Campbell Gallery Exhibit: Calypso Music in Postwar America: Photographs and Illustrations, 1945-1960

• Event Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2008–Sunday, August 10, 2008
• Time: Regular Museum hours (CDT)
• Location: The Campbell Gallery, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free Admission

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Calypso Music in Postwar America explores the major impact of Trinidadian calypso on the popular culture of the United States between 1945 and 1960. Rare photographs and promotional graphics are used to trace calypso in phonograph recordings, song publishing, nightclub acts, concerts, Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. During the postwar years, Americans were captivated by calypso’s poetic statements, social observations and lively rhythms. In 1945 the Andrews Sisters’ recording of Lord Invader’s “Rum and Coca-Cola” soared to the top of the charts. In 1956 Harry Belafonte released Calypso, which became the first single-artist album in entertainment history to sell more than one million copies. Among the many other famous calypso artists of the period were Sir Lancelot, the Duke of Iron and Macbeth the Great, all from Trinidad, and Lord Flea from Jamaica. Calypsos were also sung by a variety of American popular singers, such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Josephine Premice, Maya Angelou, the Tarriers and the Easy Riders. By presenting documentation of this wide range of performers, the exhibition examines how calypso’s popularity was shaped by mass media, a booming entertainment industry, Caribbean migration to the U.S., American military service and tourism in the Caribbean, and the postwar folk music revival.

This exhibition was organized by the Historical Museum of Southern Florida.
Calypso: A World Music was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.