Denyse Plummer, who has died aged 69 of cancer, was one of the most prominent female singers in the male-dominated world of calypso. Only the third woman to win the coveted Calypso Monarch crown in Trinidad & Tobago, she was also unusual in being a white artist in a genre that typically reflects the interests and concerns of the black population of the Caribbean.
That garnered her a hostile reception in Trinidad when she first appeared on the scene. But she fought through the prejudice to become a national star, and was eventually awarded the Hummingbird Medal, the country’s highest honour, in 2011.
The finals of the Calypso Monarch competition are held each year on the Savannah, a park in Port of Spain, where singers deliver two compositions written specifically for that year’s carnival. Plummer won her crown in 2001 with a pair of excellent songs, Heroes and Nah Leaving, which impressed the judges not just with their melodies but with their consideration of topics such as racism and societal violence.
Plummer’s triumph in 2001 was in marked contrast to her fraught debut in the competition in 1986, when, during the semi-finals at Skinner Park in San Fernando, sections of a large and vociferous crowd jeered her throughout, pelting her on stage with various unsavoury objects.
It took some time for the ill-will to disappear, but Plummer was able to win over the public by facing up bravely to the hostility and by demonstrating her great command and understanding of calypso, which, she pointed out, was as much a part of her own culture as anybody else’s.
A high energy, vivacious performer whose costumes often featured vast plumes of feathers and elaborate head dresses, she was as much at ease with frantic party tunes as with the more traditional calypso fare of heartfelt pleas for national unity and progress.
That versatility made her popular in the wider Caribbean, as well as in the US and Europe, where she performed on a regular basis for many years. Later, after becoming a born-again Christian, she moved on to gospel singing, to which her powerful voice was also well suited.
Despite the general perception that Plummer was “white”, she was in fact from a mixed-heritage background, and though her father, Buntin (Dudley) Plummer, could trace his roots to the white settlers of Trinidad, her mother, Barbara, was of Afro-Trinidadian origin. There was music in the family; Buntin was a semi-professional guitarist in the St James area of Port of Spain, where Denyse was born, and at Holy Name Convent she sang in the choir.
After leaving school in the late 1960s she spent a decade as an office worker for an insurance company before establishing herself as a professional singer in bars and clubs during the early to mid-70s. Although she loved calypso, she was hesitant about performing it in public until Calypso Rose became the first female Monarch in 1973.
“Rose was the one who opened doors for us,” Plummer said. “For many years female calypsonians were looked upon as prostitutes, people you didn’t want your children to associate with.”
After years of making pop songs, some of which were released as local recordings, in the mid-80s Plummer began to turn more decisively to calypso, and in 1985 she was asked by the leading steel pan arranger Len “Boogsie” Sharpe to sing two songs with his band Phase II. That led to invitations to perform in the calypso tents that spring up around Trinidad in the run-up to carnival, and then to her first, traumatic attempt at the Calypso Monarch crown.
Across her career she released more than a dozen albums and a similar number of singles, with one of her signature tunes being Woman is Boss, a song that summed up her fun personality.
Her entry in 2015 into the World Outreach Ministries Church brought a change in direction. Although she refused to join other born-again Christians in condemning calypso’s sometimes salacious content, she turned instead to singing gospel, reworking some of her old songs in that vein.
She is survived by her husband, Patrick Boocock, and their two sons.
• Denyse Burnadette Kirline Plummer, calypsonian, born 8 November 1953; died 27 August 2023
