Lionel Belasco

Maracaibo ) , motto = "''Muy noble y leal''"(English: "Very noble and loyal") , anthem = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_alt = ...

(

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in t ...

) 1881 – ) was a prominent Venezuelan pianist, composer and bandleader, best known for his calypso recordings.

Biography

According to various sources, Belasco was born in

Maracaibo ) , motto = "''Muy noble y leal''"(English: "Very noble and loyal") , anthem = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_alt = ...

(

), the son of an

Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the t ...

mother and a

Sephardic Jewish Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

father. He spent his early childhood 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 munici ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of Gr ...

, and grew up in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmo ...

. He traveled widely in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean S ...

and South America in his youth, absorbing a wide variety of musical influences. He was leading his own band by 1902, and made his first

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

recordings in Trinidad in 1914.Richie Unterberger
"Artist Biography"
at AllMusic.

References

External links

Lionel Belasco recordings
at the

Discography of American Historical Recordings The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The DAHR provides some of these original recordings, free of charge, via audio streaming, along with ...

. * https://web.archive.org/web/20110616102802/http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Biography/bio_Lionel_Belasco1.html 1881 births 1967 deaths American bandleaders American Sephardic Jews American people of Trinidad and Tobago descent American people of Venezuelan-Jewish descent Calypsonians People from Maracaibo People from Port of Spain 20th-century Trinidad and Tobago male singers Venezuelan Jews {{US-composer-19thC-stub

Biography

See also

References

External links