Anthony Williams, ORTT, CM (24 June 1931 – 21 December 2021), also known as "Muffman", was an inventor, pioneer and musician of the

steel pan The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. Descriptio ...

Life

Williams was born on 24 June 1931, at the General Hospital in

Port-of-Spain Port of Spain (Spanish: ''Puerto España''), officially the City of Port of Spain (also stylized Port-of-Spain), is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago and the third largest municipality, after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a municip ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

and grew up in Nepal Street, St. James. He was initiated as a player of the steelpan in the band, "Five Graves to Cairo" of Carlton Street, St. James. At the age of 12, he played with Harlem Nightingale Steelband, for the first street Carnival, which was held after World War II. Williams went on to become the leading Ping Pong player in the band Sun Valleyians, which comprised a group of teenagers and grew to become the legendary steel orchestra, Sun Valley. Williams was a recipient of the

Chaconia Medal The Chaconia Medal is the second highest state decoration of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the ...

(Gold) and the

Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

from the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. Williams was a pioneer of the steel pan, along with

Winston "Spree" Simon Winston "Spree" Simon (1930 – 18 April 1976) was a Trinidadian inventor, pioneer and musician of the steelpan. Life Simon was born in Laventille, Trinidad. He is credited with the invention of the ''Ping Pong'' steelpan instrument. Simon also w ...

Ellie Mannette Elliott Anthony "Ellie" Mannette (5 November 1927 – 29 August 2018) was a Trinidadian musical instrument maker and steel pan musician, also known as the "father of the modern steel drum". Life Born in Sans Souci, Trinidad, Mannette as a young ...

and Neville Jules. Williams was part of the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra,

TASPO , formerly known as , is a smart card using radio-frequency identification, RFIDhttp://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2007/03/taspo_rfid_card.html Taspo RFID Card For Cigarette Machines - Tokyo Mango developed by the Tobacco Institute of Japa ...

, which visited England for the

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

in 1951. In 1953, Williams presented a soprano pan with the notes laid out in a

circle of fifths In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing the 12 chromatic pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. (This is strictly true in the standard 12-tone equal temperament system — using a different system requires one interval ...

. Because the instrument's surface looked like a spider's web, he called it the "Spider Web Pan". He was the bandleader, pan-tuner and arranger of the Pan Am North Stars and won the

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

twice, once in 1963 and again in 1964. Williams received the

(Gold) in 1992. He further received the Order of the Republic of

, presented by President

George Maxwell Richards George Maxwell Richards (1 December 1931 – 8 January 2018) was a Trinidadian politician who served as the fourth President of Trinidad and Tobago, in office from 2003 to 2013. He was the first President of Trinidad and Tobago and hea ...

in 2008. On 21 December 2021, Williams died at the age of 90 from complications of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

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External links

* *
Anthony Williams: Steelpan Innovator Extraordinaire
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Anthony 1931 births 2021 deaths Steelpan musicians Trinidad and Tobago musicians Recipients of the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Recipients of the Chaconia Medal People from Port of Spain Recipients of the Hummingbird Medal Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Trinidad and Tobago

Life

Further reading

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External links