As Jamaica's national anthem was played at Redbones the Blues Café, Braemar Avenue, New Kingston, on Monday night, Fae Ellington and Keith Brown stood at attention on the small stage.

But when the horns that carried the melody hit the line "Jamaica, Jamaica ...", Ellington's right hand tapped against her thigh to the reggae beat in Sonny Bradshaw's arrangement of what she had called the prayer when she was invited onstage by Keith Brown.

Before the arrangement was played, Ellington said that about two years ago she attended "yet another function" and the Big Band played Bradshaw's arrangement of the 'prayer'. "I thought it was full time we had that prayer recorded," Ellington said, saying that she hounded producer Mikie Bennett week after week.

Then, after the outstanding performance of the Jamaican track and field team at the Olympics in Beijing last year, they had a conversation and lamented "if only we had the prayer, what a difference it would make".

The efforts were redoubled and Bradshaw's arrangement of the national anthem, first done in the early 1980s, was finally recorded at Bennett's Grafton Studios with Dean Fraser as the producer and one of the saxophonists.

Recording artistes

On the recording, Desi Jones plays drums, Dale Aslam is on bass and Maurice Gordon is the guitarist. The trumpeters are Dwight Richards, Vivian Scott, Everton 'Sting' Wray and Hopeton Williams. Fraser, Everton Gayle, Tafawee 'Tafanie' Buchsaecab and Nicholas Larock play saxophone, while Barry Bailey, Nambo Robinson, Everton Pessoa and Romeo Grey are on trombone.

Alvin 'Vinny' Haughton and Denver 'Denvo' Smith are the percussionists, while Romeo Gray is the recording and mixing engineer.

On Monday night, Ellington thanked Bagga Case for his work on the graphics.

"Tenacity is important. Never give up. It does not have to be your product. You can support someone else's product as well," Ellington said.

"It was a pleasure. Tears in my eyes again!"

- Mel Cooke