–at Guyana’s 46th Independence celebrations
GUYANA’s premier Soca queen, Shellon ‘Shelly G’ Garraway arrived in the United Kingdom (UK) on May 25 to perform at Guyana’s 46th Independence celebrations held at the Tottenham Leisure Centre in North London. And since her arrival, the sexy song diva has been doing quite a lot, and has been making headlines as one of the Caribbean artistes who have a far way to go in the international entertainment world.
On May 26, she completed a successful radio interview on Conscious 102.1 FM, with DC Ninja and General Tibbet, which was a successful two-hour radio session with live phone-in and a cappella renderings of several of her tracks. She also gave several sizzling presentations with backing tracks, the details of which are to be supplied by Tafawa@Gtpromotions.

On June 2, the singer performed a PA with backing tracks at Heavens Wine Bar in Northampton. The PA system was, however, inadequate for vocals, and the venue management promised to upgrade it before her return to the venue; but the performance itself was a huge success.
The following day (June 3), she performed a PA with backing tracks at a Bar in Upper Norwood owned by one Debbie Ballard. Further appearances are being scheduled for this venue.

On June 4, our diva again performed a PA with backing tracks at the Guyana Folk Festival, hosted by Tafawa of GT Promotions at the Oasis Academy in Croydon. This event also featured performances by Terry Gajraj, Keith Waithe and Stereosonic’s DJ Bevaughn & Akelo. This was a very well attended event, featuring stage shows and displays of Guyana’s folklore and cultural heritage, stands selling Guyanese food and produce.

Tappa Zukie has supplied two rhythm tracks for Shelly to put to lyrics, and Barry Boom, under the Jack Ruben banner, has also offered to script two or three songs for Shelly to listen to and critique.

On June 7, Shelly G performed a live band showcase at the Rhum Jungle Bar at Cotton’s Caribbean Restaurant, 70 Exmouth Market, London EC1 4QP. This is a venue that offers an open mic opportunity to showcase unrehearsed live performances of UK talent on a queue-and-hope basis.
Stanley Andrew, one of the UK’s leading guitarists, heard and loved Shelly, and used his influence to recommend her for a secure appearance at the venue, which on the night featured guest appearances by Christopher Ellis (son of Alton) and Michael Prophet, among many other superb talents.
Shelly’s performance obtained many great plaudits from the audience, promoters, producers and fellow performers alike, and future bookings were obtained.

On June 11, she did a radio interview at On Top FM with DJ Milo British. She had a successful session and obtained a pleading invite from the hosts for Shelly to appear at Milo’s birthday bash on Saturday 23rd June, to be held at Roxbury, 19-21 High Street, Croydon CR0 1QB.  The station is regularly pumping out the Shelly tracks and promoting her coming activities, with hail-ups to the Vizion Sounds crew.

On June 13, her album tracks were taken for mastering to Jason Goz at Transition Mastering Studios, Kemble Street, Catford, South London, and arranging for Leon Day to create an Urban mix of one of the tracks, as he’s done for Vizion Sounds before, track to be confirmed. Vizion Sounds has also arranged for Ray Hayden @ Opaz Studios to create remixes of at least two tracks, actual tracks to be confirmed, as he felt he had the choice of several awesome, awesome tracks.

On June 14, Shelly did a radio interview with DJ Lady M on OMEGA 104.1 FM.  This was a two-hour radio session that allowed Shelly and the Vizion management unbridled live broadcasting to the listeners of promotional information for all coming events, and live phone in question and answers, requests for Shelly to sing acapella renderings just to hear her natural voice, which had the phone lines jammed with complimentary remarks and requests to continue unchecked with the live renderings, to the point where the station could no longer cope with the requests.
A number of local workmen arrived at the station to see the ‘beautiful body’ from which that beautiful voice was coming. They wanted autographs and anything that she touched. There was a live phone-in from Johann @ Hype Jamaica, complimenting Shelly and inviting her to Jamaica. Genesis FM Radio also hailed-up what they described as an awesome voice of now and the future. Shelly G and the Vizion Sounds team are invited back on the June 20 by popular demand for phase 2 of Shelly on OMEGA.

Watch out for the ‘Shelly G Showcase’ with her new live band headed by guitarist extraordinaire Stanley Andrew and keyboard giant Michael Martin. Between them, they’ve performed with, engineered for, and MD for Spice Girls, Sir Cliff Richards, Billy Paul and Diana Ross to list a few names from their illustrious CV.