Yvonne Sterling singing new tune - Says this Christmas is the ‘best’ she has seen in recent years
Published:Thursday | December 24, 2020 | 12:16 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
Reggae songbird Yvonne Sterling likened the crisis at her New Haven home to “being alive and going through hell”.
Sterling’s home was severely flooded when the St Andrew community was ravaged by rains from Hurricane Eta’s outer bands.
Six weeks later, and with Christmas Day on the horizon, she is singing a whole new tune having relocated and restarted her recording career, after some 30 years.
“To be honest I feel better since I get this place. I am not in a flood-prone thing now, I am trying to live and put back my life together … I just feel 100 per cent better,” she told The Gleaner from her new place of abode.
Reggae music lovers will have to wait until early January to see what new music Sterling, Richie Stephens and Little Lenny collaborated on. But one thing is for sure, Sterling is happy about it.
HAPPIEST TIME IN THE STUDIO
The 1970s entertainer told The Gleaner, “The happiest time in my life really is when I am working in the studio or when I am onstage doing live performances. So these things happening to me now, it’s going to make a big difference in my life, I am not just thinking about the money that I will earn, but I am saying my whole life will be happier.”
For Sterling, the festive season is on in earnest and she names this Christmas as the best she has seen in recent years.
“Where I was living was a shabby and depressed area, plus it was a flood-prone area which has a river and when the rain fall hard, the river come up and smash down the whole place. Last year I wasn’t feeling happy, the year before I wasn’t feeling happy, but this year I am kind of feeling happy because I am not living like that any more. I am in a different position now,” she said.
She is grateful for The Gleaner which highlighted her plight on November 11, that later resulted in help coming from as far as Brazil, where a benefit concert was held to assist her cause.
“I am telling you sir, this thing that you put in the paper, it help me a lot. Because even my family, when they see it they get panic because they never know that it was so bad. That is one of the reasons they rush this place for me. They told the lady the position I was living in and she gave them the space … My sister bought me a TV and moved me away from New Haven after the story and video was published,” shared Sterling.
“Now I have my own bathroom, down there I didn’t have any bathroom. I have my own little kitchen, own little bedroom and all of that, so I am feeling a little better. Not just a little better, I am feeling much better. I just want some studio work now and some performance to uplift myself some more.”
Raring to get back to work, she is looking to travel the world, as far as her music will take her, post-COVID-19.