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 interna ...
, released in 1977.
After recording exclusively for the RCA Victor label since 1953, Belafonte signed with Columbia Records in the mid 1970s. After a series of pop-oriented albums, ''Turn the World Around'' was a return to interpreting folk songs of other cultures. Gary Ginell stated in his
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
review: "It is an absolute triumph and one of the finest albums of his career." Although recorded in the US, it was only released overseas.
The title track became the focus of one of the most acclaimed performances on the successful television series, ''
The Muppet Show
''The Muppet Show'' is a sketch comedy television series created by Jim Henson and featuring the Muppets. The series originated as two pilot episodes produced by Henson for ABC in 1974 and 1975. While neither episode was moved forward as a s ...
'', where Belafonte explained the artistic theme of the song before performing it with specially designed
Muppet
The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an surreal humor, absurdist, burlesque, and self-referential humor, self-referential style of Variety show, variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they are ...
s that resembled African tribal masks:
Series producer
Jim Henson
James Maury Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, animator, cartoonist, actor, inventor, and filmmaker who achieved worldwide notice as the creator of The Muppets and '' Fraggle Rock'' (1983–1987) and ...
considered this production to be his best work on the series, and featured it in numerous retrospectives of his art; Belafonte performed the song again at Henson's memorial service in 1990.
Track listing
# "Marching to the Fair" (
Morris Goldberg
Morris Goldberg is a South African saxophonist who is recognised as one of the early pioneers of Cape Jazz, along with Dollar Brand and Chris McGregor.
Biography
Born in Cape Town, Goldberg grew up in Observatory, a suburb of Cape Town. He l ...
Irving Burgie
Irving Louis Burgie (July 28, 1924 – November 29, 2019), sometimes known professionally as Lord Burgess, was an American musician and songwriter, regarded as one of the greatest composers of Caribbean music.Fitzroy Alexander) – 5:38
# "Can't Cross Over" (Irving Burgie) – 4:44
# "A Hole in the Bucket" (Harry Belafonte,
Odetta
Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...
) – 8:46
# "Turn The World Around" (Belafonte, Robert Freedman) – 4:28
Personnel
*
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 interna ...
– vocals
*Falumi Prince – percussion, vocals on "A Hole in the Bucket & Auntie Mary"
* Dom Salvador – keyboards, musical director
*Keith Loving – guitar
*Scott Kuney – guitar
*Thelmo M. Porto – percussion
*
Nana
Nana, Nanna, Na Na or NANA may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Nana (given name), including a list of people and characters with the given name
* Nana (surname), including a list of people and characters with the surname
* Nana ( ...