Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 1-SEP-1999

Track Listing

1. Ba Boo la La - Roaring Lion
2. Neighbour - King Radio
3. Si-O-No-Valse - Gerald Clark and His Caribbean Serenaders
4. Bandandea - The Tiger
5. High Brown - The Growler
6. Depression-Pasillo - Lionel Belasco
7. I am Going to Buy a Bungalow - Lion
8. I Don't Want No Bungalow - Atilla the Hun
9. I Want to Build a Bungalow
10. John Thomas - The Caresser
11. It's the Rhythm We Want - King Radio
12. Tres Bemoles-Valse
13. Marabella Wedding - The Tiger
14. Mama, Call the Fire Brigade - Wilmoth Houdini
15. Anything for Love-Tango Calypso
16. Vitalogy - Lion
17. It's a Sin to Tell a Lie - Lion
18. Saga Boy's in Town - Lord Invader
19. John O'Carr - King Radio
20. Rosa-Valse - Gerald Clark and His Caribbean Serenaders
21. In the Dew and the Rain - The Growler
22. Point Cumana - The Tiger
23. Freddo - Atilla the Hun
24. Wanga - Lion
25. Old Ginger

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #256573 in Music
• Brand: Calypso
• Released on: 1993-03-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.com
Collecting tunes from 1936 through 1941, this set is appropriately subtitled "25 Classic Performances from the Golden Age of Trinidadian Calypso" and it lives up to expectations. The required stars are in abundance; Atilla the Hun, The Lion, and The Tiger all have tracks, although some of the chosen tunes are pleasant surprises. Lionel Belasco and his orchestra churn up a wonderful pasillo called "Depression," an instrumental with a great jazz-age sound recorded in 1932. It features Belasco's light and pleasing piano and some great violin by Cyril Monrose. King Radio dominates this collection with knowing lyrics and delivery in a number of great tracks. There are sessions recorded in both Port au Prince and New York City. The NYC dates feature the fuller, more lush band of Gerald Clark, while the island sides feature the local talent in a slightly rougher and more direct sound. --Louis Gibson

Customer Reviews

Jump Up and Think
Calypso always educates you while you're dancing. Calypsonians inform, philosophize, speculate and entertain. They mount challenges and outright wars against each other (usually in a playful spirit). And it's all on this recording. And the original giants of this seminal Trinidadian musical form are all here: Lord Invader, Growling Tiger, King Radio, Lionel Belasco, Caresser, Wilmouth Houdini and the very late Roaring Lion: musician, scholar and author, who passed away this past year(1999). This CD is Calypso madness! But madness you could put in the Smithsonian for all its historical importance. In fact, the Smithsonian has committed a fair amount of Calypso from this period to its archives. This is Calypso at a critical stage, in that all its original cultural influences are right in your face. Cyril Monrose and Lionel Belasco spent half their lives in Venezuela playing the same music, so Trinidad's Spanish heritage is obviated. Greats like Invader and Tiger draw heavily on the African kalinda songs (music that accompanies an African style of martial arts, something like kapuera in Brazil). Lion was the darling of the white creoles of Trinidad, always dressed in suit and tie, his music shows various British and French influences. My favorites on the recording are Baboolala by Lion about a notorious pyromaniac, In the Dew and the Rain with it's irresistible tempo and John Thomas (take your bundle and go) cuz that John Thomas is just bad news! This music is from a time when the music of Latin America and the Caribbean was just emerging from a more or less homogenous type into distinct regional forms. This recording bears witness to those hip and happening times.

Witty Observations On Not Recent Events
One of the gentlest and most appealing albums I have purchased in years. The combination of clever and humorous lyrical content with fine musical backing is very easy on the ears. Van Dyke Parks did a wonderful album in the 70's called "Discover America", where some of this material was updated with "Hollywood" arrangements. It's great to be able to hear the original source tracks.

ENJOYABLE CALYPSO AND EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR
i am gonna tell you this, there is something about tracks like this that make me just forget that there is a modern life. this album i listen to as sort of a time machine vibe. i love the honest lyrics, the humor, and the crackly sound of the 78s. what i could do without though is the instrumentals. there is something about those violins that i do not particularly enjoy. other than that, the album as a whole is quite a nice example of what true calypso sounds like.