Pe­ter Ray Blood

Sun­day is Moth­er's Day and a spe­cial ca­lyp­so gift is planned for moms in the New York and tri-state ar­eas at to­mor­row night's Moth­er We Love You Con­cert, to be held at Brook­lyn Cen­ter for the Per­form­ing Arts at Brook­lyn Col­lege.

The bill, led by The Mighty Spar­row, will al­so in­clude Ca­lyp­so Rose, reign­ing Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Chucky, Singing San­dra, Shad­ow, Lyrikal, King Short Shirt, Tony Ri­car­do, Young De­vyn, Su­san Kennedy and the Ja­maican Braa­ta Ja­maica Singers. This show is be­ing staged by Every­bodys Caribbean, the flag­ship en­ter­tain­ment mag­a­zine in New York.

The Mighty Spar­row, in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised as the Ca­lyp­so King of the World and cred­it­ed for pop­u­lar­is­ing the an­nu­al Moth­er's Day Con­cert in New York City, said: "It's a plea­sure to be back on the big Moth­er's Day Sat­ur­day Con­cert stage. I am get­ting stronger and stronger. I did a show in Brook­lyn last week­end. I want fans to know that The Spar­row ap­pre­ci­ates your prayers dur­ing my ill­ness and re­cov­ery. I in­tend giv­ing them my best on Sat­ur­day. Af­ter Moth­er's Day I am do­ing an­oth­er show in Mi­a­mi."

In 2012, Chucky won the Lord Bryn­ner Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­mem­o­rat­ing T&T's 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence and this year, the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch. This young, tal­ent­ed artiste con­tin­ues to dis­play prowess and dy­namism in so­ca and ca­lyp­so. On­ly 26 years, yet dur­ing the last sev­en years, Chucky ap­peared four times in the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch and five times in the In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tions.

About his ap­pear­ance, Shad­ow said in a re­cent in­ter­view: "It is a con­cert I love very much and love singing to moms." Shad­ow has won the Road March, In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch and Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tions.

Lyrikal, who had a bumper 2014 Car­ni­val with his pop­u­lar sin­gle Con­quer Mih, said: "What an ho­n­our to en­ter­tain my moth­er and oth­er moth­ers at the con­cert and what a joy to be billed with such Caribbean icon­sas Tony Ri­car­do, Shad­ow and Spar­row."

This year's show is es­pe­cial­ly spe­cial to Lyrikal as his moth­er has been a reg­u­lar pa­tron at the event each year. This year her son is one of the con­cert's star at­trac­tions. What a thrill for moth­er and son.

"It's al­ways ex­cit­ing to per­form at the tra­di­tion­al Moth­er's Day Sat­ur­day Con­cert at Brook­lyn Col­lege," said two-time Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Singing San­dra.

The first woman to win the two high­est ti­tles in ca­lyp­so–the Road March and Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch–Ca­lyp­so Rose is one of hard­est work­ing artistes on the Caribbean scene. Her lat­est tour in­clud­ed per­for­mances in Chi­na, Japan and Poland.

Young De­vyn is a 12-year-old child prodi­gy who has been per­form­ing since five. She has al­ready graced the same stage with Beres Ham­mond, Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Bee­nie Man and Mova­do. Born in Brook­lyn, NY, of Trinida­di­an parent­age, Young De­vyn says, "If this mu­sic thing doesn't work out for me I'm go­ing to be the first African-Amer­i­can woman pres­i­dent of the US."

King Short Shirt, one of the Caribbean's best en­ter­tain­ers is now Sir McLean Emanuel. The knight­hood was be­stowed up­on him by the na­tion of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da for his vast con­tri­bu­tions to the pro­mo­tion of ca­lyp­so and his na­tive An­tigua.

Though one of Guyana's most thrilling en­ter­tain­ers, many ca­lyp­so fans as­so­ciate Tony Ri­car­do with Trinidad, where, for many years, he per­formed with the famed Trinidad Trou­ba­dours. Ri­car­do is ex­pect­ed to make every moth­er hap­py when he sings Moth­er, We Love You. He may even col­lab­o­rate with Spar­row on one of his clas­sics.

