NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 10th, 1953: John Murray Anderson’s Almanac opens at the Imperial Theater on Broadway. This musical revue facilitated 26-year-old Belafonte fusing his burgeoning singing and acting careers for three numbers: Mark Twain, Acorn in the Meadow and Hold ‘em Joe. Not only did critics praise his performance, the following year he earned the T in his EGOT by winning a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. This wasn’t the only indication that success was smiling on our good friend Harry: April of 1953 saw his silver screen debut in a supporting role as a principal in Bright Road, and he was signed to RCA Victor the year prior, leading to the releases on today’s featured LP.
After his studio time for Capitol and Jubilee in the late Forties, Belafonte began to get an inkling of the sort of songs he’d really like to perform. He began studying folk music in the Library of Congress, resurrecting and updating not only classics from the West Indies to which he felt a connection, but also selections from UK and American history. With songs in hand and accompanied by guitarist Millard Thomas, a friend from Belafonte’s time at the American Negro Theatre, he entered RCA Victor’s studio over the course of four days in April and May of 1954, and Mark Twain and Other Folk Songs was born. The songwriting on the album is primarily credited to “Paul Campbell” -- a pseudonym commonly used to indicate an uncopyrighted song from which artists have created their own rendition -- though Belafonte is responsible for writing Man Piaba and Mark Twain.
Belafonte’s voice sounds youthful and a little uncertain as to this new direction on his first solo LP, but it definitely has the right feel. It’s not a long album, with just over a half-hour of play time, but its navigation directed Harry toward the music for which he’d become an international sensation. With young daughter Adrienne at home and Shari on the way by the year’s end, this album would pave the path to being able to raise his young family in comfort without the vicissitudes of the fickle acting world.
The album opens with the title song, crafted from Belafonte’s research. It focuses not on Mr. Clemens, but rather the lifestyle and patter of nineteenth-century riverboat men. This leads into another song written by Belafonte, Man Piaba, a humorous calypso tune about medicinal herbs and the inability to get a straight answer about sex from another human being, any human being. Belafonte then gives us a peek into the true might of his voice in John Henry as he harmonizes and howls with himself in dual tracks through another song that would become part of his catalog standards.
After balladeering his way through chain gang song Tol’ My Captain and, while simultanously displaying his multilinguistic singing talents, the Creole mourning song Kalenda Rock, he finishes strong with British sea chanty The Drummer and the Cook, a region likewise musically explored in tracks Soldier, Soldier, Mo Mary and Lord Randall. 20-second track The Next Big River seems only included so one can remark “Didn’t I hear Bugs Bunny singing that?” (Wasn’t it the one where Bugs also did square-dance calling for the Hatfields and McCoys?) While many of these songs are early versions of what would later become hits, this album’s version of Belafonte standard Delia is the most beautiful and powerful he ever recorded.
I chose The Fox as today’s featured track because it’s so exemplary of Harry’s style. It was a tune from his schoolyard days, having recently been recorded by folk singer and occasional snowman Burl Ives. However, Belafonte made the song his own by adding a calypso beat, establishing our expectations of what’s to come. It’s the strong opener for side two -- almost exclusively the best side of any release -- and the one that’s the most fun to sing and dance along to. If you have a pair of bongos, you’ll be tempted to provide accompaniment, and rightly so. (If you don’t have a pair of bongos, your life’s priorities somewhere went astray and you should remedy this dire situation.)
Next week we’ll see Harry rise to the #1 position on the Billboard Top Pop Album charts with his self-titled release Belafonte. In the meantime, if you want to talk Belafonte, leave a comment below!
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