy proudly.
Paul Meeres at the time catered to the rich and famous – the type of tourists The Bahamas was then attracting. Young John Chipman from the same Over-the-Hill neighbourhood – got his first job at Paul Meeres as a waiter. But the sprightly inquisitive boy soon got his hands on some drums, inadvertently…. and bam…a world-class entertainer was born! Chippy thereafter never stopped dancing and drumming his way into the Bahamian history, becoming the most honoured Bahamian entertainer of all time.
Most Bahamians know of the entertainment side of Chippy, but there is an altruistic side of him that he seldom talks about. Many in his Lifebouy St. neighbourhood can testify to this fact.
He says: “I live among the people in the village. I want to be among my people. I feed the hungry, shelter the blind. I help the sick and the poor. I share … that’s why I’m blessed.”
And blessed he has been. He is always performing at one or two places.
For his contributions to the culture and promotions of The Bahamas at home and abroad, he has received, in his words, “every honour that the country can give.” Among his awards are: an MBE (Member of The British Empire) from the Queen; The Bahamas Merit Award (BMA), which he got the same time as the late Prime Minster Pindling; Tourism Lifetime Achievement Award; the Junkanoo Award; the Independence Award; the Centennial Award; and awards from churches and civic organisations. He is also listed as one of the 150 most outstanding Bahamians in Jones Communications’ publication of the same name.
“The people of the country love me. I share my talents with the land. You want to learn to beat the drum, you come and learn for free,” he says.
His penchant for showing his musical and showmanship genius is credited with the development of Junkanoo in the 1950s. Says he: “I was a pacesetter with the drum, with cowbells, with costumes. All the drummers who are performing today in the different groups…. they started as small boys with Chippy.”
His group in the 1950s Chippy and the Boys was the first junkanoo group to use crepe paper costumes; and the first to include women. Chippy says fondly, “My wife (Becky), Maureen Duvalier, and Naomi Carey… they were the first women to rush on Bay St. in my group.”
Today of course, women are very much a part of the various groups. Although he does not lead a group nowadays, at daybreak on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day he is “going to town,” as he rushes as part of a “scrap gang.”
Also worthy of note is that three of his five daughters are dancers: Mitz, Arlene and Donnamae. The others, Darnell Chipman-Ward and Sonia, a former Miss Bahamas, are managerial-level employee in the hospitality and construction fields respectively.
He says of his wife, Rebecca (Becky) who at 16 he predicted they would be in the entertainment business:
“I met her when she was 16 at the Silver Slippers …when the band kick off everybody come off the floor … Baby, you dance so good, we going into show business.” For many years they performed as a husband-wife team up to the time of her passing in 1998.
As for his many grand children, Chippy says: “All my grand sons pick up the drums and stuff so we keeping this culture strongly in the Chipman family.”
And does he plan to hang up the cowbell and drum anytime soon? In vintage Chippy form, he responds: “Entertainers perform to the end … When they stop entertaining they dead. As long as God give me strength, I going to be licking up some drums and playing rake n’ scrape.”By Normon Rolle, The Nassau Guardian