And our favorite performer for the night is —- Lolita Carbon!!
Sure, four finalists battled it out for votes during the grand finals of The Voice of the Philippines last September 29. I believe all 4 are equally capable of winning the title; they just have different vocal styles. But what captured my attention and what brought the house down for the night was Lolita Carbon’s performance along with apl de ap and Janice Javier, one of the 4 grand finalists. And I am not alone in this thought, even Lea Salonga and Sarah Geronimo stood up and reacted in delight when Lolita sang portions of Black Eyed Peas’ Time of My Life (dirty bit) along with apl and Janice.
Lolita Carbon has always been known to sing Filipino folk songs along with the band, Asin (Salt). The heydays of the group were in the late 70s to early 80s. But their melodies have stayed on until now for many music lovers in the country. I have an older brother who loves playing the guitar and the songs of the band so I grew up hearing them. The songs were not only a delight to the ears but they had a social and environmental cause behind them. Such songs set the band apart and garnered for them numerous awards as well. But back to Lolita’s singing at The Voice.
When she sang Himig ng Pag-Ibig (Hymn of Love) as the opening part of the trio’s performance that night, I was already pleased with that. It’s not only because it’s one of my favorite songs from their group (Lolita, by the way, wrote this song) but she still sounded sooo good after all these years 🙂 And she still plays beautiful guitar music as well.  Wow! And then, to my surprise and to all the others as well, she sang parts of the Black Eyed Peas hit! And she sounded sooo good, too! I would say that the performance of apl.de.ap, Lolita Carbon and Janice Javier brought the house down for the night but thanks largely to Lolita! And I must say thanks to apl for coming up with the concept for their performance.
That night at The Voice of the Philippines, Lolita shone once again as a true artist, a brilliant performer. She, not only has The Voice; she showed everyone that an artist gets better at her craft as the years go by. And that she can easily break out of her known genre or niche (mold or role, if you please) and still give her audience a musical delight 🙂
Below is an old video of Lolita performing with the band, Nene, found in YouTube. Nene is a group of session musicians that Lolita gathered to perform together in 1991. So if I’m not mistaken, this performance must have taken place in the ’90s as well.
This next video, still from YouTube, is of Lolita performing with apl.de.ap and Janice Javier on The Voice of the Philippines.
More information about Lolita Carbon can be found here.
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