Teino Evans, Entertainment Coordinator

Winston Blake - File

Representatives of the Vinyl Record Collectors Association of Jamaica will travel to Fort Lauderdale on May 23-26 to attend their annual 'gathering'.

The event, which is being staged 10 years now, will see record vinyl collectors from different chapters, from various parts of the US, Canada and Jamaica coming together to celebrate their existence and honour past and present contributors.

Michael 'Louis' Owens, from the Jamaican chapter, says: "Every year we have our annual get-together in one of the locations and this year we will be having it in Fort Lauderdale over the Memorial Holiday Weekend.

Celebrating our music

It's really to celebrate our music that we collect and it's in memory of some of our friends that passed on, like Duke Fuller, Stan, Michael 'Fat Willy' Williams and other guys overseas who have passed on and we really cherish their memories ... people like Spencer Tracy out of New York."

Owens says the celebration is also to honour persons who have made significant contributions to the music, "like collectors of vinyl records and this year, we'll be honouring Winston 'Meritone' Blake and Gladstone 'Gladdy' Parker from Jamaica and there will be other honourees from the other chapters".

According to Owens, "the event itself over the Memorial weekend is a non-profit one, it's all about meeting up with good friends and enjoying good music".

However, in order to fund or offset some of the costs, Owens says, "What we do is have fund-raisers during the year and then we pool together."

Fund-raiser

On Saturday May 10, Owens says they will be having a fund-raiser at The Deck (14 Trafalgar Road), starting at 6 p.m., where he along with Donald 'Pinky' Campbell will get the early vibe going before handing over to the likes of Errol from The Rock, Peter Phillips from Kool FM, Tony Owens from RJR 94 FM and Ricky Clarke from The Deck.

With this particular fund-raiser, Owens says, "A part of it will go to charity, as I will be making a donation to the Readiness Early Childhood Development Centre, it's a basic school located on 34 Ellastowe Avenue, Kingston 11. Ultimately, these are the sort of things that we want to do, pick out projects and make donations."

However, come May 23-26, at the main annual event in Fort Lauder-dale, Owens says, "We will have collectors from the various chapters who come in and play on the different nights, so it's a lot of good fun. The main event is usually on the Sunday where a representative from each chapter plays."

Adding, "Orielly Henry, aka Glenn, is the Jamaican representative who will be playing at the main event in Fort Lauderdale."

Vinyl record competition

Owens says he just wanted to state for the record that "anybody who thinks that vinyl record collection is dead, they are wrong" as it is still very much alive in places like Belgium, France and Japan.

And in Jamaica, Owens says, "Amongst us vinyl collectors here, we have our outlets where we still sell and even this year, Wray and Nephew sponsored a vintage vinyl record competition."

The first ever staging of a vinyl record collectors gathering was held in Philadelphia and was started by Michael Meysmith, an avid Jamaican collector living there.