The Alfonso Sisters
T he late Rufina (Alfonso) Fernandes
(Benaulim, Nairobi, Sydney) never really wanted to be a lead singer. She loved singing with her sisters: Fabiola (Canada), Delfine (Canada), Tess (UK), the late Lolita (Lulu) and her brothers Max (harmonica) and Mervyn (guitar). Rufy preferred harmonizing which she did with Faby and was dedicated in doing her best to make other (lead) singers better. As a collective, the Alfonsos were all talented singers and musicians. I remember Rufy telling me that she got her singing voice from her mother who used to sing to them and, later, with them. Rufy could sing in several keys … “just give me a note (key, a C, G F) or two” and although she could not read music (who did in those days?), she was pitch perfect. She could walk into any band, piano player or guitarist and start singing without any rehearsals. The Alfonsos were all natural, natural musicians. You can see I am totally biased. When Faby and Rufy sang together: the harmonies were not only pitch-perfect with a lot of nuances, deflections, inflections … they were just heaven. The first time I saw her was when I was doing auditions for a huge show at the Nairobi City Hall auditorium. A very bold and confident friend of hers took the mike and unfortunately failed even though we spent quite a lot time trying to get to sing in key and time. We were convinced she was nervous but we had liked her sassiness. The late Steve Rodrigues was musical director and Rocky (Bill) D’Silva’s brother-in-law, Caribbean limbo dancer and musician eventually gave up. I went, “next, next”, I did not mean to sound cruel … but there it was. So Rufy thought “I am not going to let that idiot do that to me” and she pushed her sister Delfine forward for the audition. After that she sailed through within a couple of bars. Later she would sing a song called “Goody, Goody” and she was an automatic big hit. The next time I met Rufy was at the Railway Goan Institute where Gilbert Fernandes had sent me an SOS for help because they were not getting started for their gala anniversary concert. I arrived one Sunday afternoon and by six o’clock (with the 257
