The Early Years at Capitol Records

Audio Compact Disc

Label: DRG

Category: Folk

The Early Years at Capitol Records

UPC: 021471950427

Release Date: 04/21/2009

Original Release Date: 04/21/2009

Number of Discs: 1

Steve Leggett

Harry Belafonte's influence on pop music is much more far reaching then many realize, as he was one of the first performers to bring worldbeat rhythms to the U.S. charts in the postwar era. Born in Harlem but spending a good part of his childhood in his mother's native Jamaica, Belafonte grew up straddling cultures and musical styles, and bridging perceived differences became his calling card as an entertainer. His silky smooth mixture of jazz, folk, pop, and art song, often with impossibly infectious West Indies-styled accompaniment, coupled with his charismatic good looks and easy, hip coolness and sharp racial and political sense, meant he was never reduced to being a mere commodity, even though he spent his whole career on major labels. But before he spearheaded the calypso boom in the U.S. in the late '50s with his RCA recordings, Belafonte tracked eight songs in two sessions (on July 19 and December 20) for Capitol Records in 1949. There was nothing even vaguely Caribbean about these sides, and they featured Belafonte crooning songs like Jerome Kern?s ?They Didn?t Believe in Me? over lush orchestrations by Pete Rugolo. All eight of these tracks are included in this set, along with 14 tracks from Lord Flea. Lord Flea (Norman Thomas) was born in Kingston, Jamaica, but moved to the U.S. as a young man, and playing a kind of jazz-inflected mento with an energetic, banjo-led island band, he toured the club circuits and recorded some 20 singles for various small labels before landing at Capitol Records long enough to record one album, Swingin? Calypsos, in 1957. That Lord Flea played Jamaican mento and not calypso didn?t bother Capitol any, since the label was simply looking for a way to cash in on the calypso movement then sweeping the U.S. (fueled, ironically, by the success of Belafonte, an artist they let get away). Lord Flea?s entire Capitol catalog is collected here -- one single, one album. It makes for a curious combination with the Belafonte tracks, which are closer to Bing Crosby than they are to anything remotely calypso. But then Lord Flea?s tracks aren?t calypso, either. His versions of island classics like ?Monkey,? ?Jump in the Line? (a hit for Belafonte), ?Donkey Bray,? and the others included here are pure Jamaican mento given a very slight uptown jazz twist. The Belafonte tracks are far from essential but Lord Flea?s are definitely worth hearing. They form a sort of testimonial, since Lord Flea/Norman Thomas died just two years after Capitol issued them. He was 27. ~ Steve Leggett, Rovi