Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Mickey Hanson has been in the studio with Louise Bennett-Coverley at two stages of his life in two vastly different roles, first as a boy doing radio plays then as an adult playing the trumpet.

When Hanson, who also plays a number of other wind instruments, was asked to play on the 1981 album The Honourable Miss Lou, a collection of folk songs, he considered it another job.

Now, he looks at his signed copy of the album (vinyl, naturally) with fondness and a certain nostalgia.

"This was a meaningful experience. As time goes by I am more humbled," Hanson told The Sunday Gleaner.

TRACKS

The Honourable Miss Lou, arranged and produced by Peter Ashbourne, who also played piano, was recorded at Dynamic Sounds, with Tony Gambrill as executive producer. The other musicians who played on the album were Desi Jones and Derek Stewart (drums), Mikey Chung (bass), Steve Golding (guitar), John Walker (congas) and Cedric Brooks (tenor saxophone and flutes).

Among the tracks are Long Time Gal, When Goat Meat Done, Lion Heart, Chi Chi Bud, Liza and a closing medley that includes Slide Mongoose, Wheel-an-Tun and Nobody's Business.

Some time after the album was released, Miss Lou added something to Hanson's copy - her signature. "I think it was at the Cultural Training Centre (now the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts)," Hanson told The Sunday Gleaner.

He never played live with Miss Lou.

PREVIOUS ENCOUNTER

It was not his only creative encounter with Miss Lou, the previous ones coming years before when, as a boy, Hanson was heavily involved in theatre, doing many plays with Louis Marriott. He also did radio plays and the All-Schools Broadcast. "I had done many radio plays with Miss Lou. Most of them were done at (the then) JBC with a man named Robin Midgely," he said.

Midgely, who died in May 2007, was sent to Jamaica in 1960 to help establish the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation.

Naturally Hanson, who has pleasant memories of being in the radio studio with Miss Lou, never dreamt at the time that he would one day be in another studio playing a different role with her.

And although Mickey Hanson has not played his copy of The Honourable Miss Lou in many years, he still hears some of the tracks being played on radio.