Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
Left: Dennis Brown - Right: Daniel Brown, son of the Crown Prince of Reggae Dennis Brown, and Gregory Isaacs in performance at the JAVAA Jammin', 'Remembering Dennis Brown, Crown Prince of Reggae', held at Oakton Park Entertainment Complex, Hagley Park Road, Half-Way Tree, last Friday. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
WITH GUITAR and steelpan, saxophone and, overwhelmingly, vocals, respects were paid in song to Dennis Brown on Friday night.
Two days after his 49th birthday and going on to seven years after his death, an appreciable audience came to the main parking lot of the Oakton Entertainment Complex in Half-Way Tree for the Jamaica Association of Vintage Artistes and Affiliates' (JAVAA) first major show at their new home.
Although throughout the night all but about three of the over 40 performers sang a Dennis Brown song, with 70 albums to his credit, there was no shortage of material to choose from.
And varied aspects of Dennis Brown's career came through, from the standard Should I, done to the audience's delight in energetic fashion by Noddy Virtue, to the relatively unfamiliar Wichita Lineman, lifted on Bunny Brown's falsetto. There was the rockers of Your Love's Got a Hold on Me, delivered by George Nooks, the lover's rock of Groovy Kind of Love from Boris Gardiner and the R&B of Love Has Found It's Way done by Ruddy Thomas in the early going and later by Freddie McGreggor, who said it was a favourite of Dennis Brown's.
McGreggor and Nooks were not the only contemporaries of Brown to perform, Gregory Isaacs also delivering to earn a rare encore in the second segment of the show, for which Lloyd Parkes and We The People, which toured extensively with Brown, did support duties. The Fabulous Five Incorporated Band provided music for the first segment, Junior Sinclair doing hosting duties for the entire night.
And along with Virtue and guitarist Pinkney, who did his composition How Could I Live alone and then returned in the closing stages to combine with Luciano, it was largely Brown's contemporaries and one of his vocal descendants, Luciano, as well as his elder Ken Boothe, who got the more enthusiastic cheers on a long night when appreciative applause at the end of songs was almost standard.
EXTENDED RENDITION
Isaacs did an extended rendition of Inseparable, before rocking the house with his Love Overdue. Dennis Brown's son Daniel stood in for his father on Big All Around, recorded with Gregory Isaacs, the two leaving with a chant of 'muffin muffin muffin'. And when the audience insisted that Isaacs return, he intoned 'Dem still want more', the opening line of Hard Drugs.
It was not a night of men only, Angella Stewart with If I Follow My Heart, Suzanne Couch with Lips of Wine and Mary Isaacs with If I Follow My Heart among the women who honoured Dennis Brown in song.
Two of Brown's elders did not do a Dennis Brown song on Friday night. "I was supposed to sing a Dennis Brown song, but by the time I reach rehearsal, everybody sing the Dennis Brown I know. Can I sing one of mine?" Bob Andy asked, going on to do Fire Burning. "This is a song I used to do way back. And Dennis Brown used to sing this song when he was so young they had to put him up on the box, he was so little," Derrick Harriott said, before doing Solomon, with the line 'I am a big man in this town' which must have caused a furore when sung by the young Dennis Brown.
Ken Boothe twirled and the audience cheered as he sang Puppet On A String, the white-clad singer recalling other dead Jamaican singers, including Slim Smith and the cool Phyllis Dilllon.
INSTRUMENT AND VOICE
Benjy Myaz honoured Brown with instrument and voice, playing lead with his bass on the verses of Caress Me Girl then singing the chorus, while deejay Tony Rebel crossed over into singer's land with How Could I Live.
From Brown's first song, No Man Is An Island, done by another Brown, that of the AJ variety, through to the early 1990s Poison, done a capella by Brian and Tony Gold, the JAVAA tribute spanned decades of the late singer's career. And the depth of his catalogue was emphasised during the band change, as after a poetic tribute by Dionne, Mr. Fix It was among some D. Brown songs played by Winston 'Merritone' Blake which were not performed on Friday night.
