At the recently refurbished 17th century Razzett tal-Markiz in Mosta, a bust of the late Frans Baldacchino “Il-Budaj” will be unveiled this evening – certainly a timely tribute to the people’s poet less than a year since his sad and sudden demise.

Frans Baldacchino was, to Maltese folk-singing (ghana), a kind of messiah. For too many years, ghana had been in the doldrums and, despite the unstinting efforts of such well-intentioned aficionados and researchers such as Charles Coleiro on radio and TV, Manuel Casha in Australia and cyber space and Gorg Mifsud-Chircop in the academic arena, life was slowly but surely being stifled out of it by a social stigma that was as much undeserved as it was sometimes self-inflicted.

Mediocrity had crept in, a long-suppressed vulgar vein had unfortunately re-surfaced and people’s attention, let alone interest, was being lost at a disquieting rate. Il-Budaj, a

passionate ghannej since his Zejtun boyhood, came back from a migratory stint in Australia to salvage the genre from auto-destruction. His fresh approach to subject matter and crystal-clear, melodious voice gave ghana the revitalising injection it so urgently needed.

So did his amazingly simple but effective verse, spontaneous or not. Frans Baldacchino soon became the nation’s favourite, singing ghana songs that best reflected the mood and the hype of the times. Suddenly, he was helping people to re-discover their roots. By the time Il-Budaj was, perhaps somewhat hesitantly, invited to sing to university students on the Tal-Qroqq campus, for too long a bastion of prejudice against ghana, the telling peal of social recovery had at last been heard.

His unique physical presence, his sheer mastery of the art and the overawed reaction of the hundreds of students present combined to form an unforgettable experience that can effortlessly be compared to those of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and Bob Dylan at Woodstock. He had single-handedly given ghana a new lease of life when it really mattered and Il-Budaj never looked back. He gave ghana concerts in Canada, Australia, France and other places, became a household name on radio and TV, breached another bastion by appearing inside the Presidential Palace in Valletta and soon turned into a published author of Maltese verse. Oliver Friggieri, our foremost critic, promptly and rightly labelled him “the people’s poet”.

Sadly, Il-Budaj passed away all too suddenly at the relatively young age of 63, leaving behind him a legacy that will take some beating. He left a richer ghana environment that will require a renewed commitment from all those who treasure true culture. There is a thriving ghana club in Qormi, Zejtun remains the Capital of ghana and spontaneous, on-line ghana sessions are held in Pietà every Sunday morning, but it will continue to be difficult to fill the void left by Il-Budaj’s departure. In contrast, officialdom has in the process only coughed up a finance-starved annual festival.

I was arguably the last journalist to interview Frans Baldacchino for my Sunday newspaper series in Maltese. We had chosen to drive to Zejtun together and to walk past his old family home and re-visit some of his favourite childhood haunts, one of which was the old wine bar where he had listened to his very first ghana exchanges. With that characteristic twinkle in his eye, he had explained how he only did so by secretly exiting home from a side-door, as his father had at the time forbidden him from mingling with the ghana crowd a few metres down the same narrow street.

As we walked along the streets of Zejtun’s “lower village”, as it is known locally, women on the threshold of their homes came over to say hello and to reminisce with the man. Men on motorbikes just back from fishing or hunting stopped to exchange a few words with Frans, who replied with compliments and the instant humorous verse. Children ran past, loudly but affectionately calling Il-Budaj as they did so. I had taken him on a nostalgic trip just weeks before his unexpected passing away.

This evening, a similar journey will take place that will take us back into his life, his work and his art.