All news

Culture

Nathaniel 'Tanny' Davis: the bandleader behind Tanny & The Boys

A short profile of Nathaniel 'Tanny' Davis, the one-time bandleader who gave his name to Tanny & The Boys, the string band described as the island's oldest existing band.

By SXM Daily · October 22, 2026

Nathaniel "Tanny" Davis is the one-time bandleader who gave his name to Tanny & The Boys, the St. Martin string band founded in the late 1970s. House of Nehesi Publishers and the Sint Maarten National Heritage Foundation & Museum both describe it as the island's oldest existing band. He played banjo and cuatro for nearly 50 years before retiring in the 1990s, according to House of Nehesi.

Illustrative photo: Richie Diesterheft, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Tanny & The Boys

The national museum lists Tanny & The Boys among Sint Maarten's national symbols and calls the band "a cultural icon"; it spells his surname "Davids". In 2009, when the band marked 50 years of music-making under its successive names (Seteto Flores, Philipsburg Conjunto, Beach Island Stars and then Tanny & The Boys), the Government Information Service described Davis as its founder. String bands still play on the island: in 2023 the National Institute of Arts closed its Music Brings People Together project with performances by its youth orchestra and family string band, SXM Daily reported.

Beach Island Stars

According to House of Nehesi, Davis was born on Anguilla and raised on St. Martin, and in the late 1960s he founded the Beach Island Stars string band, one of the forerunners of Tanny & The Boys.

Sources

• https://houseofnehesipublish.com/sxm/tanny-the-boys/
• https://www.sintmaartenmuseum.org/national-symbols
• https://smn-news.com/st-maarten-st-martin-news/3600-tanny-and-the-boys-as-they-celebrate-50th-anniversary

Source: https://houseofnehesipublish.com/sxm/tanny-the-boys/