Members of the 1950s group Frats Quintet (from left), Henry Richards, Winston White, Granville Lindo, Sydney Clarke and Wilfred Warner (back). - Contributed

Wilfred Warner, the sole remaining member of the 2009 Jamaica Music Hall of Fame inductees, the Frats Quintet, died earlier this month in Florida, USA, at 85 years old.

In an e-mail interview, Wilfred's son, Patrick Warner, said his father, who had several strokes and remained in rehabilitation since 2005, died of a cardiac arrest at the Hollywood Hills Rehab Centre.

The Jamaica Music Hall of Fame is organised by the Jamaica Association of Vintage Artistes and Affiliates. At the official induction ceremony, held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston, on July 7, the citation read in part that the Frats Quintet, comprising Sydney Clarke, Henry Richards, Granville Lindo, Winston White and Wilfred Warner, is credited with "being the first to record many of Jamaica's classic folk hits, including Linstead Market, Shine Eye Gal, Sammy Dead Oh and Nobody's Business".

In a previous article contributed to The Gleaner, Patrick Warner said the Frats Quintet was formed in 1951 out of the Young Men's Fraternal. They went on to perform across Jamaica, be the onstage and offstage group for the National Dance Theatre Company, sing when JBC TV first broadcast, do harmonies for soprano Joyce Laylor on 'Evening Time' and perform overseas extensively. These included trips to United Nations (UN) functions in New York, Expo '67 in the Jamaican Pavilion and before world dignitaries in Montreal, the popular Eistedfod Music Festival in Wales (1958), a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip in Britain and on several occasions in Cuba.

All-rounder

Patrick Warner said "he had been a member of the Spanish Town Cathedral Choir under Trevor Beckford and The National Chorale of Jamaica during his sojourn as the superintendent of Spanish Town district prisons in the '70s and later commissioner/director of correctional services. As a superintendent of prisons at Richmond Farm Prison in St Mary during the mid-1970s, he also started a folk group in Port Maria, entering festival competitions".

In honour of the Frats Quintet's approach, all the hymns at Wilfred Warner's memorial service, held at Fred Hunter's in Hollywood, were done a cappella. Patrick Warner said, "I have inherited some of my father's capacity to roll the bass, though his range was deeper than mine at double bass, and I honoured him by singing Paul Anka's My Way."

Lost memories

However, much of the Frats Quintet's memories in tangible form have been lost. "It was a shame that many mementoes of the group, including scores of photos of UN engagements, meeting British royalty and many other memorabilia were destroyed when Hurricane Gilbert did considerable damage to the family home in Acadia," Patrick Warner said. "The performance on JBC TV to herald the nation's Independence as well as other local recordings seems to have disappeared, but the family plans to make efforts to locate as much of the history of the group to include Ludlow Dawes, also a second bass, who Warner replaced in October 1961."

Wilfred Warner never forgot Jamaica, Patrick saying, "Our father spoke fondly of his island home and often remarked that exposure to different genres of music, if offered to some of our troubled youths, would capture their imagination and place them on different paths".

He also never gave up singing, as Patrick says "at the rehab centre, he became the resident chanteur for special occasions, and each family visit was marked by singing, his rumbling double bass a bit weakened, but full-bodied to the end."

Wilfred Warner is also survived by widow Mernel, daughters Merlene and Rosemarie, grandchildren Anya, Alexandria and Cedric, and sister Violet.