{"id":2998,"date":"2026-04-17T12:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T11:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/?p=2998"},"modified":"2026-04-17T12:38:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T11:38:29","slug":"farewell-ernie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/2026\/farewell-ernie\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell, Ernie"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was very sad to hear the news this morning of the passing of Reggae great Ernie Smith. A great entertainer, he had, for a Jamaican reggae singer, an unusual rich baritone voice, with which he rendered both his own compositions and those of his friend Pluto Shervington.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Ernie Smith – Barbados Vintage Reggae Festival 2012 (Show Details)<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Camera: <\/b>Canon EOS 550D | Date: <\/b>28-04-2012 04:10 | Resolution: <\/b>4670 x 3114 | ISO: <\/b>1600 | Exp. bias: <\/b>-2\/3 EV | Exp. Time: <\/b>1\/80s | Aperture: <\/b>5.0 | Focal Length: <\/b>170.0mm (~275.4mm) <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

We were privileged to see Ernie three times, at the Barbados Reggae Festival in 2010, 2012 and 2018, and I have photographic evidence.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Ernie Smith – Barbados Vintage Reggae Festival 2012 (Show Details)<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Camera: <\/b>Canon EOS 550D | Date: <\/b>28-04-2012 04:36 | Resolution: <\/b>3353 x 5029 | ISO: <\/b>1600 | Exp. bias: <\/b>-2\/3 EV | Exp. Time: <\/b>1\/80s | Aperture: <\/b>5.6 | Focal Length: <\/b>300.0mm (~486.0mm) <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Ernie Smith also gave me my favourite music trivia question: \u201cWhich song started life as a country song, sung by a Jamaican, and is most famous as a reggae song sung by a Texan?\u201d<\/p>\n

Answers on a postcard\u2026<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Ernie Smith – Barbados Vintage Reggae Festival 2018 (Show Details)<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Camera: <\/b>Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: <\/b>27-04-2018 23:57 | Resolution: <\/b>3170 x 3170 | ISO: <\/b>3200 | Exp. bias: <\/b>-33\/50 EV | Exp. Time: <\/b>1\/125s | Aperture: <\/b>5.6 | Focal Length: <\/b>252.0mm <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was very sad to hear the news this morning of the passing of Reggae great Ernie Smith. A great entertainer, he had, for a Jamaican reggae singer, an unusual rich baritone voice, with which he rendered both his own … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,2,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewj.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}