Word: calypso
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Tourists long ago discovered Calypso, found it fun to pay a few dollars to have themselves described in an impromptu ballad. For nearly five years, Columbia and Decca have recorded Calypso songs in Trinidad, but U. S. enthusiasts could obtain discs only by hunting for them in New York's Harlem. By last week, with four midtown Manhattan shops (Liberty, Center, Marconi and Symphony) carrying them in stock Calypsos sold well to an eager public...
...typical Calypsonian inspiration was the visit of Franklin D. Roosevelt to Trinidad. Hammering long words into his melody regardless of accent (a Calypso trait), Atilla the Hun - a sober young father, mostly white, of nine children by his Negro wife - sings on a Decca disc...
King Edward VIII's abdication was approved in a dozen Calypso songs, one (by The Gorilla) voicing a comfortable Calypso philosophy...
...best current Calypso tunes, sung in a rich British-West Indian accent by The Caresser. a tenor, is Edward the VIII, which has a fuller Empire flavor...
Most popular Calypso singer is The Lion (real name: Hubert Raphael Charles), a young black buck who was taken to Manhattan in 1936 by Ralph Perez, successively a Calypso specialist for Columbia and Decca. The Lion, however, proved the most censorable of the Calypsonians, all of whose records Mr. Perez must submit to British officials before they may be sold in Trinidad. The Lion's share of the 1937 carnival was his song Netty-Netty, voted the most popular by the public, but banned on the island. On sale in the U. S., its words are allegedly unprintable...