Axehole

Bloomberg, of all places, has an interesting discussion of steel drums and the love/hate relationship that Shell Oil has had for the instrument.

Notes William Rosales, Shell Trinidad’s 36-year-old engineer charged with overseeing the manufacture of more than 42,000 Shell oil barrels annually: “Let me state for the record that our used drums are disposed of properly and that Shell health and safety regulations prevent the use of empty drums for anything but Shell oil products.'’That wasn’t always the case. Sixty years ago, Shell bankrolled the invention of the modern pan drum, the only new acoustic instrument to hit the music scene since Adolph Sax came up with the saxophone in 1841.

Shell’s archivists in London and The Hague have no record of the pan or its inventor, Ellie Mannette. Shell executives in Trinidad suspect the company’s documentation for both was lost when the government nationalized the oil industry in 1974, and Shell’s presence was reduced from 4,000 employees to its current 55-member operation.

Old-timers on the island say Shell got into the music business in 1951, when a Shell Caribbean managing director they remember as “Mr. Alexis'’ put Mannette on the payroll with an annual salary of $2,000 to stop him and his pals — Birdie, Puddin’ and Cobo Jack — from stealing the company’s empty and toxic oil drums. Mannette remained with Shell until 1967, as a sales manager, steel-drum maker and leader of pan band the Shell Invaders.

via Bloomberg