Put things right for Heather
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. This is the final in our six-part series on past competitions.
TWO decades after Heather Grant won the Jamaica Popular Song Contest with Mek Wi Put Things Right, she is yet to receive the national medal of recognition that comes with the victory.
“I have not yet received this medal or possess any tangible memorabilia of this historic win! Even though I became the first female in all the years of the competition to win, my mind’s photograph of the win, is my only trophy,” she told the Sunday Observer.
According to Grant, the contest’s organisers, the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) are yet to “put things right”.
Attempts to get a comment from the JCDC were futile. The Observer was told that Delroy Gordon, its executive director, is on sick leave.
Mek Wi Put Things Right was written by banker Don Cunningham and arranged by Boris Gardner. It also earned Grant a Best Performer award and Gardner, Best Arranger.
Grant is still thrilled about her historic win and recalled her feelings that night in 1992.
“I did what I had to do and it felt great! We won! I was happy for the team. The arena exploded! Lots of people congratulated me and some even told me how much money they had won, betting on me,” she said. “I signed autographs till I was weak!”
Grant says she and her team went into the competition confident of victory. In addition to Cunningham and Gardner, keyboardist Robbie Lyn and guitarist Dwight Pinkney were involved in the production of Mek Wi Put Things Right.
She commented on the Popular Song Contest and changes it has gone through in the last decade.
“There’s music of a particular genre for Christmas, Easter etc. I feel we should celebrate a particular genre or sound for our Festival celebrations,” she said.
Heather Grant’s sole Popular Song Contest victory will have to suffice as she has no desire to enter the contest again.
