When Sangie Davis belted out Joe Higgs’ There’s A Reward For Me at last week’s tribute show honouring the reggae pioneer, Norman “Romie” Reid was moved to shout: “Trench Town! Trench Town!”

Higgs’ signature song got the full house at the St Andrew Park home of guitarist Earl “Chinna” Smith singing lustily.

It was one of the high points of ‘A Tribute to Joe Higgs: The Father of Reggae’, held on June 3, which would have been his 84th birthday.

Higgs died in California in 1999 at age 59.

The event featured a bevy of roots artistes backed by Smith’s Binghistra Movement. Several of them performed songs done by Higgs or were inspired by the diminutive singer/songwriter who died in 1999.

Reid, who still lives in Trench Town, has vivid boyhood memories of Higgs.

“Him used to ride him ‘50 (motorbike) an’ him always have on a beret. Mi grow ‘roun’ dem man deh; one a di humblest people!” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Claudia Higgs, eldest of Higgs’ 10 children, was pleased with the turnout, which included two of her sisters, Maxine and Jaha. She plans to make ‘A Tribute to Joe Higgs’ an annual event to expose her father’s contribution to Jamaican music.

“The music was created here by people like my father, Alton Ellis, Hortense Ellis. Jamaica must hear about them because they are responsible for the music,” said Claudia, who performed Hurry Home, one of his songs.

Joe Higgs was born and raised in Trench Town. Musically inclined from his youth, he formed a duo, Higgs and Wilson, with Roy Wilson. In 1958 they had a big hit song with Manny Oh, produced by Edward Seaga.

While he continued to record songs after Higgs and Wilson split, Higgs is best known for mentoring a Trench Town group known as The Wailers, whose most famous members were Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny “Wailer” Livingston.

Higgs toured with Jimmy Cliff and The Wailers during the 1970s and continued recording music. Moving to Southern California, he became an influential member of that region’s growing reggae community.

Stephen-Rhae Johnson plays Joe Higgs in Bob Marley: One Love, the Paramount Pictures biopic.

Kenardo Ellis did a solid rendition of Manny Oh, while Sydney Mankind did justice to Sun is Shining, one of The Wailers’ early reggae hits. Abijah Livingston, son of Bunny Wailer, did Stepping Razor, written by Higgs and made famous by Peter Tosh.

So it Go (sung by Wadadah) and Blackman Know Yourself (Arlene Napthali) went over well with the audience. So too Upside Down by Israel Voice and Micah Shemaiah, who did Vineyard.

Bongo Herman, Marlon Brown, Matrujah, and Kai Wakeling also performed on the show.