The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues with the 31st of its biweekly feature looking at seminal moments that have helped shape Jamaica over the past 60 years.

BRIDGETT Anderson, former manager of Garnet Silk, says he is yet to receive the true recognition he deserves — but she is hopeful he one day will.

“In time, he will. Good music lives on forever [but] nowadays we are bombarded with modern artistes that are doing inferior music so good music is being overshadowed. But, just like his legacy, his music is going to live on forever,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

Garnet Silk, whose real name was Garnet Smith, had a brief but remarkable run in the early 1990s. He died in a fire on December 9, 1994 in his native Manchester, at 28 years old.

Silk was working on an album for Atlantic Records at the time of his death. He recorded a number of hit songs for various producers, including It’s Growing, Mama Africa, and Lion Heart.

Anderson first met him through mutual friends. She recalled the way in which he asked her to be his manager.

“I met him through Anthony Rochester, who was his writer. Tony Rebel actually introduced me to Anthony Rochester, and he told me that Garnet was his brethren, and I told him that I wanted to meet him,” she said.

“When I met him, he was mainly doing dances. I was working with Judy Mowatt and they thought I was her manager but I was actually her road manager, and he said, ‘A you mi wah fi be mi manager enuh’ just like that…and I became his manager. Him and Anthony Rochester.”

Anderson’s fondest memory of the roots singer was a sold-out concert he performed in the USA in 1992.

“There are so many memories, but there’s one particular one of him performing in Florida at a production and it was so good that the following day they called it Garnet Silk Day,” she recalled.

Anderson said his death hit her like a truck.

“I was at home and his doctor’s wife called me in the middle of the night. I was just returning from a Christmas party at Mikie Bennett’s and the doctor’s wife called and said she had some sad news. I asked what about, and she said Garnett was gone. So, I said, ‘Gone where?’ And she told me there was a fire. I was in such disbelief. The next day we had to drive to Manchester to see if it was true,” she added.

Yasus Afari, former friend of Silk whom he met through Tony Rebel, remembers his compassion.

“He had so much passion. He had a love for Rastafari and the music, he was passionate about the struggle of people and how he feels about us as brethrens. He would sometimes look at me and say, ‘Love you, enuh!’ and the passion he said it with, there was no room for doubt. He was always eager to learn. When he first met me, he asked me a series of questions about Christ, the Bible, and Rastafari. He was very excited and animated, but he could also be calm and cool,” Afari told the Observer.

They recorded three singles together. I Can See Clearly in 1991, People Dancing in 1992 and I-Pen in 1994.

Their first collaboration came about in the most spontaneous way.

“It so happened that on September 3, about 1990/91, I met him [Silk] in Pembroke Hall. And Courtney Cole from Roof International Sound called and said I should come to the studio the next day and mi a seh ‘A mi birthday; mi nah go work pon mi birthday.’ And he said it was the perfect day to work….when we picked up Garnet the next day he was relating a vision he got from His Imperial Majesty and he told me to write — and that’s how I saw Zion in a Vision came about after writing, and writing everything he said,” Afari recalled.

Like Anderson, he believes that more can be done to pay homage to Silk.

“We see Garnet Silk as a human nightingale with a sacred mandate. He has spiritual empowerment through melodies, message and music. His family has a lot of responsibility to preserve his legacy. It is a work in progress,” stated Afari.