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Three Songs In Jamaica
Montego Bay, Jamaica - The band and crew were excited after the show at Bogarts. The bands' gear was loaded on to a truck and then taken to air freight. A Bob Marley CD was playing for the bus ride back to the hotel. Were Jammin'. Tomorrow we would all board a flight from Cincinnati to Montego Bay. This would be Robert Cray's 1st preformance in Jamaica. A group of traditional Jamaican musicians/singers greet tourists when arriving in Montego Bay. Plus you can smoke, cigarettes that is, as soon as you leave the jetway from the plane. After a short trip to the Sun Spree Hotel, we started making our plans. We knew the band equipment wouldn't arrive until later in the day tomorrow, so Robert and I planned a day trip to Ocho Rios for some shopping. The hotel is great. It has huge buffet setups for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We bumped into Taj Mahal at breakfast the next day. In between puffs of his cuban cigar, Taj told us a few stories about sport fishing tournaments, charters that leave from Falmouth, and good marlin spots near Jamaica. After visiting with Taj we rented a driver with a van and headed for Ocho Rios. On the way we passed by Discovery Bay, Mount Zion and through Saint Ann Bay. I have some friends in the Seattle area that grew up in St. Ann Bay. Arriving in Ocho Rios, Robert went looking for cigars and I just went looking. There were hundreds of hand-made art vendors as well as your typical gift shops with stuff that said Jamaica on it. Robert found some cigars and I found some baseball hats that had embroider bill fish on them. Robert gave me a bottle of some good jamaican rum, that was a compliment from the cigar shop. Then our driver took us to a resturant for lunch where were able to dine on the famous jamaican jerk pork, it was delicious. Well Rpobert was ready to go and I had to get back to the hotel to join the crew for loadin. see next column
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New Years Eve Show
After a hiatus from performing on New Years Eve shows, Robert Cray will ring in this new years eve in San Francisco. The celebration will take place at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. And word has it that the real Memphis Horns will join Robert and his band.
continued from previous column
The Festival was staged on the slopes in front of Rose Hall Great House, built between 1770 and 1780. It was the home of Annie Palmer, who is said to have dabbled in witchcraft, murdered husbands and countless lovers.
They told us there was a slight chance of rain, we said no problem, if the show gets rained out we would definitely come back to Jamaica for a rain check. Well it started raining after the 1st song and by the time Robert got to the 3rd it was an unbearable storm. The show had to be stop. There was danger of the stage roof collapsing from the mass of water that had acumulated atop. Some stage hands ripped a hole in the tarp overhead, to relief the weight, sending hundreds of gallons of water onto the stage. so Robert only got to play 3 songs. I guess we'll have to come back and finish up another time. Later around 1:00am the rain quit and George Benson went on stage. We had a great time in Jamaica
© 1998 G. Zaccaria
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