The Festival train roared into 1969 with the new sound of the reggae beat creating excitement on bandstands and on dance floors across the island. As we donned our Festival fashion stripes, we danced in the streets to the infectious beat of the reggae, and, in the exciting countdown for the Festival Song title, Toots and the Maytals came out on top with Sweet and Dandy.

The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s 25th anniversary magazine recalls that there was also a Pop Band section of the pop and mento category in those days. The 1969 winners were The Skamorans, who wowed the audience at the State Theatre with a swinging number, The Boogie.

All sorts of nice things were happening to Festival in 1969. The event had already established itself over the preceding five years as the entertainment and cultural background for our Independence “feel-good” emotions. More than that, it was unearthing and exposing the original Jamaican talent that was a natural part of the psyche of our Jamaican people.

From Bruckins parties to ska dancing, from mento and naughty calypso to the big band music of Byron Lee and Carlos Malcolm, the nation was moving to a joyful beat of celebration and thanksgiving that echoed the infectious rhythm of the Sweet and Dandy hit song.

The tapestry was further woven together by the art and craft, cultural performances, street parades, and sporting activities that were now a part of the Independence anniversary.

The 1969 Festival Song found itself in good company: Osmond Watson won the first Festival gold medal for art, Knox College students won a silver for their Shango dance moves, Joyce Wallace of St Elizabeth featured by winning with her “Bam Bam” dish of fish, shrimp and bammy, and the St Peter Claver Drum Corps was presented with a gold medal by none other than Martin Luther King Jr.

The ‘feel-good’ emotions spilled over into 1970 when Hopeton Lewis and the Chosen Few gave us Boom Shaka Laka, Pamela Bunting was crowned Miss Festival, Jeff Barnes earned his first Festival gold medal for speech, Unity Primary from Westmoreland were runaway winners for dance, and Michael Smith introduced us to dub poetry with his prize-winning Mi Cyaan Believe It.

After dancing on the wrong foot in the ska dance competition of 1964 and almost spoiling the chances of my friends, The Skatters, to win a gold medal, I returned on stage in 1971 to join the National Arena crowd that hoisted Eric Donaldson on a thousand shoulders and declared him Festival Song winner for his immortal Cherry, Oh Baby.

The year 1971 was chock-full of golden performances. Miss Jamaica was Ava Gill, Mi Teet a Hat Mi was dramatised by Faith D’Aguilar to earn a gold medal, Annotto Bay School did a great Jonkannu, Seaforth thrilled the crowds at Denbigh with Kumina, and Tivoli won the gold for the National Drum Corps final.

And was it pollster Don Anderson who played opposite to Arthur Kitchen in the Jamaica Dramateurs production of Becket? They received the Palace Amusement Company Challenge Cup and a princely $80 cash incentive award.

Festival rolled on to “Festival 10” in 1972, with Toots and the Maytals returning as third-time Festival Song winners with Pomp and Pride, and the great street parades continuing to amuse with effigies of Miss Lou, Mass Ran, Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley, among others.

In 1976 we had a swinging Carifesta time. Festival merged with the Caribbean Festival of Arts hosted by Jamaica and opened up our eyes to the wealth of creative talent stretched across the Caribbean.

A steel band from Guyana was able to get away with the name Gay Desperadoes (in those days “gay” meant “light-hearted”), while the Suriname dancers went toe to toe with our own National Dance Theatre Company.

The Festival activities of the 70s and 80s continued to light up the Independence celebrations. Just where did that young man Eric Donaldson come from? He returned in 1977 to win the Festival Song competition for the second time with Sweet Jamaica, then the following year he gave us the winning entry Land of My Birth, and in 1984, believe it or not, he was judged the winner for the fourth time with Proud to be Jamaican.

Eric went on to achieve world fame, as his Cherry, Oh Baby has been covered by both The Rolling Stones and UB40, and the song has remained extremely popular — more than 30 cover versions have been recorded.

He has won the competition six times, in 1971, 1977, 1978, 1984, 1993, and 1997. In a 2013 online poll by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, Land of My Birth was voted the most popular winner in the contest’s history.

So just where did Eric hail from?

