Top 50 Calypsonians of the 20Th Century

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Top 50 Calypsonians of the 20th Century This survey was conducted via an internet poll in which those were 825 entries which ran for about 3 months. The Toronto based calypso research group, Kaisoca International, conducted the poll. Position Name True Name 1. Mighty Sparrow Slinger Francisco 2. Lord Kitchener Aldwyn Roberts 3. Roaring Lion Hubert Raphael Charles 4. David Rudder David Michael Rudder 5. Wilmoth Houdini Wilmoth Hendricks 6. Growling Tiger Neville Marcano 7. Atilla The Hun Raymond Quevedo 8. Black Stalin Leroy Calliste 9. Lord Melody Fitzroy Alexander 10. Mighty Duke Kelvin Pope 11. Mighty Spoiler Theophilus Phillip 12. King Radio Norman Span 13. Lord Invader Rupert Grant 14. Duke of Iron Cecil Anderson 15. Cro Cro Weston Rawlins 16. Mighty Chalkdust Hollis Liverpool 17. Nap Hepburn Rudolf Nathaniel Hepburn 18. Lord Cristo Christopher Laidlaw 19. Lord Brynner Kade Simon 20. Lord Beginner Egbert Moore 21. Lord Caresser Rufus Callender 22. Mighty Shadow Winston Bailey 23. Gypsy Winston Peters 24. Lord Executor Philip Garcia 25. Calypso Rose McArthur Lewis 26. Lord Shorty Garfield Blackman 27. Mighty Growler Errol Duke 28. Lord Blakie Carlton Joseph 29. Lord Nelson Robert Nelson 30. Sir Lancelot Lancelot Pinard 31. Lord Pretender Aldric Farrell 32. Mighty Bomber Clifton. F. Ryan 33. Mighty Destroyer Carl Donald Glasgow 34. Mighty Killer Cephas Alexander 35. Explainer Winston Henry 36. Mighty Dougla Clatis Ali 37. Maestro Cecil Hume 38. Mighty Cypher Dillary Scott 39. Mighty Spitfire Carlton Joseph Gumbs 40. Lord Shortshirt McClean Emmanuel 41. Lord Superior Andrew Marcano 42. Lord Valentino Emrold Phillips 43. Macbeth Patrick MacDonald 44. King Fighter Shurland Wilson 45. Mighty Composer Fred Mitchell 46. Small Island Pride Theophilus Woods 47. Mighty Terror Fitzgerald Henry 48. Merchant Dennis Franklin Williams 49. Crazy Edwin Ayoung 50. Mighty Power Sonny Francois Top 50 Calypsonians of the 20th Century courtesy of Geroge Maharaj from Kaisoca International. Contact: George Maharaj via email or checkout his website at The Roots Of Calypso that features the history of calypso, George's personal selection of calypsos, his calypso music want list and calypsos he is selling just to name a few items at his website. .

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BEAR FAMILY RECORDS TEL +49(0)4748 - 82 16 16 • FAX +49(0)4748 - 82 16 20 • E-MAIL [email protected]
BEAR FAMILY RECORDS TEL +49(0)4748 - 82 16 16 • FAX +49(0)4748 - 82 16 20 • E-MAIL [email protected] ARTIST Various TITLE Calypso Craze 1956-57 And Beyond LABEL Bear Family Productions CATALOG # BCD 16947 PRICE-CODE GK EAN-CODE ÇxDTRBAMy169472z FORMAT 6-CD/1-DVD Box-Set (LP-size) with 176-page hardcover book GENRE Calypso CD 173 tracks, 484:23 min. DVD 14 chapters, ca 86 min. INFORMATION In the standard history of American pop music, the 1950s are a parade of rock icons: Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Elvis Presley. But after the demise of the great dance bands of the 1940s, rock 'n' roll didn't actually secure its position as the Next Big Thing until quite late in the day. For a few short months, in fact, it seemed that rock might be just another pas- sing fad – and that calypso was here to stay. From late 1956 through mid-1957, calypso was everywhere: not just on the Hit Parade, but on the dance floor and the TV, in movie theaters and magazines, in college student unions and high school glee clubs. There were calypso card games, clothing lines, and children's toys. Calypso was the stuff of commercials and comedy routines, news reports and detective novels. Nightclubs across the country hastily tacked up fishnets and palm fronds and remade themselves as calypso rooms. Singers donned straw hats and tattered trousers and affected mock-West Indian 'ahk-cents.' And it was Harry Belafonte – not Elvis Presley – who with his 1956 album 'Calypso' had the first million-selling LP in the history of the record industry.
