RIFF: The Shake Keane Story, a biography of the Vincentian musician and poet, was launched during a virtual event on January 28
Watch the launch of the book here:
Its author, Philip Nanton, will appear at the Bocas LitFest on April 23 at 8 pm. St Lucian writer John Robert Lee, interviewed him.
What inspired you to write this biography of Shake Keane? Is it a first biography of Keane?
The short answer is that Shake’s life contained many elements of a good story: up from humble beginnings in St Vincent, international acclaim in the jazz world, especially in England and Europe of the 1960s; a triumphal return home that went sour because of political machinations, followed quickly by a struggle to survive his last years in New York.