Calypso

Calypso

Calypso
Waldorf Music Hall

Starring The Ink Spots, The Monarchs, Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, Pat Mathews, Loren Becker & Stu Phillips

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
FDR MHK 33-1217
1958

From the back cover: CALYPSO – Popular music has always had its current rages but few have come in with as much of a roar as the one that is right now sweeping over this great land of ours... Calypso Music.

This is music that is quite different from the usual run of popular songs. It is colorful... full of imagination and wit, of fetching and fanciful rhythms, of intriguing rhythmic and verbal accents. It is music that is full of the unexpected. It is music that has a most definite style and feeling of its own.

As most of us know, calypso music originated in the West Indies. There the slaves, recently arrived from West Africa, blended their native rhythms with the influences of Spanish and English cultures. Concentrating upon matters both tropical and topical, they composed their own songs, often poking fun at their overlords and even at some of the world's most renowned characters. Then, too, they passed judgment in more general terms, often philosophizing on all sorts of varied subjects, including, of course, the ever-prevalent matter of love. Much of the material was composed on the spur-of-the-moment for the calypso singers often battled one another to see who could come up with the best set of lyrics on any given subject. As a result, this sort of music has a spontaneous feeling that is indeed refreshing and which sets it apart from other more stilted-sounding songs and rhythms.

The material that comprises this Waldorf Music Hall King Size record consists of the most popular of the recent calypso hits, etched into brilliant, high fidelity wax by some of the world's outstanding recording artists, and introducing one of the foremost instigators of the current calypso craze. She is a pretty blonde lass out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who spent a number of years in the West Indies, studying this specialized sort of music. So well did she assimilate all of it that when she opened at the "59 Club" on New York's swank East Side, she was such a hit that, according to reports, the club pioneered a calypso policy (it even changed its name to the "Club 59 Calypso Room") which was soon followed by many other of Gotham's famed night spots.

The influential lass' name is Pat Mathews, and she appears on this record singing three exceptionally fetching calypso selections ... Goombay, Man Smart, Woman Smarter, and the mis-named (so far as Miss Mathews is concerned) Ugly Woman. Directing and supporting her and also leading the orchestra on two selections by himself is another newcomer to Waldorf Music Hall, the talented Stu Phillips, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, who has written for such varied performers as the Rochester Civic Orchestra, jazz singer Chris Conner, vaudevillians Benny Fields and Blossom Seeley, and numerous Hollywood vocal groups.

Miss Mathews and Mr. Phillips account for almost half of the selections on this record. Starred on the extremely popular Cindy, Oh Cindy is one of the most popular of all maestri, the one and only Paul "Pops" Whiteman, who leads his fine organization as former Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts winner, Loren Becker, emotes the well-known lyrics. The same, oft-recorded Mr. Becker also sings the tender Jamaica Farewell, along with the Zig Zags, one of the three stellar vocal groups appearing on this disc. Also featured is another quartet, the delightful Monarchs, as well as one of the best known of all vocal groups, the renowned Ink Spots, who display their amazing versatility with their renditions of two calypso stalwarts, Hold 'Em Joe and Stone Cold Dead in de Market.

Here, then, are a dozen of the most popular of all calypso songs, splendidly performed and recorded and pressed in the finest vinyl. obtainable anywhere, at any price... all adding up to another musical triumph in this fine series of Waldorf Music Hall King Size Records.

Banana Boat Song - The Zig Zag Quartet with Enoch Light and His Orchestra

Hold 'Em Joe - The Ink Spots

Marianne - Lord Marlboro with The Monarchs

Cindy Oh Cindy - Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra with Loren Becker

Come Back Lisa - Stu Phillips

Ugly Woman - Pat Mathews

Jamaica Farewell - Loren Becker with The Zig Zags

Mona Mona Mona (Calypso Baby) - Pat Mathews

Goombay - Pat Mathews

Elaine From Port-O-Spain

Stone Dead Cold In De Market - The Ink Spots