John Child
John was born in London in 1950. By the late '70s he had become disillusioned with the Anglo-American pop/rock music he grew up with. His first trip to the Caribbean in 1979 with his Trinidadian wife, Helen, opened up whole new musical vistas for him and marked the beginning of an ongoing passion for two music genres: put simply, these are salsa and calypso. During the following 20 years, John's forays in search of live Latin music, records and literature took him to New York, Caracas (Venezuela), Paris, Puerto Rico and Miami.

In 1986 he became involved in writing entries on Latin music/salsa/Latin jazz and calypso/soca for The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music , initially published in 1989. In the acknowledgements to the first edition, the editor, Donald Clarke, described John as "one of those rare fans who turn out to be better journalists than many who belong to the union." Between 1994 and early 1997 John revised his previous entries and wrote new entries for the second edition of The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, published in October 1998, making a total contribution of 150 entries.

From the beginning of 1991 to early 1992 John wrote the Latin music/salsa entries for the four volume Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (published in 1992) - amounting to over 80,000 words and including some of the largest entries in the multi-volume work.

For national BBC Radio 2, John wrote and provided recordings for the six-part series Kaiso! Calypso, broadcast from 7 February to 13 March 1996, and special Kaiso! Christmas, broadcast on Christmas Eve 1996. The shows were presented by Trinidad-born Trevor McDonald, Britain's most famous and most popular TV newscaster. In 1990 John started helping produce, research and prepare special features for numerous editions of Tomek's Aracataca - the UK's first 100% authentic Latin music radio show - for Jazz FM, Kiss FM, Festival Radio and All Nations Radio. In addition to having been an occasional guest on Aracataca, John has guested on Gerry Lyseight's world beat radio show Planet Mambo on BBC Greater London Radio (GLR).

Despite his extensive encyclopedia work, John scrupulously repels being labelled an "expert." "I try to live in accordance with the adage: 'the more you know, the more you realise there is to learn'," he insists. But what about his title el sabio? "That was a nickname lightheartedly bestowed upon me by Tomek in the early Jazz FM days of Aracataca. I suppose some people may not realise that I use it purely in a tongue in cheek way."

A frequent visitor to Trinidad for the annual Carnival season, John is currently - if somewhat erratically - collaborating on a Calypso Who's Who with Alaska-based calypso fanatic Ray Funk.