Erehwon Launches Music Legends Series

Erehwon Center for the Arts started an initiative to help preserve the legacies of major Philippine music influencers.  These are singers, composers, musicians whose music has endured through decades, remaining relevant to broad and cross-generational audiences. 

Their performances are rendered in Erehwon’s new entertainment space called Behn Cervantes The Roofdeck, an open-air venue with a clear view of the sunset, and floored by the art of contemporary visual artist, Leeroy New. 

To reach wider audiences, and in keeping with health protocols mandated by the government due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the performances are filmed and made available through Erehwon’s YouTube channel. 

Filipino folk and rock legend, songwriter, composer, poet, guitarist, bluesman, and visual artist Heber Bartolome started off the Music Legends Series, moving his listeners with his signature song Tayo’y Mga Pinoy, one of his best known socially relevant songs, embraced as a protest anthem from the late 1970s to the 1980s. His compositions have been described as a “unique synthesis of rock and blues, and Philippine ethnic rhythms.”   

Heber Bartolome in his last performance, for the Filipino Music Legends Series

The filming of Heber’s performance became particularly timely as it became his last public show. He passed away just weeks later, on 15 November 2021. 

The feature on Mike Hanopol, another pioneer of rock music in the Philippines, became the second in this series. Hanopol is a singer, song writer, band mentor and manager.  He is best remembered for his trademark song Laki sa Layaw, and the bands, Hagibis, and Juan dela Cruz.  Hagibis, often likened to the Village People, was a Filipino disco group best known for their macho image, and on-stage costumes. Laki sa Layaw, Jeproks became a popular song among every man on the street. It is his tirade about people who grow up spoiled, being given all they want and never knowing hardship. The song is both an admonition of arrogance and a warning on its effect on society. He tells his audience to let what he has written and sung be a lesson, especially to the youth, particularly to those who are too carefree to value the advice from the elders. 

Jazz icon Tots Tolentino became the third “legends” performancing at Behn Cervantes The Roofdeck as he rendered on his saxophone, the most moving of songs Bayan Ko, almost akin to a Philippine anthem. Highly critically acclaimed musician, Tolentino’s first inspiration was American jazz legend Charlie Parker who influenced the development of bebop, the fast tempo, virtuosic jazz technique. 

Rounding up the fourth in the series was multi-talented Cesar Montano, an actor, director, television host, producer, singer and composer, as well as visual artist.  At Behn Cervantes The Roofdeck, Montano sung his original composition, Pilipinas. The song is an ode to the struggling Filipino who is working hard to provide for his family, enduring hunger, difficult conditions and the pain of having to live distant from his family. It expresses a strong belief that Filipinos can triumph over the worst odds because of their innate intelligence and skills, and God’s constant support will see them through. 

Watch all these performances and the continuation of the Filipino Music Legends series, on the Erehwon Center for the Arts YouTube channel.