Guyanese Eddie Taylor, who sang his way into the top four of the second edition of “The Voice Senior” in the Netherlands, will be performing live in concert tomorrow evening at the Critchlow Labour College. Eddie will be entertaining with covers of songs done on the show.
Tomorrow night’s concert will also see performances by Michael Smith, Dawn Edwards, Eze Rockcliffe, Aubrey ‘Fingers’ Roberts, Bonny Alves, Circle of Love, Devon Denny, Charmaine Blackman and Jolyon Harry.
On “The Voice Senior”, Eddie’s blind audition had all four judges spinning around in their chairs, then dancing throughout the remainder of his performance. His appearance on the show, Eddie said, started out a surprise.
“This is the fourth time I’m going to tell this story. I decided in the beginning of this year to stop trying to get work in the music [industry] because it started to decline a bit for me in Holland and I think this has to do with my age also,” he told The Scene. “I told my wife I’m going to stop. Last year was the first Voice Senior Competition and she sent my name in. So, when I told her I wanted to stop, she just said that it was my business. But she didn’t tell me that she had [entered his name]. Then I got an email in March saying I was to audition, that’s when I found out and I said to myself, ‘well, I got nothing to lose’.
“We had different stages we had to go through – there was a pre-audition where you let them hear live what you can do before you went through to the next round which was the blind auditions where the chairs turn around; all four judges turned around. They were impressed and I was happy. And I went through to the knockouts.”
Of the almost 100 contestants who auditioned for the competition, only 16 made it to the knockout round with Eddie making it in the top 4. The artiste was in Guyana a week ago to be with his two grandsons who graduated last Saturday from the University of Guyana with degrees in law and medicine. Once he knew he was coming for the convocation, Eddie contacted Ssignal Productions Manager Bonny Alves who coordinated the concert.
Eddie’s career in music began when he was 16 years old. He was part of the famous Majestics Band, then lead vocalist of the Rhythmaires.
After the Majestics Band broke up, Eddie and another member Otis Goodluck formed a duo calling themselves ‘Otis & Eddie’ and did supporting acts for the Mighty Sparrow, Ben E King and the Tradewinds.
Performing at Critchlow tomorrow night, Eddie said, is nostalgic since it was at Critchlow that he was discovered decades ago by the Rhythmaires. In 1975, Eddie left Guyana for Suriname with GT Connections Band. After this band broke up, Eddie returned to Guyana and found another group of musicians with whom he founded the band Black Frost. Many of the covers Eddie sang were songs from bands like Earth Wind and Fire and the Commodores among others. The singer shared that it was on another trip to Suriname that a man in the hotel heard them playing and came down out of his room to commend Eddie and his other bandmates on their singing, telling them that they sounded exactly like the original. This led to Eddie migrating to Holland. It was there that he found his identity as a singer.
In 1992, he sang with a group called Fanta Six in Holland’s National Song Festival. That was his first challenge singing in the Dutch, but it turned out well, he said. Though they didn’t win, they placed ninth out of 20 candidates who competed.
After that, Eddie linked up with the band MotownHead as a freelancer. They did Motown Theatre Shows. This was a big success and almost every week they were scheduled to put on a show.
During his career Eddie has released two albums and is now working on releasing an EP sometime next year. His first album ‘Reflections’ was released between 1998/1999, while his second ‘Out of this World’ followed the year after.
“I am so excited to be home,” the 70-year-old singer said. The last time Eddie was here was for the celebration of Guyana’s 50th independence anniversary in 2016; this time it is to celebrate his career in music.
Tickets for the Eddie Taylor’s Concert cost $2,000 and can be purchased at Colours Boutique or persons can pay at the door. Showtime is at 5 pm.
“The Voice Senior” is a Dutch talent-search television programme produced by Talpa Productions which is broadcast on RTL 4 in the Netherlands. The show, whose participants must be 60 years and over, is based on the concept of “The Voice of Holland” and “The Voice Kids”.
