Walter Wilson Nana
25 February 2008
opinion
Old Timers, a fond name by fans of a radio show titled Yesterday, hosted by ace journalist, Kevin Njomo, on Mt. Cameroon FM and Radio Buea, left the confines of the radio station and thrilled hundreds of fans at the Mermoz Banquet Hall Buea on February 16.
The programme takes listeners down memory with music of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, and recalls life back then with an opportunity for call-ins by listeners.
The Presenter, Kevin Njomo, revealed that he conceived Old Timers in 1989 when he was at the CRTV National Station in Yaounde with a radio programme christened Good Old Times. When he was transferred to FM 105 Suelaba, Douala, he called it Nostalgie. When he arrived in Mount Cameroon FM Buea, and subsequently to Poala FM in Bafoussam and back to Buea, he christened the programme Yesterday.
With time, listeners and enthusiasts coerced the host to go beyond the radio show. In 2001, it moved from the radio station to the famous Mountain Hotel (now in ruins). It was a big success! The next stop was at the SS Club Bota, Limbe, in 2002.
These initial successes it recorded attracted people of other towns who invited the host so that they too could catch the Old Timers feeling. In 2004 and 2006, Buea hosted the show at the Mermoz Banquet Hall and at the Alliance Franco-Camerounaise Concert Hall. In 2007, the Old Timers band moved to Tombel, Tiko and Douala.
On Saturday, February 16, it was an explosive version of the Old Timers band and feeling at the Mermoz Banquet Hall. Not only people of the old times queued for their entry tickets, but boys and girls were rather more enthusiastic. They wanted to get the taste of the yesteryears as seen from the music of the time and some of the relics, which are still jealously being kept by some individuals.
On display were the tili lamps, afro-hairstyles, apaga trousers, salamander shoes, gramophone record players, table sewing machines, charcoal pressing irons, one shilling, FCFA 100 in bank notes and not in coins as they are today etc.
Also, fans were treated to musical names and groups like the all-female US band, The Supremes, legendary Jerk Stars in the likes of James Brown, Otis Redding and Jim Reeves with the unforgettable track "Across the Bridge". In the African musical genre; Rex Lawson, Victor Uwaifo, Nelle Eyoum of the Black Styl fame, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti of Afro-music, Ekambi Brillant, Toto Guillaume and more.
The Cameroonian makossa, the Nigerian highlife and juju rhythms, the Ghanaian highlife and the Congolese rumba, and the Bakanga rhythms from East Africa, especially from Kenya, were not left out.
While more than 800 people savoured the Old Timers band live, with Njomo accompanied by Nathaniel Ewusi, Dr. Epah Elad, Charles Endeley, Tricia Oben, Patience Essoka and the rest of the members, it was also being carried live on Mount Cameroon FM and Radio Buea.
Amongst the many who came to re-live those yesterdays were; Hon. Rose Abunaw Makia, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, the Nigerian Consul General for the Southwest and Northwest Provinces of Cameroon, Dr. Kenneth Nsor, and the cream of the Southwest administrators and business operators.
Njomo told this reporter that age may have accumulated on him, like many others who came for the show, but the feeling of many years ago is what we're reliving. "Age is nothing but a number," he said.
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