by Ridley Greene
MIKE?GROSVENOR wasn’t afraid to stick with what has worked for him all these years: presence, precision, diction, melody, mood, crowd connection.
But then you might say that for nigh all the artistes who appeared at the Mum, This One’s For You concert on Sunday night at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
Without the over-emotion and overkill, the veteran Grosvenor, the opening act, gave just treatment to She’s My Mother and the hundreds of infatuated mums who spilled to the edges of the Flamboyant Room.
Then Grosvenor’s Jesus, Don’t Turn Your Back On Me, as fitting for Mother’s Day as any other regular Sunday, would offer patrons through Christ the recipe for survival in these hard times and for rectitude.
And if the songwriter and singer Grosvenor was a bit esoteric, Jamal Slocombe, just 14, brought us to earth with a powerful and strikingly modulated version of Bridge Over Troubled Waters. The audience missed nothing of this. Jamal will go places.
You don’t have to be popularly known to be good. Coleen Brewster is testament to that. In a rhythm and blues/soul presentation, the practised Brewster offered I Am Changing and You’re The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me.
The Almighty would make Himself felt through the accomplished gospel artist James Leacock with his dynamic God Is Standing By; but not before his own pleasing interpretation of the controversial Rod Stewart version of Forever Young.
A karaoke buff even earned his place in the Mother’s Day show line-up. To cheers from his adoring fans, Kenrick “Sticker” Murrell would soothe his listeners, backed by the Mother’s Day Band, with Some Kind Of Wonderful and The Answer To Everything.
The first half of Mum, This One’s For You would be punctuated by the producer of the show himself – spouge master Desmond Weekes. But first there would be the presentation of awards by Minister of Social Care Steven Blackett to the 11 honoured Parish Mothers of 2011, one of whom – Alva Hope – would render a self-written poem in tribute to the mum, and an energetic and comic choreography from Bluetooth, a group of male dancers.
Folk music and spouge are far from dead, if we are to go by the mothers, their families and friends.
“I?bet you don’t know this?” said Weekes. And he began: “Millie gone to Brazil . . . .” And the audience finished it lustily.
“I bet you don’t know this one though?” Weekes insisted. “Brown-skinned gal, go . . . .” The mothers sang even more lustily.
Then there was pandemonium in wining in the aisles as the “old girls” went down to “low town” during Weekes’ performance of Tuk Band Coming Down.
In Weekes’ earlier more measured spouge version of Guava Jelly, a shy but a well executing trumpeter Ryan Blackman blew patrons away with an entrance from the back right up to the stage.
Weekes should have ended the show. But he gave the honours to the Road March icon Grynner, who did an able job with Mr T and Leggo I Hand, which gave rise to old girls having their own floorshow in the aisles again.
In a second session interspersed with a presentation of awards to 11 mothers of disabled children and a gymnastic choreographic piece by an Israel Lovell Dancers duo, John King, Young Cassius Clay, Carlyn Leacock, Mac Fingall and Lord Radio would keep high the standard set by opener Grosvenor.
Fingall, the humorist and comic, was at his usual best, offering among his fare parodies of Prime Minister Freundel Stuart and ministers Stephen Lashley and Dr David Estwick as coaches having an inspirational talk with the West Indies cricket team. It was hilarious and side-splitting.
John King, dynamic but sedate, offered the jazzy Fly Me To The Moon and the well known standard Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.
Queen Of Song Carlyn Leacock, living up to her reputation, brilliantly spun a robust but sophisticated I Am What I Am and You Ain’t Hear Nothing Yet.
The talented Young Cassius Clay, in comic gear, was rootsy as ever with Hold Onto What You’ve Got and You Sexy Thing, which was most appropriate, seeing how he was assisted by a busty and leggy companion.
Young Cassius would return with the stunning stunt of balancing a chair with a bicycle on his bottom front teeth.
To a standing ovation, master entertainer Lord Radio (Oliver Brome) exited the public stage for the last time.
After a tearful and touching presentation of Island In The Sun and What A Wonderful World, and the humorous calypso Woman Or Wife and extempore tribute to some of the honoured mothers and Loyal Son awardee Rev. Wes Hall, the inimitable Lord Radio thanked Barbadians for being good to him over the past 67 years of his being in entertainment.
Kudos to the band of trumpeter Blackman, trombonist Boo Husbands, guitarist Mike Hope, drummer Frederick Griffith and keyboardist Leonard Griffith, led by Rickey Aimey, the baaad bassman!
