Patrick Patterson and Steve Scipio grew up on the same street only a few doors away from each other. They both moved to United Kingdom from Guyana and were around the same age. The two became good friends before music was in the picture. But when it did, the two bonded over a piano.
“That was Patrick’s brainy idea, he’s always the man that comes up with these smart ideas,” Scipio said. “The thing is, we bought the piano and couldn’t get it through the front door to the house. Mr. Brains said, ‘Well, let’s disassemble it, then reassemble it once we get it inside.’ The thing is that disassembling was easy. Reassembling was another issue.”
“If Steve would have gotten involved with it earlier, he would have dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s,” Patterson said. “He would have made diagrams. When it came for the time for us to put it back together, we would have done it with ease. That’s one of the things that distinguishes us, he’s meticulous in that sense. With me, I just take it apart and expect to be able to put it back together wherever we were taking it.”
They put it back together, but it just didn’t play. Despite the piano keys not working in their favor, Patrick would teach himself how to play the guitar, and Steve would do the same on bass. The two were a part of a jazz unit called Metre before playing in a band with Ginger Johnson. That’s where they started putting the idea together about forming their own band.
The idea was to make original material right from the start. No covers or copying various music styles that were around at the time, but to try to make the band as original as possible. The first person they approached to join the band was Mike Rose, who was also a part of Ginger Johnson’s band. Mike knew Pablo Gonzalez, their Conga player, and invited Derek Gibbs to play the saxophone. Derek brought in Sam Kelly on drums. Joe Dee and Ray King would also join the band providing vocals. Peter Serreo played the saxophone alongside Derek.
With the name Cymande, they wanted the name to be a celebration of their Caribbean heritage and coming from a famous Calypso song, “Dove & Pigeon” by Lord Nelson. They wanted to pay tribute to the music they say hasn’t been given enough credit for its quality, especially the lyricism.
“That’s our community, and it’s supposed to reflect our community,” Patterson said. But we never ventured out of that, even though we’ve lived in other places. It’s always been our community.”
“We’ve always connected with our Caribbean heritage,” Scipio said. “All the members of the band, it’s all Caribbean people and different parts of the Caribbean. Maybe that contributed to the uniqueness of our sound.”
Their experiences growing up in England around that time wasn’t an easy task and would play out even when they broke into the music industry. But at the time, they would draw strength from one another and a sense of community.
“Experience for me was not a very pleasant one, to put it that way,” Scipio said. “Because, in the Caribbean, we have this vision of the U.K. as the motherland, and it would be welcoming to us as Caribbean people. In fact, a lot of the people from our earlier generation, our parents’ generation, were invited to go to the U.K. to assist in the rebuilding following the Second World War. They’re often referred to as the Windrush generation, because I think that was the first boat the people of our parents’ generation went to the U.K. on. But when I went with these expectations that it’s the motherland, you’ll be treated fairly, and it was the complete opposite for me — it had a very damaging impact on my life at that time in terms of the things I wanted to pursue.”
“We built our own structure,” Patterson said. “Because they were hostile to people coming from abroad. And the same occurred in schoolwork, generally. But we managed to construct something that has shaped our lives. But in terms of our message, that comes from many different sources. From the Caribbean, from the United States, from Africa. Our message is a blend of messages from various places. I was saying to someone the other day, remember how proud we were as young people when Muhammad Ali used to come to England to be interviewed. He was so vocal, articulate, and represented our community well. I think that’s one of the things that we have sought to do as musicians and as songwriters to represent our community in the best way that we can.”
The band began playing shows around London when British producer John Schroeder saw one of their performances. He would invite the band to record some demos and eventually signed them to Janus Records. In 1972, at De Lane Lea Studios in London, the band would record their self-titled debut album.
