Beres Hammond - File
When Merritone Music was started in St. Thomas, approximately 14 miles from where Paul Bogle began his epic march to Spanish Town in 1865, Alexander Bustamante had been out of detention at Up Park Camp for nine years and it would be 14 years before Marcus Garvey's body was brought home.
The sound system started the 'Las' Lick' of its official 58th anniversary celebrations on National Heroes Day, and the merry folk continued dancing into the early hours of Tuesday.
A couple posses of gal pals left when the slow jams of Just As I Am and Ebony Eyes were played going up to 2:00 a.m. but, still, there were many couples on the dance floor and others milling or sitting around. Monty Blake of Merritone told THE STAR that 'Las' Lick' followed a very successful reunion at Hedonism III in Runaway Bay, St. Ann.
Another kind of fallout
Despite heavy showers over the weekend, Blake said: "the rain fell around us". There was another kind of fallout, which did not affect Merritone's reunion, as Blake said: "I was a little worried about the economy here and abroad. The local business was up and the foreigners came out."
"Saturday night, the hotel sell off," Blake said, adding that, on the closing Sunday night, people turned up to party at midnight. "They turned out like J'ouvert," he said, smiling. "Big, big things gwaan."
The music changed from the slow jams of Guilty, one lady standing on a raised area while her partner got very close to her heart, to the rockers of Dennis Brown's Here I Come and Revolution. Supercat and dancehall got good play, Under Pressure and Mud Up coming after Greetings, the Wild Apache's Don Dadda and Dem No Worry We combination with Heavy D coming later.
Repeat rotations
Beres Hammond also got repeat rotations, One Dance and She Loves Me Now among the songs that drew the merry ones together, rub-a-dub style.
By now it was past 3:00 a.m. and the dance floor was noticeably thinner but, still, there were sufficient people to make a party of it as Dawn Penn intoned the unrequited love tale with a mournful no no no, and THE STAR left 58 years of sustained industry and music behind and called it a morning.
Taken from the Weekend Star, Friday October 24, 2008.