Braa­ta Ja­maica Folk Singers is one of the Caribbean's lead­ing per­form­ing arts en­sem­bles in the Big Ap­ple. Fans and those who are bring­ing their mom, grand­ma, wife and sweet­heart can ex­pect the group to take them back in time to hear the songs of Lord Kitch­en­er, the Roar­ing Li­on, Bob Mar­ley and Har­ry Be­la­fonte.

The Sun­shine Or­ches­tra is pro­vid­ing the mu­sic for the nine vet­er­ans and emerg­ing su­per­stars on the star-stud­ded bill.

In one of the pro­duc­tion's high­lights, five Caribbean-Amer­i­can moth­ers (Ve­na W Bak­er of Pana­ma; Denise Don­ald­son of Grena­da; Bren­da Har­ris Ephraim of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da; Janet Lo­gan of Ja­maica; and Glo­ria Smith of Pana­ma) will be salut­ed.

My sweet-and-sour­week­end

My week­end was go­ing great un­til I re­turned home from the steel­band pa­rade at Point Fortin Bor­ough Day Cel­e­bra­tions at 3 am on Sun­day morn­ing and a friend called to in­form me that at­tor­ney Dana See­ta­hal had been "ex­e­cut­ed" hours ear­li­er in Wood­brook. What­ev­er sleep I was feel­ing au­to­mat­i­cal­ly van­ished as I sat up in bed, in shock and in doubt. I be­gan call­ing around and my worse fears were con­firmed an hour lat­er.

The Dana See­ta­hal I knew was very sup­port­ive of artistes and ap­pre­ci­at­ed every­thing that was cul­tur­al­ly T&T. She was a very gen­er­ous per­son who do­nat­ed reg­u­lar­ly to char­i­ta­ble caus­es, and was al­so very ami­able, read­i­ly of­fer­ing ad­vice and as­sis­tance to any­one who ap­proached her. Phys­i­cal fit­ness and healthy eat­ing were al­so high up on her agen­da. Pulse ex­tends con­do­lences to See­ta­hal's fam­i­ly and her col­leagues in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty.

See­ta­hal was cre­mat­ed yes­ter­day but her for­mer Bish­op Anstey High School (BAHS) col­leagues and friends are plan­ning a one-hour re­quiem ser­vice for her on May 17, at 10 am, at All Saints An­gli­can Church, Mar­li Street, New­town. The girls are try­ing to have Bish­op Berke­ley of­fi­ci­ate as cel­e­brant. The re­quiem's pro­gramme will in­clude se­lect­ed/rel­e­vant mu­sic by The Ly­di­ans and BAHS choir. A homi­ly by a fam­i­ly mem­ber and maybe one to three ex­pres­sions by school­mates of See­ta­hal would add the ap­pro­pri­ate lus­tre. The col­lec­tion will be do­nat­ed to an­oth­er BAHS alum­ni to as­sist in pay­ing off her med­ical bills.

Sat­ur­day's pan pa­rade in Point Fortin was an in­ci­dent-free and well or­gan­ised event that start­ed just af­ter sun­set with the ap­pear­ance of Jah Roots. Fol­lowed by So­lo Har­monites and NGC Cou­va Joy­lan­ders, the main road quick­ly be­came ig­nit­ed mu­si­cal­ly with Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus' in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Farmer Nap­py's Big Peo­ple Par­ty. The pop­u­lar St Au­gus­tine band, led by Ainsworth Mo­hammed, al­so played Sug­ar Bum Bum, Elec­tric Slide and Mer­chant's Um­bayayo. BPTT Rene­gades at­tract­ed a large fol­low­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when the Char­lotte Street band brought back mem­o­ries with its arrange­ment of The Stat­ue, So­ca Sal­sa and a retro Kitch­en­er med­ley. Wit­co Des­per­a­does fol­lowed, thrilling with its 1989 se­lec­tion of Baron's Some­body, NL­CB Buc­cooneers, Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove and Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars.

Sat­ur­day night's ex­pe­ri­ences are in­deli­bly mem­o­rable though for com­plete­ly op­po­site and dif­fer­ent rea­sons, mak­ing it a tru­ly sweet-and-sour week­end.