The record featured songs that some would consider classic in the Cymande catalog, including “The Message,” “Dove” and “Bra.” They received a lot of attention the United States. The success of the album helped them tour the U.S., opening for Al Green, becoming the first British band to perform at the Apollo Theater, and they made a few more albums along the way. Despite Cymande’s success, they received little notice in their home country and didn’t get the same love and support from the British music industry. Bassist Steve Scipio and guitarist Patrick Patterson say this is what led the group to disband.
“Had we been an English band that had gone to the U.S. and had that kind of recognition in the states, and returned to the U.K., we would not have been ignored in the way that we were,” Scipio said. “When we released the first album, it did not get much traction in the U.K., maybe because of the message of the album. What we were trying to do with it, the regionality of the music, etc. But it connected with the states and that was a fantastic experience for us. And then returning to the U.K., you’d expect with the interest that was generated in the states that there would at least be some interest in the band to find out why we connected to the states in the way that it did. But we were completely ignored and that impacted on the way things developed later.”
“We are a bunch of resilient people,” Patterson said. “More importantly, we came off the road because resilience is one thing, dignity is something equally important. We did not feel that it made sense to have that success we did in the U.S. and come back and go to a different level of operation or a lower level of operation. Because it would do a disservice to the appreciation that we have received in other places. In a sense, it was an easy call to decide to come off the road. It’s just that we came off the road and it took an awful long time to make our way back.”
While the group was on an extended hiatus, their music was used as breakbeats in the early stages of hip-hop thanks to DJs like Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc. Later their music would be sampled by hip hop artists like EPMD, Master Ace, the Fugees and De La Soul. This rediscovery other their music was the motivation to get back into the music scene.
I wasn’t aware of what was happening, and I don’t think Patrick was aware either,” Scipio said. “At that time, we were pursuing another professional limb, so we weren’t into what was happening with the music scene at that time. But my children obviously were. My eldest, he was the first one to bring to my attention one of the samples, it was De La Soul. And then I became aware of this new interest in our music. I communicated that to Patrick and then shortly after, there were the Fugees. We saw quite a development in the adoption of Cymande’s music in this new style and utilizing it in the way that we had hoped it would have been utilized or recognized in the 70s.”
After decades away from the music scene and Cymande’s music being rediscovered through hip-hop samples, the original members of the band decided to get back together in 201, teaming up with their original engineer and producer John Schroeder, who passed away in 2017. They released their first album Simple Act of Faith in 2015. After their performance at Central Park’s SummerStage in 2016, they linked up with their current management and began the process of creating their new album Renascence.
“It’s all been building slowly them there,” Patterson said. “That brings us to this point. “Not consistently working but consistently thinking about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to take the music and how we wanted to present the music.”
After 10 years the band would return to the spotlight releasing the song “Chasing the Dream.” It was intended to be motivational with the real essence of the song focusing on the things that have substance. Not to run around chasing things that don’t have any impact of may not have any positive influence in your life.
The album features also features guest appearances from Jazzie B of Soul II Soul and Celisse teaming up on the song “Only One Way.” Patterson compliments her performance calling her a beautiful singer whose emotion comes out of her singing. But also it was a great experience working with the new generation of artists.
“It was this younger generation that gave new life to our music,” Spicio said. “For us to have this opportunity to play and record with the musicians of today is a great experience for us.”
Although it was a long journey to get to this new album, the approach to their music remains the same. Cymande still captures the essence of sound that made fans fall in love all those years ago.
“When we go in the studio, there’s a freedom that we’re allowed which probably manifests itself in the songs that are on the album,” Scipio said. “It was the same approach with those first three albums in the 70s. John took us to the studio, and he did not seek to direct the music in any way. What he wanted to do was capture whatever essence was in the music. We always approached the songs with a live performance way of recording. That’s also what we adopted with this album. Went into the studio with full band and just did it as a live performance, not with the horns on the vocals, those were laid on later. But to get the rhythmic part of it. Because that is really where the essence of the song originates in a way. Once you get that rhythmic part of it together and locked in and you get that feel.”