[78-L] A few calypso notes; the Neutrality Act

[Steve Shapiro]

Michael Biel wrote:

> It is astonishing how many Calypso records were issued on American Decca
in the 1930s that nobody knows about.  They were not listed in Decca's
"Popular" catalog,  When photographing album 78 titled "Decca presents A
Special Collection of the World-Famous Music of Trinidad - CALYPSOS By
Wilmouth Houdini and His Royal Calypso Orchestra" I was astonished to
see a listing of SIXTY FOUR Decca releases on the back page of the
booklet (dated 11-39).  They were all in the 17000 series, but the three
discs in this album were in the 18000 series. . . .

> The description includes "Having been unable to resist the purchase of
Calypso records in Trinidad, tourists bring them home in great
enthusiasm as something new and fascinating to introduce to their
friends. . . .  At the same time many people wished to buy the records
that had heard locally, but they were very difficult to obtain.  Decca
has been for years the principal recorded of this type of song and has
exported many thousands of records annually to the West Indies and it is
the Decca Records that have been brought back home and about which you
have read interesting articles in The New Yorker, Esquire, Cosmopolitan,
Newsweek, and other leading publications. . . . The complete catalog of
Decca Calypso Records by all of the leading Calypsodians is now
available domestically in response to wide demand and in consideration
of the mounting interest Decca is pleased to present this first album
collection of Calypsos containing six new numbers by the famous Wilmoth
Houdini, one of the first ever to record the Calypso song and the only
Calypsonian residing in the United States."

1. There is a fair amount of hype in these notes to the Decca 1939 World's Fair Houdini album.  Worth reading is Joseph Mitchell's 1939 New Yorker piece, Houdini's Picnic:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1939/05/06/1939_05_06_061_TNY_CARDS_000177481

which was also published in Mitchell's collection "McSorley's Wonderful Saloon".  (The Saloon itself, established in 1854, is still in business on East 7th Street in New York, right by Surma's Ukrainian store which continues to be a source of Ukrainian recordings after 92 years.)

1. Houdini was a pioneer, but he was far from being one of the first people to record calypso.  The first documented singers were Julian Whiterose and Jules Syms, in 1914.  You can hear them on one of Dick Spottswood/John Cowley's reissue cds, Calypso Pioneers 1912-1937, Rounder CD 1039 (samples on Amazon?  There also appear to be the usual pirate cds or mp3s of these songs on Amazon.)  Johnny Walker in 1921.  Phil Madison in 1923.  Sam Manning in 1924.  Charles Abdullah and Lyle Willoughby in 1925.  Houdini first recorded in 1927. 

2. Decca 17000 calypsos were sold in the U.S. going back to the first Decca calypso recordings in 1935.  The biggest sellers seemed to have been three 1937 records, Abdication/Netty Netty 17297, Edward The VIII/Three Friends Advice 17298, and Roosevelt In Trinidad/Out the Fire 17302.  17297 was not sold in Trinidad because the British censors considered Netty Netty smutty.  (The offensive line was "Netty Netty, Give me the thing that you got in your belly.")  Go figure.  Netty Netty incorporates the orchestral playing the melody of Andy Razaf's Christopher Columbus.  You can hear two of these songs on the Rounder cd "Roosevelt In Trinidad".

3. My father heard Houdini on the radio and made trips to Harlem to buy 17000 Decca calypsos.  I have heard similar stories.

4. Until Pearl Harbor in 1941, there was a period where Decca did not sell calypso records in the United States which were critical of Hitler and I think Mussolini too.  There was a Neutrality Act, probably the Neutrality Act of 1939 but possibly other Neutrality Acts going back to 1935, which prohibited sale of such material.  Decca published a 4-page foldover listing of its calypso records with asterisks next to the prohibited records, "Not for sale in the U.S."  Do others on this list know about other records prohibited under the Neutrality Act?  I saw a film clip of Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Franklin D Roosevelt where Roosevelt proclaimed U.S. neutrality during the Spanish Civil War.  (1937?)  Roosevelt declared, "Americans . . hate . . war."  (On a related subject, after Pearl Harbor when the Soviet Union was still neutral, the Almanac Singers made the short-lived anti-war John Doe album and had a song Ballad of October 16th with the chorus "He said 'I hate war!  And so does Eleanor.'")

5. Bear Family put out a 10-cd set of all the 1938-1940 Decca calypsos recorded in Trinidad.  You can sample these records at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B000GQML8M/ref=pd_krex_listen_dp_img?ie=UTF8&refTagSuffix=dp_img

This is an important set.  The sound is very clean but to my ears the highs sound truncated, which I regret because this set is likely to be the only complete reissue that will ever be done.

6. Lots of calypso recordings were made in the 1920s and 1930s for other companies.  Following the Andrews Sisters' hit Rum and Coca Cola, Trinidadian calypsonians came to New York in 1945 to record for Decca and for Guild.  Guild did extensive calypso recording, but only issued a limited number of records before it went out of business.  Musicraft then issued a number of calypsos from the Guild masters.  Then came Moe Asch with Disc and Continental which seemed to have some arrangement with SaGomes in Trinidad, and plenty of others.  The story goes on, continuing to this day./steve 
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