By Marcia Rowe—-
At an event permeated with musical nostalgia, the 1978 Winston Wallace-penned, Grub Cooper-arranged, Land Of My Birth, a song made famous by Eric Donaldson’s vocals, was announced the winner of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s ‘All Time Best’ Festival Song Competition.
Second place went to Roy Rayon’s Give Thanks and Praises and completing the top three slots was Ras Karby’s Jamaica I’ll Never Leave You Again.
It was a very confident Donaldson who shared his thoughts on his victory with The Sunday Gleaner, after earning a black-, green- and gold-decorated plaque.
“I have it in mind, as I know that I have some of the best festival songs that ever hit this surface. I couldn’t say which song but I knew I had the edge,” said the dapperly dressed seven-time festival song competition winner.
NO SUPRISE
His very popular Cherry Oh Baby was number seven.
Donaldson was not surprised by that either “because I see Cherry Oh Baby as a good song, but Cherry Oh Baby is a song for the lovers because it was not saying nothing about festival. I know it has a good beat and financially it is the best song. But I know that Land Of My Birth would pick up the prize, it is more like a national anthem. We said that even before we record it in 1977.”
Rayon, a four-time winner, was also proud of the achievement.
“This [the competition] now, I was optimistic, but I thought the people got it right. I thought it would either be myself or Eric. If it went any other way then I would be disappointed, as I thought we would have been the top two. It is a proud moment and I am just as happy for Eric as I am happy for myself,” said Rayon.
Completing the list of top-10 festival songs of all time are — 10.Nuh Wey Nuh Betta Dan Yard/Tinga Stewart, 9.Fi Wi Island A Boom/Stanley Beckford, 8.Play Di Music/Tinga Stewart, 6.Come Rock/Roy Rayon, 5.Baba Boom/The Jamaicans and 4.Mek Wi Put Things Right/Heather Grant.
The top-20 songs were chosen this year by Jamaicans through text messaging.
Prior to the announcement of the winner, a relatively good turnout was treated to (except for a lengthy break towards the end) a very entertaining evening.
Dubbed, Jamaica Festival Song Showcase, the event not only showcased past festival song winners such as Rayon, Donaldson, The Astronauts and Heather ‘Brown Sugar’ Grant, but had some of the stalwarts of Jamaica’s musical industry traversing the landscape through ska and rocksteady.
They were the very energetic Ken Boothe, Errol Dunkley, Derrick Morgan, Pam Hall and the Mighty Diamonds.
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