Rolph I L Warn­er

Reign­ing Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen Twig­gy (Ann Marie Parks-Ko­jo) did not dis­ap­point her New York fans who came to see and hear her at the grand Vic­to­ry & Show event in New York last week­end. The con­cert was staged at the Afri­ka House at the cor­ner of Bed­ford and Snyn­der av­enues in Brook­lyn, on Au­gust 8, by Home­town Stu­dios and was de­signed to ho­n­our Twig­gy for her 2009 tri­umph in the Na­tion­al Women's Ac­tion Com­mit­tee's (NWAC) an­nu­al Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen com­pe­ti­tion. Al­so be­ing her­ald­ed for vic­to­ries in T&T's Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties of '09 at the show were Bro Mu­da­da, the reign­ing Vet­er­ans Monarch and Man­zanil­la's cur­rent Ca­lyp­so Monarch Frosty Brooks.

Re­splen­dent in a cream two-piece skirt-suit adorned with shim­mer­ing gold and a match­ing head-tie, Twig­gy looked like a queen and she com­mand­ed the space of the venue as though it were her palace. She sang with pas­sion, danc­ing and de­liv­er­ing her ma­te­r­i­al with dy­namism and flair. She moved ma­jes­ti­cal­ly around the au­di­to­ri­um, in­ter­act­ing in­ti­mate­ly with her cap­tive au­di­ence. It was Twig­gy the Ti­tan­ic; the tan­ta­lis­ing and, in­deed, the taste­ful.�In­clud­ed in her per­for­mance was a stir­ring ren­di­tion of Ca­lyp­so, a com­po­si­tion of song­writer Jer­ry James, who penned the two ca­lyp­soes which won Twig­gy the his­toric in­au­gur­al Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen ti­tle back in 1985. James was in the au­di­ence last Sat­ur­day as were Baron, King Welling­ton, Dr Leroy Cal­liste (Black Stal­in) for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen Shirlane Hen­drick­son, Tu­co ex­ec­u­tive Sher­ma Orr and show­biz im­pre­sario Dawad Phillip.

Sup­port­ing Twig­gy mu­si­cal­ly at the show was gui­tarist Jim­my Brown and his band, with Ajala, Lovey and Garth David. For the pre­sen­ta­tion of her ti­tle-win­ning com­po­si­tion One For Oba­ma, the long-serv­ing Vil­lage Drums of Free­dom joined Twig­gy. What re­sult­ed was thrilling and ex­hil­a­rat­ing. The la­dy per­former ex­hib­it­ed some of what would have con­tributed to her mak­ing it to the 2009 Di­manche Gras fi­nals af­ter 34 years in the busi­ness of show busi­ness.

She took time to recog­nise her col­leagues in the au­di­ence, sin­gling out Black Stal­in as one of her men­tors whom she said "taught me how a lot about this busi­ness (en­ter­tain­ment) while on a tour of Eu­rope ear­ly in my ca­reer." She pub­licly thanked Stal­in for the ges­ture.

It was sad in­deed when the end came.

The pa­trons demon­strat­ed their ap­pre­ci­a­tion with up­roar­i­ous ova­tion as Twig­gy (who by this time had lost her head-tie, her dread­locks cas­cad­ing down past her but­tocks) left the stage. Lord Nel­son, a spe­cial guest at the show, was out­stand­ing as well with a clas­sic show­ing which on­ly he could pro­duce. Then there was Frosty Brooks who com­mand­ed great at­ten­tion for his an­i­mat­ed and well-ex­e­cut­ed reper­toire. Ajala, Brown Boy, Lovey and Garth David al­so added good mem­o­ries to an evening which will long be re­mem­bered. Bro Mu­da­da brought the cur­tain down near­ing four the fol­low­ing morn­ing and en­joyed the sup­port of his many fans who had wait­ed all night to hear him.