Ellie Mannette

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Elliott Anthony Mannette, known as Ellie Mannette, was a Trinidadian instrument maker and steelpan player, born in 1927 in Sans Souci in Trinidad. He is called the father of the modern steel drum. As a child he became fascinated by metal and tools, and at eleven he was already playing in Alexander's Ragtime Band. From the mid-1930s he was involved in the development of resonant steel. In 1948 he was offered a scholarship to study music in London, which he turned down in order to be able to build more pans.

Music and breakthrough

In 1951 the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra, TASPO, travelled to Britain to show the new instrument at the Festival of Britain. Mannette was a member and tuner of that orchestra. In the early 1960s he built up the navy's steel band in the United States, and then in New York built instruments for a youth project. From 1967 he founded hundreds of steel bands, mainly at colleges and universities. In 1991 West Virginia University invited him to teach students to build and play pans, and that remained his workplace. He died in Morgantown in 2018.

Influence

Mannette devised important innovations: he was the first to use a 55-gallon oil drum instead of biscuit tins or soapboxes, and pressed the top of the drum into a hollow shape, so that there was more room for notes. In this way the steelpan became an instrument that could be played all over the world. His work hangs in museums, including the Smithsonian.

Listening

Mentioned in other articles

• Steelpan TechnologyAround 1947, Ellie Mannette and others made pans from oil drums, which lay everywhere after the war.