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BILL COTTON/REFORM – The Waithe Effect…

Sep 01, 2008 Features / Columnists

Bill will be out sporting tonight. Nothing new there, then. At the Police Officers’ Mess (that’s a place..).They are putting on Keith Waithe in Concert.

The prodigal son returns to the GPF womb and its band which spawned him. Bill helped fix it. He is Keith Friend. He was amused at the thought of Keith going back and playing for de police. He still is. Bill contacted the Commissioner and, Bob’s your uncle, the thing is on.

Keith is a phenomenon. During Carifesta, he was here, there, and simply everywhere. At the Opening Ceremony with Surinamese drummers, at the Theatre Guild with African and Indo Guyanese drummers, at City Hall with Indo  Guyanese drummers, at the Sidewalk Café with a big band, with Herbie Marshall at the Oasis a deux.

He is like a black tornado sweeping all before him in GT. He more than earned his fare from the UK. Bill helped a little bit there, too.

But who will go listen to this extraordinary flautist — a word you Guyanese struggle to pronounce –apart from the music? That is simply splendid. The things that man does with the flute defy belief. ‘With he mouth, too,’ as you Guyanese would say. But it’s the man that’s worth the visit.

The UK Diaspora is badly organized from the centre (change come soon, Bill hears..) but you go to any event in London, and Keith is the heart of the engine room. Come the Great Floods in 2005, it was Keith’s idea to have a Concert for Guyana. It was Keith who saw it through in London; others fell by the wayside, or, worse, took the money and ran. It was Keith who delivered.

He delivered on the UK Concert for Carifesta, too. The UK ‘Chapter for Carifesta’ was a phantom body. Keith put lead in their pencil and pulled off the Croydon Concert last July. Bill and Mrs. Bill enjoyed that.

Bill likes Keith most cos he is colour blind, even coming from this society, which is exactly the opposite. Musicians are musicians to him, whatever their hue. His Guyana band for Carifesta is a deliberate fusion of Buxton and Cove and John. Not many can do that in Bill (and Keith’s) Motherland. Not many want to do so in Guyana, which is very sad.

 So, grease up to Henry G. See if you can get a ticket for the hottest and best gig in town on Monday night.
It will have been well worth the Waithe… (pun intentional)
Pip! Pip!

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