Norman Span
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Norman Span
Norman Span, known as King Radio, was a top Trinidadian calypsonian active in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a waterfront worker in Port of Spain Port of Spain (Spanish: ''Puerto España''), officially the City of Port of Spain (also stylized Port-of-Spain), is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago and the third largest municipality, after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a municip ... when he started performing in public in 1929. Six years later he started his short-lived recording career. He was the composer of many calypsos, several of which later became standards through popular recordings by Harry Belafonte such as "Matilda (calypso song), Matilda", "Man Smart (Woman Smarter), Man Smart, Woman Smarter", and "Brown Skin Girl". References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King Radio Calypsonians 20th-century Trinidad and Tobago male singers ...
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Calypsonian
A calypsonian,Definition of CALYPSO
merriam-webster.com originally known as a '''', is a musician from the anglophone Caribbean who sings songs of the calypso genre. Calypsos are musical renditions having their origins in the West African tradition. Originally called "Kaiso" in , these song ...
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University Of The West Indies
The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Each country is either a member of the Commonwealth of Nations or a British Overseas Territory. The aim of the university is to help "unlock the potential for economic and cultural growth" in the West Indies, thus allowing improved regional autonomy. The university was originally instituted as an independent external college of the University of London. The university has produced students who have excelled in a number of disciplines such as the arts ...
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Port Of Spain
Port of Spain (Spanish: ''Puerto España''), officially the City of Port of Spain (also stylized Port-of-Spain), is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago and the third largest municipality, after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a municipal population of 37,074 (2011 census), an urban population of 81,142 (2011 estimate) and a transient daily population of 250,000. It is located on the Gulf of Paria, on the northwest coast of the island of Trinidad and is part of a larger conurbation stretching from Chaguaramas in the west to Arima in the east with an estimated population of 600,000. The city serves primarily as a retail and administrative centre and it has been the capital of the island since 1757. It is also an important financial services centre for the CaribbeanCIA World Factbook Trinidad an ...
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Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s. His breakthrough album '' Calypso'' (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist. Belafonte is best known for his recordings of "The Banana Boat Song", with its signature "Day-O" lyric, " Jump in the Line", and " Jamaica Farewell". He has recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He has 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 was a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. As he later recalled, "Paul Robes ...
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Matilda (calypso Song)
"Matilda" (sometimes spelled Mathilda) is a Calypso music, calypso song. Some songwriting credits are given as ''Harry Thomas'' (rumoured to be a pseudonym combining Harry Belafonte and his guitarist, Millard Thomas, but ASCAP simply lists Harry Thomas alias Harry Belafonte, the writer of "Hold 'em Joe"), some credits are given as Norman Span. History "Matilda" is a song lamenting a woman who took a man for all he was worth. The song dates back to at least the 1930s, when calypso pioneer King Radio (the stage name of Norman Span) recorded the song. Harry Belafonte first recorded it in 1953, which became a big hit. Harry Belafonte's first recording of the song was on April 27, 1953 and was released as a single. He re-recorded "Matilda" for his second RCA Victor LP, ''Belafonte (album), Belafonte'', released in 1955. The oft-repeated phrase in his rendition of the song is like the following, emphasizing the syllables of the subject's name as shown: :''Hey! Ma-til-da; Ma-til-da; ...
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Man Smart (Woman Smarter)
"Man Smart (Woman Smarter)" is a calypso song variously credited as being composed by Norman Span (King Radio), D. L. Miller, F. Kuhn, and Charles Harris. Span's authorship seems most likely since, as a popular calypso musician and songwriter, he first recorded the song in 1936, and none of the other ascribed composers are associated with calypso. Miller's music industry career began around 1950. Artists from many genres, including Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, the Carpenters, Rosanne Cash, Chubby Checker, Dr Victor, Robert Palmer, and Ratdog, have recorded the song. It was a staple of the live repertoire of the Grateful Dead from 1981 to 1995. Belafonte's first of three recordings of the song was included on his best-selling album '' Calypso'', which reached number one on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart in 1956, and remained on the chart for 31 weeks. Span is credited as the song's composer on Belafonte's albums. It is sung by Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, William Frawley and V ...
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Hartford Courant
The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury, its headquarters on Broad Street in Hartford, Connecticut is a short walk from the state capitol. It reports regional news with a chain of bureaus in smaller cities and a series of local editions. It also operates ''CTNow'', a free local weekly newspaper and website. The ''Courant'' began as a weekly called the ''Connecticut Courant'' on October 29, 1764, becoming daily in 1837. In 1979, it was bought by the Times Mirror Company. In 2000, Times Mirror was acquired by the Tribune Company, which later combined the paper's management and facilities with those of a Tribune-owned Hartford television station. The ''Courant'' and other Tribune print properties were spun off to a new corporate parent, Tribune Publishing ...
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Society For Ethnomusicology
The Society for Ethnomusicology is, with the International Council for Traditional Music and thBritish Forum for Ethnomusicology one of three major international associations for ethnomusicology. Its mission is "to promote the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts." Officially founded in 1955, its origins extend back to November, 1953 at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia with an informal agreement between Willard Rhodes, David McAllester, and Alan P. Merriam. These three traveled together to the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in New Haven to enlist the support of musicologist Charles Seeger in their endeavor to create a new academic society. This meeting resulted in the launch of the ''Ethno-musicology Newsletter'', ethnomusicology's first dedicated serial publication, containing notes about current field research projects, a bibliography, and list of recordings ...
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