Jamaicans early?

 I never knew Jamaican people could be  early!

Well most were for the fund raising concert put on by celebrated Jamaican tenor Steve Higgins, to raise funds for the victims of that terrible hurricane, Melissa.

This was held in Plantation, Florida.

 I arrived promptly at 3 pm and the church was already full to the brim. We only got seated in a small room (prayer room?) behind the regular seating area.

Others who arrived after that had to stand till they found and transported chairs which must have been in storage.

Late comers waiting for seats.

It was a really good concert with not only the tenor and his chorale taking us through several genres of Jamaican music, from Belafonte to Marley. 

I especially appreciated how MC/ host Higgins paid tribute to some of our great writers/musicians, who wrote such memorable lyrics.  

Special mention was made of Noel and Beverly Dexter, Olive Lewin and Paulette Bellamy.

My favorite rendition was "the Prayer"  performed by Steve Higgins and Dahlia Wynter.

In my book, only Bocelli and Celine Dion could have outperformed on them👍.

There was a surprise performance by 'Brick and Lace who did Jimmy Cliff's 'many rivers to cross' among other songs.

The two sisters who used to perform in Jamaica under that moniker were good.

 Then they disappeared. I should have expected that they disappeared to the USA!  The other surprise was that now they are three! Another sister?

The new Brick and Lace?

It was a very entertaining afternoon and I am sure they raised a lot of funds and got many other donations, as the air was one of 'Jamaicans anxious to assist their fellow country people who suffered terribly from the devastating ravages of Melissa. '

Hope the donations get to the thousands who need it most.

Yes, I am a born cynic but my decades of seeing the wrong people benefitting from everything, hasn't cured my cynicism.

It has only fertilized it.

The pastor with tenor Steve Higgins 

Roots of Music

I had no idea what to expect last night when we headed out to attend the second annual  "American Roots of Jamaican Music" at Pompano Beach, but I should have known it would be excellent, since it was my cousin, the outstanding musician Barry Smith (aka Colin,) leader/founder of the great Tallawah mento band who told me about it.

It delivered beyond my wildest dreams however, not only because of the entertaining musical journey we were taken on by the energetic band, dancers and singers as they delivered memorable pieces from mento, ska, rocksteady and reggae, but also the entire night (almost five wonderful hours) were extremely educational.


Reality is that a number of us Jamaican modern-day chauvinists, often boast how American hip-hop evolved from our own dancehall music and the age-old culture of toasting at parties but have never stopped to appreciate how we too picked up so much from American greats. So when the outstanding Musician/ MC/ Arranger/Producer Eugene Grey led his band through some of the pieces from some of the American musicians from the 40's and 50's like Louis Jordan, Fats Domino etc  while simultaneously explaining how they influenced local musicians experimenting with various genres as they sought a unique sound of their own, it was a real eye-opener. ( This was during the "olden days" when  the only music Jamaicans heard came from radio !)

What I  especially appreciated last night too was how many often invisible Jamaica pioneers were recognized. These included old timers like persons like Lord Flea, Harry Belafonte and Count Lasha, for god knows many of us who revel in Jamaican music have never heard of some of these people except maybe Belafonte, who is internationally acclaimed.

There are also many outstanding musicians behind the scenes in small bands and even well-known early bands like Roland Alphonso's, Kes Chin and the Souvenirs, Carlos Malcolm, the Skatallites etc who deserve special recognition, but few of us even knew their names.  So when the  Music Excellence Awards were presented to persons like Lord Creator, Billy Vernon, Bobby Aitken, Fred Campbell, Trevor Lopez, or their representatives,  it was exposing some of us for the first time about their contributions to our great music genres.

Eugene Grey's band and dancers in action

Yes, for years we in Jamaica and the international community have known and regaled super-stars like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Shaggy etc but unfortunately until now, too little has been done to recognize most of the musical pioneers who paved the way and opened the doors for them.

After that presentation, I have nothing but praise for the organizer Eugene Grey, while admitting that he too was one of the greats I had never heard of before last night. For like so many others, he remained buried in the background of bands that brought us great music. I even learned that he played in and composed music for bands touring the world while backing many of my favorites like Toots and the Maytals, Culture, Joseph Hill, Sabrina Williams and he was even part of Jamaica's best dance band, Fab 5!

