Renowned musician and composer Marjorie Whylie will be honoured during this month’s Merritone Family Reunion. On October 10, the Merritone Family and Alternative Music Limitedwill stage a tribute concert dubbed ‘A Salute to Marjorie Whylie,’ at 5 Keesing Avenue in Kingston.

The announcement was made at Thursday’s launch of the 26th staging of the popular event, which brings together friends and family connected to the popular sound system.

Whylie, who was at the launch, told the Sunday Observer she is proud to be honoured.

“I was surprised by the whole thing. Monty said that they just wanted me to come down, relax and enjoy myself and some music, as they thought it was time that somebody did something like this in my honour; I really was surprised and truly honoured. To receive this from a family that I have a lot of respect for just sweetens the pot,” she said.

Whylie is looking forward to going out and listening to the music next week.

“These days I am a homebody more than anything else. So just being able to go out and rock to the music will be a treat for me,” stated Whylie.

For Charmaine Lemonius of Alternative Music, Whylie is a legend and therefore it was a no-brainer when Monty Blake of Merritone suggested to her business partner Bobby Stewart that she be recognised.

“The idea came from Monty but Bobby played music with Marjorie. He loves her so very much, honours her… she is a legend. So, when the idea came to us we were more than happy to join forces with him. It will be our pleasure to host that event for Marjorie. Plus, Merritone has always supported us, so we are just too happy to return that support.”

Lemonius noted that the event will take the format of a live jazz jam.

“We are putting together music that we know she will enjoy and may even surprise her with a few of her own compositions. We have often failed to honour a lot of our modern-day heroes while they are still with us. We think about it, we love them but we don’t tell them and we don’t show it, so that’s another reason why we are so happy that Merritone came up with this idea. We need to do it… we need to do it more,” said Lemonius.

— Richard Johnson