In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis_fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch 2020 Ter­ri Lyons has cre­at­ed a plat­form to help fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who have been ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by the pan­dem­ic and the shut­down of the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try.

She re­cent­ly host­ed a vir­tu­al con­cert, Me, My­self and I, at the WACK 90.1 FM stu­dio in San Fer­nan­do, which was live-streamed on Face­book and In­sta­gram.

Dur­ing the show, Lyons ap­pealed to view­ers to make cash con­tri­bu­tions or share the live link on so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

“A lit­tle goes a long way,” she said.

Dur­ing the three-hour con­cert, Lyons stepped out of her ca­lyp­so and so­ca roots and dis­played her ver­sa­til­i­ty with her ren­di­tions of Dawn Penn’s reg­gae clas­sic No No No, Cyn­thia Schloss’ Send Me the Pil­low and Bar­bara Jones’ Young Love.

The show’s host, comedienne Gillian Smith, keeping things lively.

Innis Francis

She al­so paid homage to ca­lyp­so icons when she sang Shad­ow’s Look­ing for Horn, Baron’s Some­body, By­ron Lee and the Drag­o­naires Tiny Winey, and Broth­er Mar­vin’s Ja­ha­ji Bhai, in ad­di­tion to her hits De Love Still Dey, Doh Judge Meh, Wine Like Yuh Mean and I Am Li­on.

“This is to raise mon­ey to as­sist my fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who were af­fect­ed by the pan­dem­ic last year and in­to this year. We are at a time where en­ter­tain­ment has not been hap­pen­ing in T&T.

“These are hard times and every­body is feel­ing it, we have to sup­port each oth­er. We have to be in the shar­ing mood,” Lyons said.

She added that more than 50 ham­pers were be­ing pre­pared for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who have not been able to earn an in­come due to the pan­dem­ic and en­cour­aged the au­di­ence to con­tin­ue mak­ing con­tri­bu­tions af­ter the con­cert, through Pay­pal and YouTube ac­counts.

Terri Lyons delivering one of her calypso hits

Innis Francis