Tribute to Andy

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Musicians pay tribute to the boss of Belize

By Brent Hallenbeck

SOUTH BURLINGTON -- Most shows at Higher Ground start with a guitar note or a bass thump or a singer asking the crowd "How ya doin'?'"

Wednesday's show began with tears.

"It's with mixed emotions, obviously, that I came up here," an emotional Jacob Edgar said as he introduced the musical tribute to Andy Palacio, who died of a stroke and heart attack in January. Palacio signed to Edgar's fledgling world-music label Cumbancha, which is based in Charlotte. His career had just started taking off last year on the strength of the critically acclaimed album "Watina," and his death at age 47 hit his label manager and close friend hard.

Edgar told the crowd in the Ballroom that Palacio in August had opened the Cumbancha-sponsored series of world-music shows at Higher Ground, down the hall in the smaller Showcase Lounge. He talked about what a great year it had been after "Watina" came out in February 2007.

"We knew we had something special on our hands," Edgar said.

He said people were moved by Palacio's eloquence as he talked about his story and how his music preserves the culture of the Garifuna people of Central America, a small Afro-Amerindian population with a rich cultural and musical heritage. Edgar recalled going to Belize with Palacio and 15 music journalists in November, where the musician was treated like a hero in his homeland.

"In Belize, he was just a star," Edgar said. "He was like the Bruce Springsteen of Belize." He choked up as he mentioned a concert Palacio gave there in front of thousands where he could barely hear him because the crowd was singing along so loudly.

But Edgar knew that Wednesday night was not a memorial service. "We're also very, very happy to present this show," he said.

With that, Palacio's band, the Garifuna Collective, came on stage. A few seconds after Rolando "Chichi Man" Sosa started shaking his pair of maracas, the elegy gave way, permanently, to celebration.

Two members of Umalali: The Garifuna Women's Project joined the Collective and stood out with their bright white-and-blue head scarves and matching dresses. Aurelio Martinez, a guitarist and vocalist from Honduras, displayed amazingly flexible, spinning dance moves. Edgar strolled by the front of the stage with his young daughter in one arm and a video camera in the other.

"We want you all to join us by celebrating tonight, all right?" vocalist Lloyd Augustine said, reminding the crowd that the band was there to carry on Palacio's legacy. Their music is fun but culturally complex; a calypso lilt, the pulsing bass of reggae, lush African rhythms. The two women -- Sofia Blanco and her daughter, Silvia Blanco, both of Guatemala -- held hands as they sang one a cappella song in high-pitched voices evoking sounds of the Middle East.

The lyrics, sung in the Garifuna language, are a similar mix of basic and complicated. Augustine said nothing is too simple for a Garifuna song, yet he explained that in one song he sang, "Amunegu," Palacio wondered who would be baking cassava bread or speaking in Garifuna in the future.

"Andy Palacio wrote this song because of the fading of the Garifuna culture," said Augustine, who's from Palacio's homeland of Belize.

While the lyrics and the music had a solemn bearing at times, the hand drums and lively bass kept the crowd dancing. The dancing on stage was decidedly more artful than that off stage -- one woman in front of me appeared to be steering a bus without brakes down a steep mountain road -- but it was all in the spirit of things, carefree and without self-consciousness.

Two women from the crowd joined the band on stage for some impressive dance moves of their own. A patriarch of Garifuna music, 80-year-old Paul Nabor, arrived like the George Clinton of Central America in a colorful Mexican-styled shirt and large fedora, then sang with a sonorous voice.

The final song of the set was the title track to "Watina," a seemingly simple number about being stranded along a remote road. It's driven by bouncy guitar and multiple voices that give it a funky, busy feel, but with an underlying mournful quality. I certainly don't speak Garifuna, but I got a headful of the culture from that one richly layered tune -- the moments of sadness that happen within a nearly forgotten culture, carried by the liberating joy that comes from playing music.

Palacio's death draped that joy in sadness. But on this night, riding the wave Palacio's music created, joy crushed sadness.
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenb@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.