Desmond De Silva was born in Matara, Southern Sri Lanka. He launched his career in music in the capital Colombo as the lead vocalist of the band Fire Flies in 1963. Later he went on to sing in other groups, Spitfires, Gabo and The Breakaways and The Jetliners. In 1976, he launched his own band Desmond and The Clan, who performed in the middle east, Maldives and other south asian countries, before he went solo in ond rose to popularity in Sri Lanka for his renditions of Baila music such as Wally Bastiansz’s Yaman Bando, Polkatu Handa, Mamma No Pappa No etc which is influenced by Portuguese and Spanish music styles. He recently celebrated 40 yeas in music showbiz. Desmond lives in the United Kingdom. Desmond was a pupil of the maestro late Wally Bastiansz. Haai Hooi Babi Archchi is one of Wally’s famous Baila songs about an eccentric old woman who lived in Moratuwa in the 1940s, one of top hits of Wally. Whilst as Police Officer attached to the Police Band, for Wally during the 1930s and 40s it was quite common to play tunes of Western Marches, and other tunes with 6/8 rythm. Therefore, quite naturally Wally re arranged some of these tunes to suit his own lyrics to create great Baila songs and rythms. Babi Archchi was one of such creations that paved the way for many other Baila artists such as Maxwell Mendis, A.E. Manoharan, Anton Jones etc. Babi Archchi was based on the Repasz Band March written by Charles C. Sweeley and Harry J. Lincoln, copyrighted in ond’s Komali Paney is another variation of the world famous The Repasz Band March, a song about a young hot girl who entered the original Repasz Band, a non military brass band, was founded in Williamsport in Pensylvania in 1831, and is still continuing in the United States, being the oldest non military band. The Repasz Band March is their signature tune. There website /repaszband/