By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE JAMAICA Association of Vintage Artistes and Affiliates (JAVAA) got a jump on Father's Day last Friday evening.
A slew of female performers, all members of the association, paid individually brief homage to fathers at the Jamaican Vibes Restaurant, Haining Road, New Kingston, in an extension of the weekly 'JAVAA Jammin' fish and music affair.
Frankie Campbell of Fab Five was the sometimes caustically humourous of the show, keeping it moving smoothly after the appropriate final selection of Luther Vandross' Dance With My Father. "The only man on the stage is me. Maybe I should talk a little high," Campbell said, testing out his super soprano with a "hi hello".
"No, dat no soun' good," he concluded.
INSTRUCTIONS
"Be a good father. Don't owe on the maintenance," Frankie advised all the males with offspring in the audience.
Maxine Lee was rolled up in a wheelchair by Yvonne Sterling, who also helped out on harmony vocals as the steadily smiling Lee advised "you are everything/and everything is you".
Dionne Hardy was next and took the gospel road, after hailing all "the fathers who are men, who look after their responsibility". A yellow scarf trailing down a jeans-clad right leg and thigh, she removed the microphone from the stand and did No Doubt, nimble negotiating a glitch in the backing track with a smile, to boot.
When Campbell sent up the call for Merlene Webber repeatedly there was no performer forthcoming. "No Merlene? Chicken out? Blow wow!" Campbell commented and kept moving.
Before starting to play the keyboard, Simone Kenny said "June is Jazz Month, so I am going to start off with a jazz song. For the others I will do reggae. Fathers, you can sing along. You can come up and grab the mic. I love that. I love the company".
There was applause for the jazz song, then Kenny used red clothespins to arrange her music sheets and got into the reggae. The heads nodded and mouths filled in for Bob Marley's plea to play I some music, then the feet tapped to Third World's Try Jah Love.
"How comes no father came up to sing along? Was the playing so bad?" she mourned.
"No mi dear. Which father gwine come up? Is Jamaica dis," Campbell said.
YVONNE'S SOLO
Yvonne Sterling came back to do her solo stint, crooning that "I am a lineman for the county" then advised an errant lover "if she walks out on you/don't come running back to me".
Mary Isaacs opened with a track from her upcoming CD, produced by Boris Gardner and immediately sparked a spontaneous contribution or two when she rocked the acknowledgement that "my love for you made me a woman". There was spontaneous applause for an especially high note in Inseparable and howls for more when she left the stage.
Isaacs obliged with Power of Love.
Charmaine Limonious sat on a stool, guitar at hand, voice at the ready and a smile on her lips. The applause came from the first line of Wind Beneath My Wings and, after a respectful pause while her voice lifted on the currents of her guitar, the handclaps returned as she finished the classic, going up and up, challenging the limits of the John Crow Mountains.
