Calypso
 

There's a thread on "The Trailer Park" section inviting people to post "Country" songs, so I thought it might be a good idea to begin a thread for Calypso songs. Here's a good one to start, that was popular with us in Nassau (Bahamas) in the '60s. Later edit: The video can be watched only on YouTube, it seems. It's Harry Belafonte and Man Piaba.

Re: Calypso
 

I was lucky enough to see him do this at a rich persons wedding many years ago, great stuff.

Re: Calypso
 

I always consider this to be one of the finest, its old, but soca or calypso ?

Re: Calypso
 

We went to a concert in the ballroom of the British Colonial Hotel in Nassau in 1967 - and we've never forgotten them. All white-Bajans. What a thing! They did Big Bamboo and Ring Ting Ting and My Pussim, and this "clean" one!

Re: Calypso
 

An actual contemporarŷ film - kitchener - pan in a minor

Re: Calypso
 

I'm not sure if Boney M qualifies as Calypso, but I will give it the benefit of the doubt. My two favourite songs of theirs are "By the Rivers of Babylon" - swinging gospel song, and "Brown Girl in the Ring", which I'm linking to here. It may or may not be true, but I've been told that it's based on a schoolyard game involving the cordial teasing of a mixed-race girl. "She looks like sugar in a plum" - something white inside something dark; I probably don't need to spell that out... (That sort of thing would probably be taboo in the US, but here in the Islands there is a much healthier attitude to skin colours.)

Re: Calypso
 

Americans are so weird about colour and race, everyone has chips on their shoulders, admittedly with reason in some cases...

My low point was walking theough a beautiful mall in LA and being told by an american friend not to hold hands to avoid trouble because we are a mixed race coupke. The surprise was 'because the african americans dont like it here.'!