40. The Alfonso Sisters

The Alfonso Sisters

The 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

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Rufina Alfonso Fernandes

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Fabiola Alfonso Machado

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Max Alfonso

help of musical directors Terry Pinto and Steve Rodrigues) had an outline of the show all worked out. This time Rufy was bolder because she was on home turf and three of us simultaneously nodded in agreement even before she finished the first line.

She was to go on to make “Little Green Apples” her most popular and signature song. Besides her singing solos a lot, all her harmonizing was done with Faby. Their favourite song was “Walk Right Back”. Later when we moved to the UK, it was Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” when she was part of the frontline trio in a band I set up: Piccadilly. The others were Goofy and Santan Fernandes (lead guitar) and his brother Oliver played rhythm, Nick D’Silva (bass), Vernon D’Silva (keyboards) and a kid called Mike was drums. We did it for a year mainly playing the American bases in the UK as well as some major city centres. As stated by her sister Faby, whenever Rufy opened her mouth to sing, be it at home, or a house party or anywhere, the people around stated that they had goose bumps.

More often than not, when there was just the two of us in the car, we did not need to switch on the radio, Rufy did all the singing or we played a “game of name that

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tune” as we drove to a fishing spot or we were returning home after she had been particularly successful fishing. She had an encyclopaedic knowledge of singers and songs. She was also a fishing fanatic and we were lucky enough to fish throughout Australia and in many parts of the Pacific. Her routine was to wake me up each Saturday or Sunday morning with: “Skip, Skip, wake up, wake up” ... sometimes I would think there was an emergency on … but then, she would be panting … “got the bucket, the rods, and all the gear ready, let’s go, let’s go…” and I would ask her if she had checked the tide chart … if the tides were suitable we were out of the house inside of 30 minutes … if not she would be in front of the TV watching her addiction: cartoons, or video hits, or she would be singing to herself. She would be back at our bed around 8 prodding me with intensity … “Skip, Skip, breakfast, breakfast please ….” It was bacon, eggs, tomatoes, onions, finely sliced green chillies, mushrooms and she would make the toast and coffee, and we would be off. She was virtually addicted to fishing … after all she got the fishing bug from her dad who was a wonderful guy with the rod and line and he used to take Rufy along with him!

While we were in England, Teresa (Tess) made her foray into the singing world all by herself. I went with her to her first audition and from that point on she was on her own. She used to live with us but she soon found her own place and a band called Sister Big Stuff. She was brilliant. Rufy said Tess was the best singer in the family. That was a tough one because both Fabiola and Delfine each had their unique qualities that made them special. In any other country, they would have been all popstars.

She was also a brilliant dancer, especially the jive. Couldn’t dance with anyone else when she was around.

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