Wayne Armond. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Producers and song-writers, unless they do a Diddy and get behind the microphone, deliver their material from the start like Marley, or are inextricably linked like Bernie Taupin and Elton John, are usually lost in the credits.

So when guitarist and Chalice member Wayne Armond heard Dionne Warwick sing Walk on By when he was 12 years old, the arrangement struck him. But it was only when he was looking into credits of his own that he looked past Warwick's impressive voice and figure to see a consistent name.

Burt Bacharach.

Many years later, it is a name that is in the title of Armond's first instrumental album, Always Something There to Remind Me, A Jamaican Tribute to Burt Bacharach.

'Jamaican' is key to the 10-song set and choosing the songs for the project.

"It wasn't difficult. I just went through the Burt Bacharach catalogue and found the ones I thought would fit into our genre the best," Armond said of a set where the intention was "definitely to interpret it (the material) my way, the Jamaican way".

And, over a year after it was finished and after repeat reminders from the CD player, he is still satisfied with the results. "It will stand the test of time. When you have material like that it is hard not to get it right," Armond said.

Among the timeless songs that have made the cut are What The World Needs Now, On My Own (made popular by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald), A House Is Not A Home (Luther Vandross' update being a well-known version), Wishing and Hoping and, of course, the title song.

Loved by everybody

"Everybody who hears the album loves it," Armond said.

Armond does most of the music on the album, with Richard McDonald (bass), Sheldon Bernard (keyboards) and Marlon Stewart Gaynor (hand drums) among the players of instruments who contributed. However, he points out that "one of the key musicians on this album is Robbie Lyn".

It took a year, in between other projects such as his Warm N Easy two-man unit with McDonald, and also working on other songs, to complete Always Something There To Remind Me. It came ahead of the Chalice reunion.

"I am encouraged to do a Part two, or a local artiste. I would like to do something with a local artiste. Delroy Wilson is one of my favourites, an Ellis," Armond said.

And he points out that while several musicians, among them Winston 'Bo Pee' Bowen, Robbie Lyn, Robert 'Dubwise' Browne and Maurice Gordon, have done instrumental albums, "I don't think there has ever been a strong marketing thrust".

"I am thinking if somebody was to bring all these individual albums under one label and market them on the Internet, where someone can come to look for instrumental albums from Jamaica, it would be stronger," Armond said.