MEDIUM RARE 

Nobody sings “Touch Me in the Morning” like Marissa Sanchez, whose bouncy charms and full-throated voice add up to a stage presence that has endured and endeared her to fans of at least two generations.

She’s a singer, all right, and a well-rounded one, but entertainment writers also tag her as a comedienne. I would agree with the comedian tag but with this caveat: Her lines are her own. When she performed at Samsung Aura recently, she advised her audience: “Now that Summer is growing up, about to become a teenager, I have to watch my language. So expect only light-green jokes from me.”

As it happens, Marissa is a doting single mother. And now, with the success of her slum book for people looking forward to the fun of designing their own funerals – scramble the letters in funeral and you get “real fun” – she’s an author and entrepreneur as well.

In the middle of her show, she announced that there would be no more concerts after this one. Goodness gracious, fortunately nobody believed her, not her idol Dulce, who was in the audience, not her friend Arnell Ignacio, who had just arrived from an OFW mission in Greece and wouldn’t miss her concert for the world. Marissa, you’re still young and you have a commitment to your fans and followers – you cannot turn your back on them!

Her usual argument: “But there are many new, young singers coming up, and they’re good.” Some of them she featured in her Samsung act, where she showed her versatility as a stand-up comic and dancer, too, with four costume changes, from glittery mini dresses to a formal terno.

My friends and I discovered Marissa decades ago at a now defunct hotel on Roxas Blvd. Three nights a week after work we’d drop in at the bar to watch Marissa – fun and funny, lovable, a stress-buster. A Marissa-Rico J. Puno duo would’ve broken records, but it was not to be. Before we knew it, Marissa had become a hit in corporate gigs with her jokes, mostly green, and repertoire of song hits old and new.

Yes, there are younger singers eagerly waiting in the wings, but none of them can hold a flashlight to you, Marissa, not yet.