Calypso

Calypso music is the folk music of Trinidad. It generally has simple melodies and the words are often about persons prominent in current events.

Calypso music was developed in Trinidad in the 17th century from the music brought by African slaves imported to that Caribbean island to work on sugar plantations.

The first recorded use of the word "calypso" in Trinidad was in 1900.

In 1912 Lovey's String Band travelled to New York City to make the first calypso recordings.

The adoption of all-steel percussion by Alexander's Ragtime Band in 1939 was widely copied, and prompted the development of the steelpan. 

Calypso music became popular as form of jazz music in U.S in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Andrews Sisters 1942 cover of "Rum and Coca Cola" (by Lord Invader) was the first American hit for calypso.

Mighty Sparrow (born Slinger Francisco, 1935) is widely known as the "Calypso King of the World". He won Trinidad's Carnival Road March competition eight times and the Calypso Monarch title eight times. 

Mighty Sparrow's 1956 recording "Jean and Dinah," celebrating the departure of US troops from Trinidad. was the last hit for classical calypso. 

"Jean and Dinah" led to a new interest in pop-calypso, heralded by another major hit, Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song", which came from the album Calypso, the first LP to sell over a million copies. The album spent 31 weeks at number one on the Billboard pop albums chart — knocking Elvis Presley's debut album off the top spot — and remained in the top ten for 58 weeks. It was inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2017 as a culturally significant work.

"Banana Boat Song" depicts the daily struggle of Jamaican banana-plantation labourers, a world Belafonte knew personally: "Most of my family in the Caribbean, in Jamaica, were plant workers and harvesting bananas and sugarcane," he said. "I woke up one day and everyone was singing 'Day-O.'"

Rolf Harris' single "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" was inspired by the Harry Belafonte calypso craze, which was big at the time. He wrote it as an Australian calypso.

Soca — "the soul of calypso" — originated in Trinidad in the 1970s, fusing calypso with soul and Indian chutney music rhythms. It was pioneered by Lord Shorty, whose 1973 tune "Indrani" is widely credited as the first soca record.

As soca began to supplant calypso in popularity in Trinidad during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mighty Sparrow embraced the hybrid sound. In 1984 he won his eighth Road March title with the soca-influenced "Doh Back Back". Four years later, Bob Dylan called him "fantastic … His shows are like prize fights and he always comes out on top."