Hi Tide have been playing music in the Cayman Islands for 13 years and have gained a reputation for playing joyful, upbeat music that lifts the spirits of both local people, as well as visitors.

Hi Tide are creative musicians who have forged their own, distinctive musical style.

At the heart of Hi Tide are Shane Allenger and Sean Hemmings. It is these two musicians that write most of the band’s material and represent them during their routine performances on the Island.

Sometimes, for larger events more musicians are added, to make their sound even richer.

Mr Hemmings explained: “Hi Tide is really only Shane and Sean; and we do mainly a two- man show with me on guitar and Shane on congas.”

He added, “This is our steady income and we have developed quite a following as a duo. But for big events such as the Jazzfest we like to use a full band to get the full effect.”

At the recent Cayman Jazzfest, the line-up of the band consisted of Sean Hemmings on drums and background vocals; Shane Allenger, lead background vocals and congas; Jonathan Ebanks, lead guitar; Bugs Wilson, Bass and background vocals; Jeff Japal, keyboards; and Kate Allenger, violin and background vocals.

Some of the extra musicians that join the band from time to time have been working with Hi Tide for a long while, so their relationship with the band as a whole is a very good one, and their contribution perfectly fits in with Hi Tide’s style.

“Jeff, John and Bugs have been recording and playing at various shows with us since our first album 13 years ago,” Mr Hemmings explained. “Kate has been recording with us over the last four or five years.”

Hi Tide’s music really consists of an eclectic mix of many different elements. Explaining the nature of the mix, Mr Hemmings said,  “Since there are so many flavours to our music but almost always with a Caribbean twist, we call it ‘Carib Pop.’

“Most of our stuff is easy listening and even our faster songs still tend to have a relaxing mood to them,” he said.

Although the band cover many other artists’ songs, Mr Allenger and Mr Hemmings are both prolific songwriters, and have between them written most of the songs on three of the band’s albums. They have also collaborated with local songwriters Jonathan Jackson and Mel McCoy.

“We like the smooth but grooving songs,” Mr Hemmings said. As far as covers go, we play hundreds of great songs. There are too many to mention, but some of our favourite artists are Bob Marley, Sade, Sting, Simply Red, Dave Matthews, Jack Johnson, Jimmy Cliff, and Third World, but the list is too long to name them all.

“And as far as original songs are concerned, we like to play every song we’ve ever written. There are no favourites. They all come from us and we love playing all of them. If it was left up to us, we would play only our original songs and just once in a while throw in a cover song. “Of course we do love all the artists we cover. After all they are our inspiration. But the ideal Hi Tide show for us is when we play mainly originals; and there is no bigger complement than when someone comes to the stage and requests one of our songs.”

One of their songs, ‘Love You More,’ is very popular with audiences, and although it still has that Caribbean lilt, the song sounds as if it would do well on pop radio stations anywhere in the world.

“I think ‘Love You More’ is our most popular song to date,” Mr Hemmings said.

Although Hi Tide does not fit into the ‘traditional Caymanian music’ category in the same way as Swanky does, it is still, as Swanky is, an eclectic mix of regional styles, just as Swanky’s traditional ‘kitchen music’ is.

The difference is really the time frame. Whereas Swanky’s music is really traditional music collected together from an earlier time, Hi Tide are really doing the same thing; it is just a much more contemporary version of what is understood to be ‘Caymanian music.’

Commenting on the Caribbean flavour, and more specifically, Caymanian identity of their music, Mr Hemmings said: “Caribbean percussion and beat is always the most important thing in music. It just comes naturally to us. Sometimes it’s the guitar, sometimes the drums, sometimes the bass line that has the Caribbean sound. This is not intentional, it just happens that way.

Mr Hemmings continued: “We are fans of all kinds of music. Most Caymanians grow up listening to and loving all forms of music and it shows in the recordings of all local musicians. As we really don’t have a style of music that is truly Caymanian yet, we truly believe that with every album that we record we are coming closer to developing a sound that is truly Caymanian.”

christopher@caymannetnews.com