Lord Rhaburn/artists arrive for Friday night show

This weekend Belizean music legends will hit the stage at the Bliss for the second annual Lord Rhaburn Music Awards. This morning News Five’s Karla Heusner caught up with the artists for a preview of the event.

Karla Heusner, Reporting
As performers for the Lord Rhaburn Music Awards Show arrived today at the P.G.I.A. it was clear that while a few were meeting for the first time, others were reuniting with old friends.

Codrington Pascascio is a professional jazz musician with his own band in Los Angeles, but he remembers where it all began in Belize.

Codrington Pascascio, Jazz Musician
?I?m busy all the time, but Gerald gave me a call and invited me to come do this. And he was the one that basically discovered me when I was playing as a teenager at a club called ?Hi Lo? on North Front Street and he came by and listened and looked and listened, he left, he came back a second time and listened, then he said, ?you know, I think you can work with my band.? So I played with him for seven years, then I went to Guatemala with him, I did an album with him and then I left and I went to Los Angeles.?

Karla Heusner
?So this is a happy reunion for you??

Codrington Pascascio
?Oh yes, very, very. Its going to be a nice warm convivial social gathering and it?s going to be real nice.?

Musician Harry Shaw also hails from L.A… and he has a very specific target audience.

Harry Shaw, Singer
?I?ll be crooning on stage, I?ll be singing just for the ladies. If the guys want to come they can come and listen, but I?ll be crooning just for the ladies; singing, feeling good.?

?In L.A. I drive a big city bus, M.T.A. On the weekends I sing. And that?s what I love better, I love to sing. But you gotta work, so I drive the bus.?

Gerald ?Lord? Rhaburn, Show Organiser
?Right now, Harry Shaw is what you call a dynamite singer. He is outta this world, I cannot explain the way he sings. That part I will not too much about it. Then we have a young lady coming in about a half hour or so, she is from New York. She is seventeen years old and she can sing from a ballad to a Ranchera. Her name is Nikita Lind and she is a superstar too at the age of seventeen.?

Karla Heusner
?So you have a full spectrum of stars??

Lord Rhaburn
?Yeah.?

And this time around, Percival Drummond is determined to outdo his performance of 2004.

Percival ?Prof? Drummond, Performer
?I did ?Duke of Earl.? I am back with something that will surpass Duke of Earl. But to see it, you got to be there. I am talking to all the Belizeans out there, come on down. ?Showtime? is in town.?

And according to concert organizer Gerald Rhaburn, this year, even more people will get to enjoy the music.

Lord Rhaburn
?Last year I am very sorry for the people who didn?t get tickets. Now you all have the opportunity to go to the ticket booth and get your ticket early. This is something you must see. This is not only a show, it?s an experience. If you doubt me, ask anybody who saw the one last year.?

Karla Heusner reporting for News Five.

The Lord Rhaburn award show is scheduled for Friday night at nine at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts. Tickets are thirty dollars general, sixty reserved. The show is being sponsored by the National Institute of Culture and History.