Harry Belafonte | Photo Credit: AP
Harry Belafonte’s songs are part of the soundtrack of Indian culture. It sounds like an exaggeration, but consider the evidence. The most famous, the ‘Jamaica Farewell’, is a staple wherever there is an audience of live music and greyhairs. Especially at those cheesy Sunday buffets—and I’ve eaten plenty of those around the country—where the singer would quickly assess the food rush and launch into it.
Everyone knows the words, the soft rhythms soothe whatever we’re feeling and almost like a whiff of that sea breeze, take us into a comfort zone. And even if you don’t know the words, you can’t miss the tune; There are at least two Bengali versions set to that tune and even one from Hindi cinema, ‘Do Chamki Aankhon Mein’. espionage (Don’t worry, I didn’t know either until today).
Growing up in Kolkata, Belafonte was everywhere. Every family get-together involves singing of some sort, and at one point or another there is a Belafonte song. In school and college festivals. on radio, especially Sunday lunchtime programmes. On Christmas, with his version of ‘Marry’s Boy Child’. But it was not just Kolkata; He cast his spell over all the metropolises, as the hotel bands testify.
Harry Belafonte performing on stage at the Meany River to Cross Festival in Georgia
, Photo Credit: Getty Images
What was Belafonte about?
What was it about his songs? In Kolkata, a city that has long worshiped Dalits, and possibly elsewhere too, a big plus was his politics: left of centre, very much part of the civil rights movement, a hero almost as much as Paul Robeson (whose ‘River’ probably edges out ‘Jamaica Farewell’ in ‘Old Man’ pan-India recall). His overtly “political” songs are not as well known, but then what is Day-O if not political? A latter day ‘Old Man River’ – a song about black people working the docks for white people.
Harry Belafonte (right) with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (center) at a press conference in Atlanta in 1965
, Photo Credit: AP
Maybe it was humour. The more raucous songs have plenty of it – ‘Man Smarter, Woman Smarter’, ‘Jump in the Line’, ‘Man Piaba’, ‘Matilda’ (especially when sung live, and the audience joins in at appropriate points) and , of course, the duet (best with singers Odetta or Miriam Makeba) ‘There’s a Hole in My Bucket’, where you know the punchline from the start, but the delivery is what makes you laugh anyway.
Maybe it was the variety – the love songs, the calypsos, the protest songs, the raucous and downright bawdy; The full gamut from ‘Island in the Sun’ to ‘Angelina’. Something for all tastes, even for all ages. (Admittedly, some of this hasn’t aged well, notably ‘Angelique-O’, about a wife/companion who hasn’t learned basic household chores: ” Mama has to take you back / Teach you everything you’re lacking / When she sends you back to me / We’ll be together in harmony,
Harry Belafonte singing ‘Close Your Eyes’ by Bernice Petchere
, Photo Credit: Getty Images
faded but not forgotten
Although, without a doubt, it was the voice. Melted honey in slow songs like ‘Come Back Liza’ and ‘Danny Boy’; a nudge and a wink to the Saucer song; apparent fatigue in ‘day-o’; The sheer joy of synchronizing with the brass and percussion as the songs go up a beat or three. In every song, in every note, in every plea of a runaway lover or in every celebration of his return, he brought the sunshine of the islands. Rum-and-Coke to the tune of two minutes.
Belafonte’s music has faded today – although there is a direct link between ‘Day-O’ and ” ay-ohchant made famous by Freddie Mercury and now used to wake up the crowd at cricket matches. But if the purpose of music is to calm and soothe, excite and energize, awaken the senses and open the eyes to the world around us, then any collection of Belafonte’s songs will cover all those bases. Farewell, Harry Belafonte, may the sailing ship carry you safely to the other side.
The writer is a journalist based in Bangalore.