Calypso/Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean

‘Day-o! Day-ay-ay-o! Daylight come and me wan’ go home.’ Everyone knows Belafonte's ‘Banana Boat Song’. For several decades following its chart success in 1956, it was widely regarded as an appealing novelty rather than a serious example of Jamaican folk tradition. In these more enlightened times we can now recognise Belafonte as a genuine pioneer of Caribbean folk music. Although born in New York, his mother was Jamaican and he spent much of his childhood with relatives on the island. By the time he recorded the albums Calypso (the world's first million-selling LP) and its follow-up Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean he was the real deal, a singer from the islands in the sun, steeped in the rich traditions of Jamaican mento and Trinidadian calypso. With hindsight, character rather than novelty now seems to be the trademark of his strong but gentle baritone voice on songs such as ‘Jamaica Farewell’, ‘Brown Skin Girl’ and ‘Man Smart, Woman Smarter’. What also stands out on this welcome reissue is the contribution of calypso maestro Irving Burgie (aka Lord Burgess). ‘Banana Boat Song’ is listed as ‘trad, arr Belafonte’ but the majority of the other 24 songs here were written by Burgie, whose name deserves to be up there alongside Lord Kitchener, Mighty Sparrow and Belafonte himself among the fathers of modern calypso.