• TRIBUTE TO SINGER WHOSE CAREER SPANNED 59 YEARS
• Wife reveals heartbreak in sad farewell to star

Even as singer Desmond de Silva lived his stage-life among adoring fans, he breathed his last surrounded by love, in the warm bosom of his family, his distraught wife, Phyllis, has revealed in a message to his fans.  “My dearest husband exited Life’s Stage surrounded by love. So I draw strength from that and I ask you to do it, too.”

“On the morning of Sunday the 9th of January, Desmond suffered a massive heart attack,” she said, recounting the last dramatic hours of the singing legend’s life. “It caused extensive brain damage. He was tended to by paramedics and was transferred to Monash hospital where I was told that there was no chance of recovery.”

DESMOND AND PHYLLIS: ‘Age did not wither him nor custom stale’ (Photo source: Courtesy of elanka)

“As I clung to my husband’s hand, I begged him to never go away from me and to always show his presence around me. I told him I was letting him go for him and because I knew it would be his wish. As I kept talking to him through my tears he had a minor episode which stilled his breath. It was his way of telling me he was ready.”

Desmond was ready to let go, to let the final curtain fall upon a musical career spanning 59 years. The last of the titans on the Lankan musical stage had fallen at the age of 77, and the stage lay hushed in silence, shrouded in grief, mourning its bereavement.

Born in Matara on July 13, 1944, he was the eldest son in a family of three.  His father, Clement Arnold de Silva was a public health inspector and his mother Olga Corea from Chilaw, a school teacher. “My parents, both being educated, were hell bent on seeing that I pursue my education,” Desmond later recalled in an in interview he gave to a Sinhala daily. “But my mind was on music. They did not oppose too strongly since they both loved music. They even had a small band of their own.”  Soon Desmond joined a band, ‘Fireflies’ and started playing at small gigs.

“In those days, I only used to sing English songs, never even thought of Sinhala ones. I used to sing Englebert and Tom Jones numbers but mainly Elvis songs. They were popular. I soon joined the ‘Jetliners’. Later I formed my own band, ‘Desmond and the Clan’. That’s how I cut my name in showbiz.”

A chance meeting with Lanka’s patron saint of baila, Wally Bastian who introduced kaffringha music culture to the country, led him to embrace the new rave and to expand his concert repertoire.

“I invited him home for lunch,” Desmond recalled the momentous meeting which caused a paradigm shift in his musical career and made him a household name in the nation. “He brought his guitar and played some songs. I, too, joined and sang a couple. He was delighted. He told me, “Putha, if you can, sing some of my songs,” I was over the moon It was almost a licence he had given me to sing his songs.”

What had been a voice singing English pop, which, hitherto, had only the Colombo elite shaking a leg at dinner-dance venues now had the masses rollicking on the streets at open air beat shows throughout the country.  In later years, in gratitude, Desmond recorded and released a song dedicated to the baila pioneer, ‘Lankavata baila gena Wally Bastian’.

His first baila hit was the Chudamanikya. “It’s a Sinhala, Tamil English mix which became a massive success for me,” he said.  “I can’t remember who wrote it and I still don’t know what the Tamil lyrics mean.”

But music is a universal language and the only meaning that mattered was the rise in Desmond’s popularity, one of the rare singers in Lanka to have an English speaking and Sinhala following. His array of hits include, “Polkatu Hande”, “Yaman Bando (Wally Bastiansz)”, “Mamma No”, “Miss Sri Lanka”, “Hai Hui babi Achchi (Wally Bastiansz), ”Rajasangabo”, “Komali Pane” and “Mathakai, Mage Amme”.

Desmond tied the nuptial knot at the age of 21 to Deane de Zilwa. The marriage bore three children, sons Steve and Shawn and daughter Jacqueline. After the marriage ended in divorce, he met Lilamani Wijeratne, a medical doctor by profession and wed in England. He later met his present wife Phyllis Van Hauten, a Lankan of Burger descent, and settled down in Sydney, Australia 12 years ago.

In February 2011, tragedy struck when his eldest son Steve who had started life as a journalist at the now defunct SUN newspaper but had later followed his father’s steps to become a singer in his own right, died after a brief bout with spinal cancer. It left Desmond shattered. Many years later he counted it as the most devastating blow he had received.  “I had to bury the person who was to bury me,” he said, describing the saddest day of his life.

He returned to Lanka in August 2019 to hold — what has now turned out to be — his last concert at home to celebrate his landmark 75th birthday and 55 years in showbiz at the BMICH on August 31.  With the outbreak of COVID in 2020, Desmond and wife settled down to enjoy life at home. Instead of ringing in the New Year on stage, he had to make do with sharing a special dinner with Phyllis watching the Sydney fireworks usher in 2021. He joked he had so much time on his hands, he could ‘cut the lawn with my scissors’.

But he was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet and was soon seeking new ways to connect with his fans. One way was by launching his OFFICIAL Desmond De Silva YouTube channel where he planned to upload new material. He also started long distance recording with his co-musicians in Lanka.

One such singer was Mariezelle Goonetilleke who, in her tribute to him, said this week: “I was working with him on some duets last year where he did his recordings in Sydney and I did my vocals here. He will be dearly missed.”

But one who will miss him most is, undoubtedly, his wife, Phyllis who, in her message to his fans, vowed to keep his music alive, “I promise you I will do all I can to facilitate any celebration of his life. Firstly, I have put in place a Tribute Concert in Sri Lanka on Desmond’s birthday, the 13th of July.”

Phyllis also recalls the other side of Desmond. She says: “He was my husband until he put on his Showman Jacket; once on stage, he belonged to his fans. To me, he was a devoted husband, whose happy place was by my side. In the evenings we would sit together in our home in Sydney with our dogs and a glass of red to watch repeats of our favourite sitcoms, his laughter filling my heart. He was always content. In his words, he had “found his happy place”.

No doubt, Desmond de Silva, singer, songwriter and entertainer par excellence, will find his ‘happy place’ in the great beyond, singing the lead in a choir of angels.