Songwriter for the calypso Day-O dies aged 95.
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Irving Burgie
2019-12-01 14:15:02
2019-12-01 14:36:15
may he RIP.
and all this time i thought he was Guyanese
2019-12-01 14:59:00
In reply to Priapus
Wow - didn't know he was still alive
2019-12-01 15:12:03
In reply to sudden
He wrote these as well
Mary''s Boychild
Island of the Sea and SUn
Oh Island in the Sun
Sadly, Bajans treated him the same way they treated Jackie - very badly.
2019-12-01 15:48:11
In reply to Chrissy
How so?
2019-12-01 15:51:31
In reply to FuzzyWuzzy
Other than a few singers in hotels singing the songs without ever mentioning his name, little attention was paid to him or Jackie. He was literally the pioneer. Most Bajans don't even know Burgie.
As an aside, last week Sunday my folks and I were in a JUTA van that we used for the weekend with the same driver. He had some fabulous oldies and could not believe that I knew every line from the Jackie songs.
They were all howling with laughter at my Cry me a River as we headed to Port Royal. And everyone sand along to Day O 
2019-12-01 15:54:18
In reply to Chrissy
Not true. He is well known if for no other reason than he wrote the lyrics to our national anthem.
He was honoured by government and feted on Independence Day many times.
2019-12-01 15:55:38
In reply to FuzzyWuzzy
That is what he is known for- not his calypsoes
2019-12-01 15:56:39
In reply to Chrissy
Again not true. Everybody knows about island in the sun and day o
2019-12-01 15:59:17
In reply to FuzzyWuzzy
Ask Sudden nuh!
2019-12-01 16:01:15
In reply to Chrissy
Sudden is trolling can't you see that.
2019-12-01 16:11:28
In reply to FuzzyWuzzy
Could be
2019-12-01 16:12:03
In reply to FuzzyWuzzy
Sudden is trolling can't you see that.
Even a Lucian knows these tit bits about Burgie. But I was required to know...
2019-12-01 18:14:27
[b]In reply to Chrissy
I could understand your argument re: Jackie Opel, he was born in Barbados and as you said bajans treated him badly, the gracious Mr. Burgie who penned our National Anthem was born in the USA to a Bajan mother, how much of his formidable years were spent in Barbados where he could've cultivated any relationship with Bajans?....please tell me because I want to know...I am not asking for anyone but me.
2019-12-01 18:16:55
In reply to cherri
Did not know he was US born - thanks
Latest Colbertversion
2019-12-01 18:21:52
[b]In reply to Chrissy[
That skit is too funny
2019-12-01 18:24:56
In reply to cherri
Agree
2019-12-01 20:10:43
I have never heard of Irving Burgie.I have come across the name Lord Burgess. I thought he was just another mento calypsonian like Lord Flea and count lasher. Been listening to Belafonte since the late 1950s,I just assume that given his Jamaican heritage, he was just singing his own compositions, traditional folk songs and compositions by local mento artistes. Shake senora by Lord flea comes to mind. Obviously Irving Burgie in collaboration with Belafonte did a lot to expose Calypso and Caribbean rhythm to the world. RIP Sir.
2019-12-01 20:11:39
In reply to DonD
Harry B sang mostly songs written by others.
2019-12-01 21:49:55
In reply to Chrissy
Like Whitney and Rhianna, ent.
2019-12-01 21:52:11
In reply to DonD
Day O by all accounts is a Jamaican traditional song that Burgie and someone else changed, and/or added words to. They did not write the original. I'm guessing most reports are not pointing this out.
2019-12-02 06:21:46
In reply to JahJah
Bang on, JJ man! I'm 68 y.o. and here are the essential lyrics in Patois as I learned them as a child:
Day! Me say Day, me say Day, oh!
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Come Missa Tallyman, tally me banana.
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Six han', seven han', eight han', bunch!
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Come Missa Tallyman, tally me banana.
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Six han', seven han', eight han', bunch!
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
It was quite obvious that the Belafonte version was Anglicised for the foreign audience. And BTW, even in the 1960s we still followed the "Six han', seven han', eight han', bunch" style of tallying wherein a stem of bananas with anything over eight hands* was termed bunch.
*[One banana is a finger]
--Æ.
2019-12-02 11:33:11
In reply to JayMor
Thanks JayMor (and JahJah) for restoring my confidence.
It was only a couple of weeks ago I asserted to some (Yankee) associates that The Banana Boat song was an adaptation of a Jamaican folk song.
Reading through this thread temporarily put a dent into my confidence.
2019-12-02 12:10:38
In reply to JayMor
Lotsa memories Jay. You are correct. Your version of the Banana boat song was one of the more popular songs we would sing for the visiting school inspectors. My maternal grandfather was a banana Tallyman or Selector up to the mid 1950s. Every second Monday, people in the district would bring their bananas for him to select. These bananas would then be transported to Lucea Monday evening where they would be selected again, and loaded onto the banana ships supposedly bound for England. The tallyman's job was not an easy one. Proper fitness and unscathed stems were very important criteria. Accurate book keeping was also important. Minimum size stem was 6 hands, occasionally there would be some giant 13 hands stems. A bunch was 9 hands. Payment would be based on the size of the stem.
Early Tuesday morning people would flock into my grandfather's yard or at his shop to collect their money. Then he had the unpleasant job to explain to some why the ship selectors rejected their bananas.
2019-12-02 13:28:36
Good history. Hope he was justly rewarded. RIP
2019-12-02 17:28:17
In reply to Chrissy
Eric Himpton Holder, has been awarded the Honorary Award of the Order of the Freedom of Barbados.
The difference between Holder and Burgie, Holder spent many summers in Barbados, he knows St Joseph better than Sudden and Powen.
