Biography:

Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Caribbean-American pop star, he popularized Jamaican mento folk songs which was marketed as Trinbagonian Calypso musical style with an international audience in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.^[1]

Belafonte was best known for his recordings of “The Banana Boat Song“, with its signature “Day-O” lyric, “Jump in the Line“, and “Jamaica Farewell“. He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He also starred in several films, including Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959).

Belafonte considered the actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson a mentor, and he was a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. As he later recalled, “Paul Robeson had been my first great formative influence; you might say he gave me my backbone. Martin King was the second; he nourished my soul.”^[2] Throughout his career, Belafonte was an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. From 1987 until his death, he was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.^[3] He was a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush presidential administrations. Belafonte acted as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues.^[4]

Belafonte won three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award,^[5] and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy’s 6th Annual Governors Awards^[6] and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category and was the oldest living person to have received the honor.^[7]

Early life

Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.^[8] at Lying-in Hospital on March 1, 1927, in Harlem, New York, the son of Jamaican-born parents Harold George Bellanfanti Sr., who worked as a chef, and Melvine (née Love), a housekeeper.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]} His mother was the child of a Scottish Jamaican mother and an Afro-Jamaican father, and his father was the child of a Black American mother and a Dutch-Jewish father of Sephardic Jewish descent. Harry, Jr. was raised Catholic.^[15]

From 1932 to 1940, Belafonte lived with one of his grandmothers in her native country of Jamaica, where he attended Wolmer’s Schools. Upon returning to New York City, he attended George Washington High School^[16] after which he joined the U.S. Navy and served during World War II.^[12] In the 1940s, he was working as a janitor’s assistant when a tenant gave him, as a gratuity, two tickets to see the American Negro Theater. He fell in love with the art form and also became friends with Sidney Poitier. The financially struggling pair regularly purchased a single seat to local plays, trading places in between acts, after informing the other about the progression of the play.^[17] At the end of the 1940s, he took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator alongside Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur, and Poitier, while performing with the American Negro Theater. He subsequently received a Tony Award for his participation in the Broadway revue John Murray Anderson’s Almanac (1954). He also starred in the 1955 Broadway revue 3 for Tonight with Gower Champion.

Musical career

Belafonte started his career in music as a club singer in New York to pay for his acting classes. The first time he appeared in front of an audience, he was backed by the Charlie Parker band, which included Charlie Parker himself, Max Roach and Miles Davis, among others. He launched his recording career as a pop singer on the Roost label in 1949, but quickly developed a keen interest in folk music, learning material through the Library of Congress‘ American folk songs archives. With guitarist and friend Millard Thomas, Belafonte soon made his debut at the legendary jazz club The Village Vanguard. He signed a contract with RCA Victor in 1953, recording regularly for the label until 1974.

Belafonte also performed during the Rat Pack era in Las Vegas. He and associated acts such as Liberace, Ray Vasquez, and Sammy Davis Jr. were featured at the Sands Hotel and Casino and the Dunes Hotel.

Calypso

Belafonte’s first widely released single, which went on to become his “signature” audience participation song in virtually all his live performances, was “Matilda“, recorded April 27, 1953. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) became the first LP in the world “to sell over 1 million copies within a year”, Belafonte confirmed on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s The Link program on August 7, 2012. He added that it was also the first million-selling album ever in England. The album is number four on Billboard‘s “Top 100 Album” list for having spent 31 weeks at number 1, 58 weeks in the top ten, and 99 weeks on the U.S. charts. The album introduced American audiences to calypso music (which had originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the early 19th century), and Belafonte was dubbed the “King of Calypso”, a title he wore with reservations since he had no claims to any Calypso Monarch titles.

One of the songs included in the album is the now famous “Banana Boat Song” (listed as “Day-O” on the Calypso LP), which reached number five on the pop charts, and featured its signature lyric “Day-O”.^[18]

Many of the compositions recorded for Calypso, including “Banana Boat Song” and “Jamaica Farewell“, gave songwriting credit to Irving Burgie.

Middle career

While primarily known for calypso, Belafonte recorded in many different genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. His second-most popular hit, which came immediately after “The Banana Boat Song”, was the comedic tune “Mama Look at Bubu“, also known as “Mama Look a Boo-Boo” (originally recorded by Lord Melody in 1955^[19]), in which he sings humorously about misbehaving and disrespectful children. It reached number eleven on the pop chart.

In 1959, Belafonte starred in Tonight With Belafonte, a nationally televised special that featured Odetta, who sang “Water Boy” and who performed a duet with Belafonte of “There’s a Hole in My Bucket” that hit the national charts in 1961.^[20] Belafonte was the first Jamaican American to win an Emmy, for Revlon Revue: Tonight with Belafonte (1959).^[5] Two live albums, both recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1959 and 1960, enjoyed critical and commercial success. From his 1959 album, “Hava Nagila” became part of his regular routine and one of his signature songs.^[21] He was one of many entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the inaugural gala of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. Later that year, RCA Victor released another calypso album, Jump Up Calypso, which went on to become another million seller. During the 1960s he introduced several artists to American audiences, most notably South African singer Miriam Makeba and Greek singer Nana Mouskouri. His album Midnight Special (1962) included a young harmonica player named Bob Dylan.

As the Beatles and other stars from Britain began to dominate the U.S. pop charts, Belafonte’s commercial success diminished; 1964’s Belafonte at The Greek Theatre was his last album to appear in Billboard‘s Top 40. His last hit single, “A Strange Song”, was released in 1967 and peaked at number 5 on the adult contemporary music charts. Belafonte received Grammy Awards for the albums Swing Dat Hammer (1960) and An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba (1965). The latter album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under apartheid. He earned six Gold Records.^[22]

During the 1960s, Belafonte appeared on TV specials alongside such artists as Julie Andrews, Petula Clark, Lena Horne, and Nana Mouskouri. In 1967, Belafonte was the first non-classical artist to perform at the prestigious Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in Upstate New York, soon to be followed by concerts there by the Doors, the 5th Dimension, the Who, and Janis Joplin.

From February 5 to 9, 1968, Belafonte guest hosted The Tonight Show substituting for Johnny Carson. Among his interview guests were Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.^[23]

Credits:

Wikipedia