The best known story about the Mighty Terror is probably too good to be true: how, when he arrived in from Trinidad in London in 1953, he asked the taxi driver to take him to the home of Lord Kitchener. The terror was obviously (to us) referring to the Great Calypsonian, but the confused taxi driver at first thought he was referring to the long-dead British Imperialist War Hero. Hilarious consequences ensued. Right.
Anyway, for us bleeding-heart liberal middle class muddle-headed do-gooder pinko types, the only time we can tolerate Sexism or Affection for the Police Force is when it comes out of the mouth of an Ethnic Minority Person. Here's The Terror fondly dreaming of being arrested by a nice “blondie one”.
Raphael de Leon, (1908–1999) AKA The Lion, or Roaring Lion, a leading figure in Calypso for over sixty years, was both a popular Calypsonian, with songs like Ugly Woman, Mary Ann and Netty, Netty, and a historian of the genré. In his book Calypso From France to Trinidad: 800 Years of History (1986) he argued against the prevailing idea that Calypso was based on African musical forms, and proposed medieval French troubadour origins.
He even disputed the origin of the name “Calypso”, usually said to be from the word kaicho, from language of the Huassa tribe in Nigeria. Roaring Lion argues that it's from Enrico Caruso. The name of Caruso, the opera superstar of the turn of the century, had in the Trinidad of his youth became a descriptive noun for any singer, or vocal performance. More information in an interview from Variant Magazine in 1991.
Anyway, here’s a recording made in London on the 16th of June 1954, where he teases those who assert that the source of Calypso is anywhere else but the “Land of the Trinity”.
From Caribbean Connections: Black Music in Britain in the early 1950s Volume 2. New Cross records (Charly) NC006 1987. My first vinyl-to-mp3 conversion.
I went along to Club Tromolo at Glasgow's Classic Grand Club the other evening and was bowled over by the duets performed by Miss Leggy Pee and her partner, Charlie.
The evening went from pleasant to sublime when I, your original never-won-a-thing-in-me-life chap, won the grand prize in the raffle: a half bottle of Buckfast!
So, in this non-PC duet spirit, here’s some more ersatz calypso: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan’s 1947 hit Stone Cold Dead in the Market. Ah, those good old carefree Andy Capp days of humourous domestic violence.
I haven’t been able to find any information about the song’s history: not even whether it’s a Truly Trinny calypso song, or a piece of tin pan alley fakery; but here’s the song on one of those forties proto-promo-video “soundies”: in this case performed by Gracie Barrie.
If you’ve heard this song before, chances are it’s Harry Belafonte’s 1957 hit version: that’s the first version I ever heard, anyway. I knew Robert Mitchum had recorded some calypso, but it wasn’t till I managed to borrow a vinyl copy of “Calypso – is Like So…” that I realised he’d covered it too. But I finally chanced upon Lord Melody’s original while in the grip of mento* fever, a few years back. The huge international boom in calypso in the mid to late fifties (like Harry Belafonte’s hits) meant that just about all indigenous Caribbean music, including Jamaican mento, was being sold as “calypso”: so inevitably, in the hunt for mento gold, I necessarily had to listen to a fair bit of calypso pyrites: but no, I got to love calypso too, of course.
Shut you mouth! Go away!
Anyway, Lord Melody (born Fitzroy Alexander in 1928; died 1988) was one of the big Trinidadian stars of the fifties Calypso Boom, with this song being a hit in America: he had another international hit in 1962 with “Shame and Scandal” (a song with too complicated a story for this place: wikipedia covers it well).
Bob Mitchum’s Trini accent is a bit ropey here, but he has a pleasant voice, and the band are excellent enough to calm the Original Version Purist Demon that snarls within me.
...and if you wany to here Belafonte’s version, here he is dueting with Nat “King” Cole, via YouTube.
* I don’t have the mental energy for the long, complicated answer that a seemingly simple question like “What is mento?” deserves. Follow the link to Michael Garnice’s exhaustively researched page if you’re interested.
Way back in the nineties, my home-made I Hate Country & Western cassettes were to be found in the tottering piles next to cassette machines around Glasgow. Followed by Hey, I'm not fussy... I hate everything, then moving to CD with I Hate Mento, Love at First Sound, Jiggery Pokery and Black Salad. Now it's time to bring my shitey old music discoveries into the twenty-first century.