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Celebrating Our Calypso Monarchs 1939- 1980
Celebrating our Calypso Monarchs 1939-1980 T&T History through the eyes of Calypso Early History Trinidad and Tobago as most other Caribbean islands, was colonized by the Europeans. What makes Trinidad’s colonial past unique is that it was colonized by the Spanish and later by the English, with Tobago being occupied by the Dutch, Britain and France several times. Eventually there was a large influx of French immigrants into Trinidad creating a heavy French influence. As a result, the earliest calypso songs were not sung in English but in French-Creole, sometimes called patois. African slaves were brought to Trinidad to work on the sugar plantations and were forbidden to communicate with one another. As a result, they began to sing songs that originated from West African Griot tradition, kaiso (West African kaito), as well as from drumming and stick-fighting songs. The song lyrics were used to make fun of the upper class and the slave owners, and the rhythms of calypso centered on the African drum, which rival groups used to beat out rhythms. Calypso tunes were sung during competitions each year at Carnival, led by chantwells. These characters led masquerade bands in call and response singing. The chantwells eventually became known as calypsonians, and the first calypso record was produced in 1914 by Lovey’s String Band. Calypso music began to move away from the call and response method to more of a ballad style and the lyrics were used to make sometimes humorous, sometimes stinging, social and political commentaries. During the mid and late 1930’s several standout figures in calypso emerged such as Atilla the Hun, Roaring Lion, and Lord Invader and calypso music moved onto the international scene.
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Chapter 2 Defining Calypso
Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/45260 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation Author: Charles, Clarence Title: Calypso music : identity and social influence : the Trinidadian experience Issue Date: 2016-11-22 71 Chapter 2 Defining Calypso In the absence of conclusive evidence that points to a singular ethnic source of origin, analysis is launched from the premise that calypso music is a product of the ethno-cultural mosaics found within the boundaries in which it emerged, was developed, and exists as various strains with features that are characteristic, sometimes unique to its host mosaic. Etymology and Anthropology So far efforts by researchers to establish the origin of calypso music as a definite song type have been inconclusive. The etymology of the term ‘calypso’ in reference to that song type has proven to be as equally mysterious and speculation remains divided among contributors. This chapter of the study will touch upon literature that speculates about these issues relative to the emergence and development of the song type on the island of Trinidad. At one end of the discussion about origin Lamson (1957, p. 60) has reported the use of French melodic material in calypso, and Raphael De Leon aka The Roaring Lion (1987) has argued in Calypsos from France to Trinidad: 800 Years of History, that the genre was given the pseudonym ‘calypso’ some time in 1900, and derives from French ‘ballade’ created in 1295. He has also publicly asserted that, there is no evidence to support the claim that it is either a variant of African folk songs or that it was invented by African slaves in Trinidad.
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Aj Thesis Corrected.Pages
The Liminal Text: Exploring the Perpetual Process of Becoming with particular reference to Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners and George Lamming’s The Emigrants & Kitch: A Fictional Biography of The Calypsonian Lord Kitchener Anthony Derek Joseph A Thesis Submitted For The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English and Comparative Literature Goldsmiths College, University of London August 2016 Joseph 1! I hereby declare that this thesis represents my own research and creative work Anthony Joseph Joseph 2! Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in providing financial support to complete this work. I also express my warm and sincere thanks to my supervisors Professors Blake Morrison and Joan Anim-Addo who provided invaluable support and academic guidance throughout this process. I am also grateful to the English and Comparative Literature Department for their logistic support. Thanks to Marjorie Moss and Leonard ‘Young Kitch’ Joseph for sharing their memories. I would also like to thank Valerie Wilmer for her warmth and generosity and the calypso archivist and researcher Dmitri Subotsky, who generously provided discographies, literature, and numerous rare calypso recordings. I am grateful to my wife Louise and to my daughters Meena and Keiko for their love, encouragement and patience. Anthony Joseph London December 16 2015 Joseph 3! Abstract This practice-as-research thesis is in two parts. The first, Kitch, is a fictional biography of Aldwyn Roberts, popularly known as Lord Kitchener. Kitch represents the first biographical study of the Trinidadian calypso icon, whose arrival in Britain onboard The Empire Windrush was famously captured in Pathé footage.
