Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Monty Blake (right), Winston Blake (centre) and Craig 'The Young Lion' Ross of the Merritone family. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

There was a sense of family at Waterfalls in Liguanea, St Andrew, last Thursday evening and with good reason.

The gathering of people - who seemed to know each other very well - was for the official presentation of the Merritone Family Reunion and Homecoming 2008.

Symposium

The reunion runs from October 15 to 20, with a number of pre-reunion events which began with a symposium at the University of the West Indies, Mona, last weekend. It is scheduled to end with a fun day at Boon Hall Oasis, St Andrew, on Sunday.

Dr Winston Davidson, one of two guest speakers at the launch, pointed out that in 1950 when the Merritone sound system started in Morant Bay, St Thomas, "the life expectancy was about 46. Well, Merritone has exceeded the life expectancy by a number of years".

Davidson went back into memories of Kingston College when, as 11-year-old boys, they were schooled in Merritone by the Blake brothers.

There at beginning

"If you look at the crowd, you will see persons who were there at the beginning," he said. And he noted that the sense of camaraderie and the family spirit around Merritone. "Some of us were even joined together in holy union because of Merritone," he said.

And he pointed out that "Merritone is therefore a brand which is representative of not only Morant Bay, St Thomas, KC, and UWI, but is indeed a Caribbean brand".

He pointed out that Merritone was the first sound system to play in Cuba.

"It is representative of all the Black Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere," Davidson said.

Television Jamaica's general manager Kay Osbourne, the night's other guest speaker, also paid tribute.

"Merritone for me is about feelings", she said. Osbourne recalled that when she lived outside Jamaica, especially in Chicago where the winters are brutal, one of the ways to make it through was to project into a future of happier times. And one of those projections was going back home to 'Merri' sessions.

She pointed out that Jamaica's recent Olympic performances have given us all a great deal of self-confidence. "Merritone has been doing that with us for decades," she said.

The official reunion events are a 'Meet and Greet' at the Quad, New Kingston on Wednesday, October 15; 'Turntable Thursdays' at Waterfalls on Thursday, October 16; and a 'Las Lik' at The Deck, New Kingston on Monday, October 20.

The reunion heads out of Kingston to Hedonism III in Runaway Bay, St Ann, for an 'All-Inclusive Weekend and Jerk Festival' from Friday, October 17, to Sunday, October 19.