Mu­si­cal en­ter­tain­er Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter is be­ing raved as one of the artistes who will take so­ca mu­sic to the heights of in­ter­na­tion­al fame. The as­ser­tion was made on April 29 by event co-or­di­na­tor in the di­vi­sion of tourism and trans­porta­tion in To­ba­go, John Arnold. Win­ches­ter and his band YOU thrilled au­di­ences on East­er Sun­day at the beach­front, Store Bay, and again at Sig­nal Hill, where an event dubbed Jazz on the Hill was held be­fore a mas­sive gath­er­ing of lo­cals and for­eign­ers alike.

The jazz-themed show­case fea­tured acts like Os­car B, Sug­ar Dad­dy and the Sig­nal Hill Alum­ni Choir among oth­ers, but it was Win­ches­ter and YOU who left a last­ing im­pres­sion on Arnold and many oth­ers in the crowd. "I have seen Shur­wayne per­form a mil­lion times, but nev­er like this,"said Arnold. He ex­plained that Shur­wayne was able to prove to many in the crowd that he could not be la­belled, "just a so­ca artiste." "He's a singer, per­former and a re­al en­ter­tain­er. He was able to show his ver­sa­til­i­ty as an artiste, and his wide vo­cal range,"he said.

Arnold be­lieves that for T&T's cul­ture, and more so, so­ca mu­sic to gain in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, the artistes car­ry­ing the torch must not on­ly be able to per­form "wine and jam" tunes, but "they must have a voice at the end of the day." Vow­ing to stand in the cor­ner of the To­ba­go-born artiste, Arnold said he had high hopes for Win­ches­ter, who at this year's In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion chose to draw fo­cus to the bit­ter­sweet re­al­i­ties that lie with­in the twin is­lands of T&T when he per­formed his sin­gle, Par­a­disin.

In the past few weeks, Win­ches­ter has been re­ceiv­ing quite a bit of pos­i­tive recog­ni­tion. In Ja­maica, jour­nal­ists called him mas­ter­ful, skil­ful and com­mand­ing fol­low­ing his per­for­mance at Bac­cha­nal Fri­days in the lead-up to the is­land's Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tion. On­line, his con­nec­tion with fans is sin­cere, and not­ed by many as the mark of an artiste who ex­er­cis­es true hu­mil­i­ty even while soar­ing high.