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Beres Hammond

Today, we begin a series on Beres Hammond that looks at a life in music that has led to his 'Moment', a four-hour concert with an orchestra and band, which will take place at the National Indoor Sports Complex on Sunday, December 30.

Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Beres Hammond pauses when he considers how he started out on a path that has led to standout recordings as far apart as the mid-70's One Step Ahead, the mid-80's One Dance and Rockaway past the millennium, his own Harmony House music production outfit, innumerable performances and the emotional commitment of a legion of fans, especially female.

"Is like ... me no know if is so much of how I got started. I think it was just a normal situation where all of you as kids had to go to church and had to sing. Everybody had a hymnbook," he said.

The other source was the classroom, as the man from St. Mary who was called Cudjoe in his early days said, "When I went to school one day was for music. Thursday. Mostly it was percussion instruments; some get a chance at the keyboard," he said.

Getting 'forwards'

In those very early days he did not consider himself outstanding. "I did think everybody could sing. When you had concerts at school you had different people who did different acts. There were a lot of Mass Ron and Miss Lou. A few were chosen to do some solos. I was one who they chose to do one or two solos. Little by little I noticed that my thing was a little different, because I always got a forward."

Those constant forwards, very much a feature of current Beres Hammond concerts, were also accompanied by selection for a bigger stage, as he says "when we had fund-raisers they would throw up money to make Beres sing".

It was interesting, but I did not know it would be a career. I liked it."

Even after he did his first recording, a cover o Ellis' Wanderer for producer Clancy Eccles, Beres Hammond wavered between art and music. He was in a position of "not too sure what you wanted to do, but you singing, singing. More time it was my friends who gave me the interest, spark up that thing inside me, make me feel like a singer".

And he laughs in delight as he remembers the ultimate encouragement, as "then two girls start say 'yeah!'".

When he finished school Beres Hammond moved into Kingston and tried his voice against those of the city and 'citified' folk in the hottest talent show, run by Merritone music.

Exposure

"I don't check if there was a winner. I just know that if you do well Winston Blake would take you to different venues," Hammond said.

Among the voices that the young Beres Hammond encountered were those of the Mighty Diamonds, Cynthia Schloss, Jacob Miller and Ruddy Thomas. "Dennis Brown was younger, but he was in the business earlier. He got exposed as a child," Hammond said.

"I got very good response," he said of the Merritone talent show. Jerry Butler songs were his forte and he sings a line from the American soul singer and laughs. "Them say is the Ice man that. Them start call me Ice Man," Hammond said. "When I sing Your Precious Love no love no lef. Me sing Perfidia; did they receive it?!"

Soon he would move from talent show to studio, as he said "me start meeting different people in the business. Willie Lindo, he always had an interest in my voice. We became kind of brethren. He was the one who spark my interest seriously in recording. Me say give it little time, give it little time".

Next: Beres Hammond has Got to Get Away at Aquarius.