For the first time since 1966, there will be no Festival or Popular Song Contest. Instead, the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, producers of the event, launched a campaign for fans to vote online for their favourite song. Today, the Jamaica Observer publishes the fourth in a six-part series on past competitions.

THE year was 1975 and there was the usual euphoria surrounding Independence and Festival in Jamaica.

Fans could hear a pin drop when the winner for the Festival Song Contest was announced.

Singer Roman Stewart walked on stage to silence. Then the band struck up the first notes to Hooray What a Festival, a song written by his older brother Tinga Stewart.

It was then that the audience erupted — dancing and cheering! A moment Tinga Stewart will never forget.

“I have never seen anything like that,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“I had won the year before with a song Ernie Smith wrote for me (Play Di Music), and it felt good to see my brother winning the following year.”

What made the victory even more special for Tinga, was that Hooray What a Festival had not made the competition’s final list.

“It was left out, but eventually made the cut when Toots and The Maytals dropped out because they had to tour. Many thought it should have been included and so it was brought in at the last minute,” he recalled.

Tinga Stewart says it took him several days to pen the lyrics as he toyed with the ‘Hooray’ to express excitement and happiness at the Festival occasion.

Roman Stewart had a big hit the next year with Hit Song. He died from cancer in New York City in 2004.

Tinga Stewart went on to win the Festival Song Contest in 1981 with No Wey No Betta Dan Yard. He is disappointed there was no contest this year, and is not impressed with the top 20 Festival songs selected by fans through an online poll established by organisers the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.

For Stewart, there is no disputing the number one song (Eric Donaldson’s Land Of My Birth), but the rest leave a lot to be desired.

“They (organisers) should have had a panel of well-recognised musicologists to make that decision. Someone can vote a million times for a song that’s not good and it makes the cut,” he argued.

Tinga believes his songs Play Di Music and No Whey Nuh Betta Than Yard should have been placed higher (they were placed 8 & 10).

He also feels Desmond Dekker and the Aces’ Intensified should have also been in the mix.

The singer says he doesn’t see himself ever entering the Festival song contest again.