VA -Kings Of Calypso

Calypso is more than a dance rhythm in its native Trinidad, where it functions as a storytellers medium, a sort of community newspaper of social and political happenings, many of which are skewered in the best tradition of satire - news you can dance to, essentially, and laugh at in the bargain.

"Kings of Calypso" collects several big band calypso tracks recorded in the 1950s in Britain for the large resident West Indies population there. Among the highlights are Mighty Terror's amusing but deadly serious treatise on racial relations, "Heading North," the folk mento of Noel Anthony's "Down the Line," and Ben Bowers' languid vocal on "Lazy Moon."

Lord Invader, who wrote the immortal "Rum and Coca Cola," a hit for the Andrews Sisters in the late '40s, tells his story of getting lost in the New York subway system in the shaggy dog tale entitled "New York Subway."
Recommended as an introduction to a fascinating genre.     

VA - Kings Of Calypso
(256 kbps, cover art included)