By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 17, 2018 — Regular contributors to the various groups on Facebook by now know that I am a huge, huge fan of Raphael “Ray” Munnings and have been even before The Beginning of the End, the group in which he was the featured singer, skyrocketed to international fame with their super hit “Funky Nassau” in 1971.
Ray is a member of a Bahamian family that could genuinely be described as “Music Royalty.” It would be a gross understatement to describe his father, the late legendary Freddie Munnings Sr., as a Bahamian entertainment icon; he was much, much more than a renowned entertainer. He was also a political activist at a time when like-minded black Bahamians were shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches fighting to eradicate overt racism from The Bahamas.
Actually, I got to know Freddie Munnings, Sr. very well in the early 1960s when I was seriously involved in the Black Power Movement and he participated in a demonstration we held outside the Savoy Theatre on Bay Street, which was at the time was “for whites only.” A very dear friend, the late Donald “Nine” Rolle, came close to being arrested during that demonstration, but Freddie Munnings Sr., who demanded respect on both sides of the racial divide, intervened on Nine’s behalf and “prevented” the arrest.
Shortly after that demonstration, the Savoy Theatre, which had the privilege of showing new movies first before they were distributed to other theatres Over-the-Hill, abandoned its “whites only” policy. Of course, shortly after the Savoy became integrated, the Shirley Street Theatre was built ostensibly to also be “for whites only,” but there was no way we were going to allow that to happen.
In addition to being a vocalist and recording artist who had some degree of success in the highly competitive entertainment industry in New York, Freddie Munnings, Sr. was also a renowned bandleader who owner of the world-famous Cat & Fiddle, on the corner of Nassau Street and Poinciana Drive, where most of the leading black entertainers around that time performed. Because of my status as a popular young black journalist, I had cart blanche at the Cat & Fiddle and got to see shows free of charge by simply flashing my press pass.
With such a rich entertainment pedigree, Ray Munnings could not miss being a great entertainer even if he tried. He and two of his brothers — Frank Munnings on drums and Roy Munnings, lead guitar — along with bass guitarist Fred Henfield and guitarist Livingston Colebrook established The Beginning of the End in 1969, and although “Funky Nassau” was their only international hit song, they maintained a better-than-average degree of popularity for more than a decade.
In addition to my journalistic interaction with the group, I got to know members of the Beginning of the End back then very well because my late friend Leo Dean and I had an entertainment promotions company, BRODEAN PROMOTIONS, through which we promoted shows in the Family Islands featuring Bahamian entertainers. Of course, we were never able to afford a group with the international acclaim of the Beginning of the End.
Included among the Bahamian entertainers that we did use to headline shows on more than one occasion in Exuma were Smokey 007 and Leon Taylor and The Roosters, whose recording of “Eternal Love” was a super hit locally, but did not do well internationally. We also brought in a couple shows from Jamaica and some “lesser known” American performers, mainly from the Miami area.
But let’s get back to Ray Munnings and the reason why I am still a huge, huge fan of his. It has nothing to do with his renown as a well-known entertainer, but rather because of his commitment and dedication to Wendy Rodgers Munnings, his wife of many, many years. Seldom do you see Ray without his beloved Wendy by his side.
Wendy, of course, is also from a family that can legitimately be described as “royalty” – Baseball Royalty. She is the youngest sister of Andre Rodgers, the first Bahamian to play professional baseball and the first Bahamian to make it to the Major League. She also has several other brothers – Adrian, Roy and Randy – who with a little bit of luck would have made it to the Major League. And of course, she had a brother, Lionel Rodgers, who was on the cusp of making it to the Major League when he was tragically killed in a traffic accident on January 11, 1961 while home in Nassau for the Christmas holidays.
I knew both Ray and Wendy when they were still in their teens before they made the “until death do us part” commitment in their marriage vows. Obviously they meant it, and I decided to write this “special feature” when I saw the photo accompanying this article that Ray posted on Facebook of them at the recent Bahamas Press Media Awards dinner. Congratulations Ray and Wendy for exemplifying the true meaning of love.