He was born in Kent Village, Bog Walk, almost on the banks of the Rio Cobre, and he still lives in his hometown. His rise to international fame represents the true spirit and mission of Festival. Jamaicans, naturally expressive, have found the Festival to be an opportunity to display their talents in every village, town and parish across Jamaica and, in Eric’s case, to the world.

In response to last week’s column, a reader pointed out that a Festival was held in Port Antonio in 1948 promoted by Rex Shelton and Clinton Cresser. Thanks to Barry Ferguson for that reminder, although the beginnings of Festival in Jamaica go back much earlier. Wycliffe Bennett, who organised the National Festival of Arts for 1960 and the first arts celebrations in 1962, reminds us that the Institute of Jamaica held an eisteddfod in 1897 as part of Jamaica’s activities to commemorate Queen Victoria’s 60th year on the British throne.

Over the years there were other festivals and elocution contests, including one in 1910 where a young man named Marcus Garvey represented St Ann and was placed third islandwide. Garvey himself was to later organise a vibrant cultural programme in Jamaica under the auspices of his United Negro Improvement Association and the famous Liberty Halls competitions.

The Portland Festival referred to by Barry was actually established in 1946 and was a grand affair, encompassing music, drama, speech and art, and actually represented the first comprehensive arts festival in Jamaica on a parish-wide level. It was a week-long extravaganza climaxing on Saturdays, with the finals held at Titchfield High School.

The movement spread from Portland to other parishes, with the fledgling Jamaica Library Service assuming the leadership role.

In 1955 we saw the largest islandwide Festival ever staged — the Tercentenary to celebrate 300 years of British rule over Jamaica. Indeed!

It was spearheaded by Finance Minister Donald Sangster, and that’s when I made my first failed stage debut as Augustus, the chubby lad who would not drink his soup.

Beginning in 1963, Edward Seaga pulled together a broad-based team to introduce the Jamaica Festival as we now know it. As he says in his biography (Ishawna, please note!): “Of special pleasure to all Jamaicans was the natural inclusion of recitals of dialect verse pioneered by Louise Bennett, who for 25 years had been breaking down the barriers of rejection of Jamaican dialect as an art form.

“In so doing she helped to bring folk culture into the limelight. Her verses probed the social psyche of Jamaicans, with comical parodies of the values, beliefs and behaviour of the two Jamaicas. The ridicule of her barbs became a medium of deeper understanding to all.”

The Independence Festival continues and is today rolled over into 2017 with special emphasis on our 55th anniversary.

According to Seaga, the Independence period itself has become a whirlwind of cultural activity. The success of the programme as a major attraction has drawn established artistes as participants, as well as citizens of different classes, race and complexion, who contribute their services and sponsorship.

What is not well known is that the founder of the Festival Commission himself, Edward Seaga, won a gold medal for his poem, River Maid, River Maid, in the Literary Competition in 1967. Seaga describes it as a poem depicting one of the most moving episodes of any Revival function — the dance of the river maid, possessed by a spirit as she enters the ‘healing stream’. He submitted it under a nom de plume, and it won. It captured the experience, the rhythm, the energy, the chanting, and the emotions of the possessed brethren in the finest literary form. Full of action, the poem wraps up the reader in all the mystical warnings and callings of the shepherd, who takes the river maid from ‘wrap head’ to water, through ‘drop down’ to ‘groan an bow’, from river bath to deliverance.

Towards the end of the journey, we get caught up in the tension as the dancers wait for the clearance message: “Drill di river, bank-to-bank, Show me motion, broad and bare, Trampin’ water for a readin’, Kneel to find it when it clear: Hands a search for water message, To stir a readin’ from di wave, Question front di Poco travellers: De message say dem loss, or save?”

And in the final verse, the poignant lines, “In di darkness of a poor man’s yard, hear a mother softly blow: Farewell-ll,…Farewell-l-l, me tell yu fa-a-a-rewell, Oh”.

This is one of the most compelling, eloquent and moving pieces of literature to emerge from Festival, and it can be found in the Jamaica Journal 3, No 2, (1969), and in The Revival Cults of Jamaica (Institute of Jamaica).

Have an enjoyable Emancipendence holiday.

Lance Neita is a public and community relations writer and consultant. Send comments to the Observer or lanceneita@hotmail.com.