Earlier this week, I was helping out a friend at a gala for a music school where I used to work (I'm a grantwriter/development professional during the working hours) and the featured guest was Harry Belafonte (the connection to Duff Guide=he is of Jamaican descent and was instrumental in popularizing calypso/Caribbean music). In his speech--he had just come from the UN and was off on a peacekeeping mission in Africa the next day--he made such a profound statement about the importance of music (that I'm paraphrasing here): "You can't fight a war while you're making music."
Maybe--whenever we get around to this--in addition to beating some of those swords into plougshares, we could forge some instruments? Just wondering...
Interesting factoid about Mr. Belafonte: his third album, Calypso (released in 1956), was the first recording by a single artist to sell over 1 million copies. Of course, this featured the ever-popular "The Banana Boat Song" aka "Day-O."
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According to the New York Times, 3,100 record stores around the country have closed since 2003--nearly half of those were independent shops. In Manhattan and Brooklyn alone, some 80 (!) record stores have closed in the past five years. For someone who grew up buying LPs and cassettes from real live people in stores (my local spot was Mad Hatters in Yonkers, which specialized in new wave and had tons of British imports), I find this terribly depressing, like helplessly watching some beloved species of animal going extinct no matter what you do. But, Saturday is Record Store Day! The day to fight back and support your local indie music shop. Go on, log off iTunes, turn off the computer, I know there is something out there that you are aching to buy! And be old school--get it on vinyl!
You DO know that the ever-popular "The Banana Boat Song" aka "Day-O" is originally a Jamaican song and that Belafonte sings the words wrong, right? The lyrics SHOULD go "six hand, seven hand, eight hand" - because bananas grow in hands, not feet!
ReplyDeleteDid not know that about the Day-O lyrics. Thanks for your feedback!
ReplyDeleteSteve, love the blog! This kind of thing gets into the kind of mento territory that's so near and dear to my heart. By the way...I believe Belafonte's Calypso! came out in 1956, not 1965!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Danjo. When I re-read the blog earIier today, I caught that error too and fixed it. I must have transposed the numbers by accident...
ReplyDeleteHi Steve! Calypso by Belafonte is an album I am quite fond of. My father was a big fan of Belafonte's records and so my earliest childhood memories are of crawling on the floor and coming face to face with that album cover which was often leaning against dozens of other records on the floor.
ReplyDeleteAnd as you can guess, that record was always playing at my home during my childhood and in my teens, when I began going through my family's record collection sorting the bad from the good. Cheers to good taste in music and cheers to the discovery and rediscovery of old records! I agree on your old school sentiments as I am a child of vinyl as well. Time to start a revolution. Somehow.
--Ray
Ray,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments! I have another friend who once told me how obsessed he was with this album when he was a child, playing it over and over again. Harry is certainly an ace performer that is able to make a strong connection to kids...
I'm starting to see vinyl all over the place...even bigger music retailers are carrying a fair amount of albums (Virgin Megastore and J & R are two). I was visiting my sister-in-law's kids clothing store on 7th Avenue in Park Slope this weekend and ducked into this small indie record store (Music Matters) and they had a huge vinyl section! My son is even getting into records (I'll make a record junkie out of him yet!). Viva la revolution!