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Contextualizing the "Cannibal Joke" in Calypso and Literature Gordon Rohlehr [email protected]
Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal Volume 3 Issue 2 Calypso and the Caribbean Literary Article 1 Imagination: A Special Issue December 2005 CARNIVAL CANNIBALIZED OR CANNIBAL CARNIVALIZED: Contextualizing the "Cannibal Joke" in Calypso and Literature Gordon Rohlehr [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium Recommended Citation Rohlehr, Gordon (2005) "CARNIVAL CANNIBALIZED OR CANNIBAL CARNIVALIZED: Contextualizing the "Cannibal Joke" in Calypso and Literature," Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal: Vol. 3 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/anthurium/vol3/iss2/1 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarly Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal by an authorized editor of Scholarly Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rohlehr: CARNIVAL CANNIBALIZED OR CANNIBAL CARNIVALIZED... Congo Man The Mighty Sparrow first performed “Congo Man” at Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain, Trinidad, early in October 1964 (Trinidad Guardian [TG] 5 October 1964). Over four decades since then, he has performed it regularly and recorded it six times (de Four 72). Treating it as a sort of signature tune, Sparrow delights in creating a new version of strange sounds every time he performs it. “Congo Man” has been cited by journalist Debbie Jacob as “Sparrow’s own all- time favourite” (Sunday Express [SE] 10 February 1991). An intriguing calypso that only Sparrow can convincingly perform, “Congo Man” has raised questions about the centuries-old encounter between Africa and Europe in arenas of ethnicity, culture, gender and politics; the racial stereotyping that has been an almost timeless aspect of this encounter; the erasure of any clear image of Africa from the minds of diasporan African-ancestored citizens of the New World, and the carnivalesque performance of “Africa” in the transfigurative masquerades of Trinidad and New Orleans.
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Strategic Plan for the Entertainment Industry of Trinidad and Tobago FINAL REPORT January 20, 2006
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American Music Review the H
American Music Review The H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York Volume XLIV, Number 1 Fall 2014 The Brooklyn Soca Connection: Frankie McIntosh and Straker Records Ray Allen, CUNY Brooklyn College The emergence of soca (soul/calypso) music in the 1970s was the result of musical innovations that occurred concurrently with a conscious attempt by the Trinidadian record industry to penetrate the bourgeoning world music market. The latter move was prompted in part by the early-1970s international success of Jamaican reg- gae and coincided with the rapid growth of diasporic English-speaking Caribbean communities in North Amer- ica and Europe—sites which promised new production and marketing possibilities for the music. Brooklyn’s Caribbean neighborhoods, which had rapidly expanded in the wake of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, became popular destinations for singers, musicians, arrangers, and record producers. Some lay down roots while other became transnational migrants, cycling back and forth between Brooklyn and their Caribbean homelands to perform and record the new soca sound. Frankie McIntosh, music director and arranger for the Brook- lyn-based Straker Records label, was a key player in the transformation of Trinidadian calypso to modern soca during this period. Before turning to the story of McIntosh and Straker Records a brief re- view of the stylistic characteristics of soca and the critical reception the new music received is in order. By the late 1970s the term “soca” (“so” from soul music, “ca” from calypso) was used in reference to a new style of Caribbean music that blended Trinidadian calypso with elements of African-American soul, funk, disco, R&B, and jazz.1 According to ethnomusicologist Shannon Dudley, soca is differentiated from calypso by its strong, 4/4 rhythmic struc- ture with accents on the second and fourth beats of each measure; emphasis on a syncopated bass line that often incorporates melodic figures; and fast, often frenetic, tempos.
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Rg to Calypso Gold Booklet
MUSIC ROUGH GUIDES THE ROUGH GUIDE to Calypso Gold You now have in your hands a collection of very exclamations of encouragement to the everything from local to international affairs. or patronage should impede his freedom to rare calypso recordings from the dawn of the singer by the chorus or audience or both. Calypso songs, or kaisos, would outlive the speak out.’ recording era. But, whatever process brought the word colonial authorities who, at the time, were ‘calypso’ into everyday use, the main thing is ignorant to the subtleties, innuendos and SIR LANCELOT – Sir Lancelot was born The first mention of ‘Calypso’ comes from a the calypso itself. insinuations connected with calypso. Lancelot Victor Edward Pinard. After dance, described by Abbé Masse in 1882. secondary education in Trinidad, he was sent Otherwise, most scholars who have tried to Quick wit, knowing observations of human Robin Bryans wrote of the calypso, ‘No to New York to study medicine. There he was trace the story of calypso agree that the word behaviour and commentary on its absurd sacred cow, human or institutional is afflicted by the ‘calypso bug’ of which he could itself is not connected with the divinity aspects are all elements of calypso, which safe from the wit of the Calypsonian’, and not dispense a cure, and consequently took up who lured Homer’s Odysseus to her island. prompted the American periodical Time to Don Hill adds that ‘It is at once a social a guitar and started singing the calypso. The origins of the word are not clear and label calypso ‘The Living Newspaper’ in 1944.
