Cari-Folk Singers keep it Jamaican
THE Cari-Folk Singers brought the curtains down on the 2012 concert season — All Tings Jamaican — at the Little Theatre in St Andrew on Sunday. The concert, which started on Friday, lived up to name and expectations.
All Tings Jamaican is the brainchild of group leader Daliah ‘Holly’ Reid-Thomas. She believed with the country celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence this year, the season should have a Jamaican focus.
“That was Important to us because we are the Cari-Folk Singers. We actually perform Caribbean folk music but our programme this year is totally Jamaican music and is a kind of tribute to what we have achieved in terms of folk music in Jamaica,” Carol Miller, the group’s choreographer-artistic director, told the Jamaica Observer.
The concert was a splendid showcase of traditional folk songs such as Every Time Mi Memba Liza (Wata Come a Mi Eye), Manuel Road, Day Oh, as well as newer material like Ben Dung Plaza, Minivan People and Train A Blow.
No less delightful was the seductive mento suite which included Rookumbine, One Solja Man, Aizuzuwa, Fence, and Wheel Oh. Standards such as I am Under Di Rock, Come in My Little One, ‘Dere’ Is a Meeting, Awake, I Must Have the Saviour With Me and I Know a God were richly dramatic.
The concert climaxed with a succession of Festival Song winners: Born Jamaican, Sweet and Dandy, Play di Music, Love Fever, Give Thanks and Praises, Bam Bam, Intensified and Land of My Birth.
Percussionist Phillip ‘Superstar’ Cross also performed a remarkable original piece called Tribute to Jamaica.
The Cari-Folk Singers’ musicians were Stan Logan on congos, Raynor Lazarus on lead guitar and Jermaine Gordon on bass. Astley ‘Grub’ Cooper was musical arranger.
