She’s long been a force on her native island of Jamaica, and had a chart-topping hit there with “Oh Me Oh My” some years back.
Cabaret singer Karen Smith doesn’t have much of a profile in the States, but she’s got a toehold in the Red Bank area, thanks to an appearance at the Two River Theater in 2005.
She returns this week for a concert Wednesday night at the TRT. The show is a fundraiser for the Parker Family Clinic and the Red Bank Family Support Center and is being produced by soon-to-be-ex-Red Bank-resident W. David Tarver.
The production is the last public act by the retired industrialist and children’s education activist before he moves out to Michigan, as we reported recently.
Tarver’s been traveling to Jamaica since 1991, he says, and was so taken by Smith’s vocal stylings that he convinced her to come to Red Bank two years ago, and more recently, to do it again.
Smith, Tarver says, “is just an amazing performer,” one who’s equally at ease with jazz, pop, R&B and reggae. She holds a total of nine Jamaica Music Industry Awards and was inducted into the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival Hall of Fame.
The show is sponsored by the Red Bank Men’s Club, the Pan Hellenic Council of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, and the Red Bank Education and Development Initiative.
Showtime is 7p; tickets are $35 each. For premier seating and a pre-show cocktail reception at 6p with the artist, tickets are $100. They can be reserved at the box office, 732.345.1400.
