Mel Cooke, Star Writer

Sunday night is now well established as the time for vintage music parties and Portmore is no exception. On any Sunday night Ken's Wildflower Lounge on Port Henderson Road is guaranteed to be rocking to the evergreen sounds of yesteryear, as people turn out in droves for the free party.

However, it wasn't always so.

loyal following

DJ Crazy Chris, who handles most of the music on Sunday nights at Kens and has long developed an enthusiastic, loyal following, told The Portmore Star that Vintage Sundays has been on for about four years. He says that before that format was adapted, "They used to play the same type of music every night. One Sunday night I was there and somebody said it is vintage night. I said OK, stop playing oldies on the rest of the nights."

So the oldies are reserved for Sundays, where the selections come from the '60s, '70s, '80s and "on certain nights I might touch the '90s".

There is no going into certain styles of music, though, as Crazy Chris said sometimes some youngsters come in and ask him to play people like Beenie Man. That is a no no on Sunday night at Ken's, as "there are too much good oldies to play".

Some of the selectors who share the musical duties at Vintage Sundays are Bobsy Twitch, Mikey Merchant, DJ Garfield and a new DJ Snow.

oldies session

Of course, Rae Town is the original Sunday night oldies session and Crazy Chris points out "I used to play at Rae Town. I used to play Klassique with Senor Daley". But then, Klassique stopped playing there every Sunday. While the two parties offer the same vintage feel, Crazy Chris says "it is not a situation where Wildflower can stop Rae Town. Rae Town is foundation,. Respect is due", crediting Miss Norma as the person who "hold old music firm".

On a good Sunday night, with people coming and going Vintage Sundays can have an audience of 1,200 to 1,500 people and there are times when the main roof-top, open-air party area is full and people have to stay on the second floor below.

Among the faavourite slow jams for the crowd are Let's Get It On, If I Give You My Heart, Love Me and Guilty.

There are no plans to change the Sunday night vintage format at Ken's Wildflower. "We try not to go anywhere near anything that's going on now. None of the daggering and all that," Crazy Chris told The PortmoreStar.