In the Homegrown Plus series, we present concert webcasts from the American Folklife Center’s Homegrown Concert Series that also have accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post (find the whole series here). The series continues with this post, which highlights a Homegrown concert and oral history with the Swanky Kitchen Band.
On July 31, 2024, the American Folklife Center welcomed the Swanky Kitchen Band to the Library of Congress’ Coolidge Auditorium for a performance and oral history interview. The band hails from the Cayman Islands—a three-island nation in the Caribbean located west of Jamaica and south of Cuba. The Swanky Kitchen Band carries forward the tradition of kitchen band music—a fiddle-based dance music. Many who heard about the Swanky Kitchen Band’s performance asked a similar question: “There’s a fiddle tradition in the Caribbean?” Even the professional folklorists and ethnomusicologists on staff at the American Folklife Center were intrigued when they learned about this new-to-them genre.
For Samuel Rose, Swanky Kitchen Band’s leader and fiddler, the tradition was anything but new—it was directly related to the history of the Cayman Islands, where he was born and raised. Rose describes the tradition as “the music of the first settlers” of the Cayman Islands. As he explains, the music’s fiddle-based elements can be attributed to the British, Irish, and Scottish settlers of the islands, who either arrived in the Cayman Islands via Jamaica or because of shipwreck. Enslaved Africans, forcibly brought to the islands for labor, infused the tradition with drums and dance.
While the Swanky Kitchen Band are bearers of the kitchen music tradition, they are also responsible for reviving and reinventing the tradition, too. Samuel Rose, Nicholas Johnson, and Daniel Augustine (no longer a band member) formed the Swanky Kitchen Band in 2003, to keep the tradition alive. However, starting the group was no easy task. Rose says that there were few resources to get started. He explains, “We didn’t get any of this passed to us. We didn’t sit at the feet of any of the masters to learn. We’ve had to piece it together by listening to recordings that were made of the last great fiddler, Radley Gourzong and the Happy Boys. Without those, I don’t know where we would be today.”
Like the mixing of cultural influences in kitchen band music and the piecing together of the band’s repertory, the group’s name is an homage to the mixture of brown sugar, native sour oranges, and limes—a drink known as “swanky.” For some, swanky may be an adjective describing something that is “posh” or “fancy.” In the Cayman Islands, however, swanky is a traditional drink, served, sometimes with rum, at parties, family gatherings, and for consumption on the islands’ many beaches.
During the band’s hour-long concert, which you can see in the player above, they performed a range of original and traditional songs. Rose humorously says that the group’s songs can be summarized into three themes: eating, beating, and cheating. For example, one of the group’s first songs, titled “Beef in the Cane/Sharpen Your Butcher Knife,” describes how a cow has gotten loose, and died, in the fields, giving locals an unexpected feast. One of the group’s beating songs, “Sammy Beating Susannah,” was composed by Aunt Julia Hydes—famous in the Cayman Islands for playing drums well past her 100th birthday. With respect to cheating, the band performed a beautiful version of “House Not a Home,” composed by band member Karen (KK Alese) Turner. The song, as Turner describes, addresses the modern challenges of living in the Cayman Islands: “Most of you are aware that financial services and tourism are our main industries,” Turner says. “While they have brought immense opportunities to Cayman, development and progress have introduced [their] own challenges, as well.” In the song’s lyrics, Turner describes the “promise” of development as a “brick made of lies and sand.” Cheating, on a societal level, indeed.
Following the performance, Dr. Jon Lohman, director of the Center for Cultural Vibrancy, interviewed band members Nicholas Johnson, Paula Scott, Samuel Rose, and Karen (KK Alese) Turner. Lohman has worked tirelessly to bring the band, and their story, to audiences in the United States. Their conversation touched on the history of their tradition, the roots of the group, and their ambitions for the future. See the interview in the player below.
The attendees to the Swanky Kitchen Band’s performance were a highlight of the day’s activities. Teresa Echenique, Chief Officer in the Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Heritage for the Cayman Islands gave opening remarks at the performance. Afterward, Echenique presented John Fenn, Head of Research and Programs at the American Folklife Center, with books and recordings related to the cultural heritage of the Caribbean nation. Audience members—many of whom were dressed in the colors of the Cayman Islands—waved national flags during the concert and were recording the performance for news outlets back home. Individuals who stewarded the kitchen band tradition, like Henry Muttoo, were also present at the performance. It was clear that the Swanky Kitchen Band’s concert was an important moment for the people and cultural heritage of the Cayman Islands.
The concert was also important for members of the Swanky Kitchen Band. Before the show, Samuel Rose and I stood at the base of the Coolidge Auditorium stage, discussing logistics for the performance. As the conversation shifted to the meaning of the concert, Rose shed a tear, while describing to me the significance of this performance to his fellow musicians and the practitioners of this tradition. Later, while on-stage, Rose expanded upon the sense of gratitude, accomplishment, and pride he felt. He said, “It is truly an honor beyond words – there really are no words for us – to be here today with you at the Library of Congress. We want to say a huge thank you for this invitation to present who we are as a Caymanian people to the world. To have this opportunity to place on the record a little taste of our traditions, our music, our heritage. There is no greater honor for us.”
The honor was ours, Samuel. We thank you, and the Swanky Kitchen Band, for sharing your traditions, your music, and your stories with us.
Collection Connections
The Swanky Kitchen Band’s performance and oral history interview are some of the first collection items from the Cayman Islands in the archives of the American Folklife Center. Below, we share a sample of other Caribbean collections and collections featuring fiddle-based music at the American Folklife Center.
Research Guides
Cuban collections at the American Folklife Center
Haitian collections at the American Folklife Center
Puerto Rican collections at the American Folklife Center
Fiddle-Based Traditions
Collections related to Galax, VA and the Galax Fiddler’s Convention