The outstanding musician Eugene Grey

I now salute him for his contribution over almost fifty years of bringing Jamaican music to the fore and now, with an equally dedicated team, conceptualizing the Amerian Roots of Jamaican music.

Even more commendable, we learned that the proceedings from that most entertaining night were not for profit but to assist underserved youth.

Big up the Rootz of Music for their vision and performance which so enthralled me that I had to exhort my cousin, Barry, to book me a ticket for next year's event!

Cruising , the way to go

I think I became addicting to cruises when I went on the first one with my parents when I was 14. In those days I found the huge ship awesome but each year as competition steps up, the cruise industry is growing by huge degrees of awesomeness, with the beneficiaries being those of us who love to travel.

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This latest cruise was my first taste of Disney and it was really great although I must admit if I was a kid it would have been out of the world.

What I enjoyed most was the really great choice of destinations because for me to have gone to Sicily, the French Riviera, Naples, Pompeii, Rome, Venice in one swell swoop is just impossible to beat. And the excellent tour organisations attached to Disney were so efficient and the guides so knowledgeable,  that one was able to gain a great deal of information and see everything that one wanted to at these wonderful destinations.

One important lesson I learnt from this trip (the cruise people did not mention it at all) and I hope I will not forget the next time I go to Europe and that is, in Europe not only is the US$ not king, (as expected) but no one wants to accept it! So wherever we went we had to change cash into Euros to do any business and in Switzerland, we had to change to Swiss francs. (I had a similar experience in Cuba too as there no one wanted it or the Canadian $ either so you had to go to a cambio to change cash into pesos.) 

As I see it therefore, whenever one is not using a credit card in Europe, it is easier to just  travel with a debit card, go to a ATM machine and collect the withdrawal in the relevant currency for each day the ATM's change their rate in keeping with international standards.Anyway, back to destinations, we had quite a scare on the way to Pisa as the front tyre of the bus we were driving in suddenly burst as we were crossing a bridge. The horrendous blast scared the daylights out of not only the passengers, most of whom had been sleeping and had a rude awakening, but also the driver as well. He was however deft in  bringing the bus safely to the side of the road and as we were only 15 minutes away from Pisa we did not have to wait too long to get a replacement bus.

Actually, there is so much to say and remember about the various places we visited that I swear I have to get around to doing a separate blog for each one soon.

What was especially heartening about this cruise too was the number of Jamaicans who were working on the Disney Magic. I never knew before that  there was an actual recruiting centre in Ocho Rios so it was not unexpected that the majority of the workers came from the St. Ann/St. Mary area, although I did meet a few from Kingston  and elsewhere.Even the head waiter assigned to us was from Jamaica and boy did he make it specially great for  us by arranging jerk chicken, stew peas and rice, oxtail etc to be served to us in addition to the other delicious choices at dinner.

Heartening too was the wide selection of reggae music played in the "fun area"on the 9 th floor (Lido deck) almost every day.

It was clear that whoever the DJ was, his favourite singers were Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley but he did not stick on them too much to make it boring for our music going as far back as Harry Belafonte was played at some point.

As I said earlier, if I were a kid the cruise would have been out of this world, and that is of course because the entertainment was geared towards kids so some nights it left me a bit bored.

 However the Disney ensemble outdid itself on two nights with performances fitting of Broadway. In fact, I had the pleasure of meeting the lead singer from one of the performances, a beautiful African american young lady named Christine from Michigan, with a voice range equaling Whitney Houston's and she assured me that is where she was headed but was just enjoying travelling for a while.

Yup a Disney cruise is definitely more than worth the money for family travel

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JOAN WILLIAMS, moderator of Joan Williams on Line broadcast on POWER 106, describes herself as an unapologetic addict to the Jamaican outdoors. A foundation member of FUN AND THRILLS ADVENTURE CLUB, she explores the island at any given opportunity cycling, hiking or swimming with that group, family, Jah 3 and anyone else who will have her. In 1995, she published the popular TOUR JAMAICA and the 4^th edition is now an ebook available at;

http://www.amazon.com/Tour-Jamaica-Joan-Williams-ebook/dp/B00EJWCSHS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389464644&sr=8-1&keywords=tou