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Narratives of Resistance in Trinidad's Calypso and Soca Music Meagan A. Sylvester, UWI, St. Augustine Trinidad and Tobago Drma
105 Narratives of Resistance in Trinidad’s Calypso and Soca Music Meagan A. Sylvester, UWI, St. Augustine Trinidad and Tobago [email protected] or [email protected] Abstract In Trinidad, the historical, socio-political and economic conditions which gave rise to the birth of Calypso are usually highlighted, in the existing literature, however, there is very little information regarding the oppositional lyrics of current Soca songs. By concentrating on the praxis of cultural resistance exemplified in the narratives of selected Carnival, Calypso and Soca songs, this article expands the existing discourse. Trinidad’s Carnival, post-emancipation, has important societal roles and functions. This article demonstrates that Carnival functions as performative rituals of resistance, individual and community awakening and identity development. Carnival’s established roles, functions and rituals are deliberately designed to disrupt the status quo. Keywords: Carnival, Calypso, Soca, Resistance, Respectability, Reputation Introduction Several synergies exist between the festival, the exuberant behaviours associated with the annual Carnival, and the art form of Calypso music and song. The respected, Trinidadian folklorist, J. D. Elder (1968), for example, states that the music and art of Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival (the premiere, national cultural festival), manifests publicly, the oppression of established economic and social systems. Elder’s view concurs with that of Hill (2007), specifically, that social thought is illustrated visibly, in the communal and individual experiences that are demonstrated through sound. For Milla Riggio (2004), Carnival is an artistic institution in which music, song, dance, costumes, masks, handicraft, religion, poetry and sculpture depict the performers’ and artists’ creativity, worldviews, belief systems and philosophies of life.
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Biographies of Some Major Calypsonians
Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/45260 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation Author: Charles, Clarence Title: Calypso music : identity and social influence : the Trinidadian experience Issue Date: 2016-11-22 233 Biographies of Some Major Calypsonians Atilla the Hun - Raymond Quevedo was born in Trinidad on March 24, 1892. He began his singing career in 1911 and was the first calypsonian to hold public office. He was elected to the Port of Spain City Council in 1946, and later in 1950 was elected to represent East St. George County in the Legislative Council. He won the Calypso Crown Competition in 1946 with Daily Mail Report and in 1947 with Million Dollar Jail. Atilla died on February 22, 1962 in Trinidad and was posthumously awarded the Trinidad & Tobago Public Service Medal of Merit-Gold, for Public Service and Calypso in 1972. Calypso Rose - Linda Mc Cartha Monica Sandy-Lewis was born in Tobago on April 27, 1940. She began writing songs at age 15 and to date has more than 800 to her credit. She originally used the sobriquet Crusoe Kid and turned professional in 1964. She won the Calypso King and Road March competitions in St. Thomas with her first recording, Cooperation. Her mega hit Fire in Me Wire was the first calypso to be sung during two consecutive carnival seasons (1966 and 1967). She dominated the field by winning the Calypso Queen competition for five consecutive years between 1972 and 1976. In 1977, Gimme More Tempo enabled her to become the first female calypsonian to have ever won the Trinidad Road March competition.
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Kevin Adonis Browne Dissertation-Mas Movement for Grad School
The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts MAS MOVEMENT: TOWARD A THEORY OF CARIBBEAN RHETORIC A Dissertation in English by Kevin Adonis Browne © 2009 Kevin Adonis Browne Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2009 The dissertation of Kevin Adonis Browne was reviewed and approved* by the following: Keith Gilyard Distinguished Professor of English Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee John L. Selzer Professor of English Stuart Selber Associate Professor of English Cary Fraser Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies Robin Schulze Professor of English Head of the Department of English *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School ii ABSTRACT This project situates, describes, and analyzes some of the characteristic discursive practices of Caribbean people in the context of a distinct rhetorical tradition. Rhetoric is viewed in this study as communicative activity precipitated by the constellation of social, psychological, spiritual, and material consequences that have shaped the history of the region and continue to impact contemporary expression. The dimensions of Caribbean rhetoric therefore reflect constructions of social reality and allow practitioners and scholars to approach and analyze the issues and challenges faced by Caribbean people. Objects of study include the novels of Earl Lovelace, the prophetic musical performances of David Rudder, and the transformative possibilities afforded by Caribbean discursive activity in digital environments. I use the “Caribbean Carnivalesque” as a major trope for referring to Caribbean behavior that is founded on the epideictic and is tuned specifically to social commentary, agitation, and change. The trope is deployed for two primary purposes: as a key rhetorical device operating among Caribbean people; and as an effective theoretical device for considering how Caribbean people participate in different forms of democratic deliberation and interaction with other groups.
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West Indian Gramophone Records in Britain: 1927-1950
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