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2019-12-02 17:45:23
In reply to JayMor & DonD
Alright! I am 79 now and lived in St Mary the great banana parish between age 6 and 10. Your account is the best so far.
We learnt and sang Day Oh, the Jamaican song back in '47-51, long before it became The Banana Boat Song with Belafonte.
We had been hearing his single "Hol' 'Im Joe" with the phrase "Akumba Lacka Chimba" around 1952-53. Harry's breakthrough album "Calypso" the first million-selling LP by a single artist, came in 1956.
But the song I learnt from my school-teacher father included the following words:
Day Oh, Day oh
Day dah light an me waan go home
Day Oh, Day oh
Day dah light an me waan go home
Come Missa Tallyman, tally me banana.
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Me come yah fi work mi noh come hay fi igle
No gimme such a bunch Me noh horse wid brigle
Day dah light an me waan go home
Checka dem a check
But dem check wid caution
Day dah light an me waan go home
Me back dissa bruk
From pure exhaustion
Day dah light an me waan go home
Six han', seven han', eight han', bunch!
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Six han', seven han', eight han', bunch!
Day deh light an' me wan' fe go home.
Day Oh, Day oh
Day dah light an me waan go home
Day Oh, Day oh
Day dah light an me waan go home
Nothing about Black Maranzas!
As regards Mr. Burgie or Burgess the story I heard is that he did not write the song which existed before him but he only wrote it down and had it registered/copyrighted.
So me get i' so me sell i'
//
2019-12-02 17:51:42
In reply to Ewart
You are correct - Harry B is a cover King up there with D Brown
2019-12-02 18:03:02
In reply to Chrissy
//
2019-12-02 18:21:15
In reply to JayMor
The language of DayO is clearly more Jamaican than Bajan
2019-12-02 18:21:53
In reply to Chrissy
ANd I suspect that D Brown respected copyright 
2019-12-02 18:38:59
In reply to Ewart
We had been hearing his single "Hol' 'Im Joe" with the phrase "Akumba Lacka Chimba"
Miss Lou often said that heritage wise, there is little difference between our folk music and some European classical pieces which are also derived from their folk music. Our Ja mento music has been around for many, many decades and are still being performed today. As a little boy I often heard some women with wash pans on their head, coming from river and packed with wet clothes, singing the most beautiful arias. Or when scrubbing clothes at the river side, they would be singing beautiful three part harmony rounds. When Belafonte threw in "Akumba lacka chimba" all he was doing was adding a short cadenza which classical performers often do while performing some of the great classical concertos.
Anyway, big up Belafonte and Burgie they exposed our music to the world.
2019-12-02 18:58:35
In reply to Ewart
So me get i' so me sell i'
You're obviously selling it right, Maas Ewie. What a memory! Great job, sah. Times like these I wish my parents were still around.
In reply to DonD
Wonderful 'colour commentary'. Even as a boy, through these songs and certain sayings I was able to form a picture of the post-slavery period up to the time of my parents' youth. Of course, I caught the tail end of sugar cane, banana, pimento, milk and cocoa being centrally sold off and trucked away. Couple of place names in Morris are interesting in this regard: Pimento Gate and Pen Gate. They capture commercial activities of the past taking place there (the latter relating to milk).
--Æ.
2019-12-02 19:08:12
so on record who wrote the song?
2019-12-02 19:11:57
In reply to DonD
"Akumba Lacka Chimba"
You and Ewart bowl me wid dat one. I suspect that "chimba" is "chamber" as in chamber pot or "piss po'". I know "lacka' is "like", but "akumba" is nowhere to be found in my Patois dictionary! LOL.
BTW, dem keep badderin' me 'bout Clearmont reunion this year. Me cyaan mek it; yuh goin'?
--Æ.
2019-12-02 19:14:15
In reply to sudden
Traditional J'can folk song, boss. Nobody knows. Mr Burgie wrote the modified version that Belafonte sang.
--Æ.
2019-12-02 19:23:03
In reply to JahJah
Day O by all accounts is a Jamaican traditional song that Burgie and someone else changed, and/or added words to.
yeah! a working song, same like some of the things Luciano does.
2019-12-02 20:03:38
Irving Burgie, a songwriter whose adaptation of the traditional Jamaican folk song "Day-O" became one of the definitive calypso songs of the 20th century, died on Friday. He was 95.
Burgie died as a result of complications from heart failure. His death was confirmed by his son Andrew Burgie.
Burgie performed in nightclubs as Lord Burgess, but he was best-known as a songwriter who helped Harry Belafonte bring calypso to the mainstream.
"Day-O," or as it's sometimes known, "The Banana Boat Song," was based on a Jamaican folk song and first recorded in 1952 by the Trinidadian singer Edric Connor. But Burgie reworked the lyrics for the version Belafonte would sing on the 1956 album Calypso. Belafonte's version of "Day-O" went to No. 5 on the Billboard singles chart and helped Calypso become the first full-length album ever credited with selling 1 million copies in the United States.
Burgie died as a result of complications from heart failure. His death was confirmed by his son Andrew Burgie.
Burgie performed in nightclubs as Lord Burgess, but he was best-known as a songwriter who helped Harry Belafonte bring calypso to the mainstream.
"Day-O," or as it's sometimes known, "The Banana Boat Song," was based on a Jamaican folk song and first recorded in 1952 by the Trinidadian singer Edric Connor. But Burgie reworked the lyrics for the version Belafonte would sing on the 1956 album Calypso. Belafonte's version of "Day-O" went to No. 5 on the Billboard singles chart and helped Calypso become the first full-length album ever credited with selling 1 million copies in the United States.
In 1952, with his band "The Caribbeans" (subsequently called The Southlanders)[11] Connor recorded, according to the AllMusic website, a "groundbreaking LP of Jamaican folk music" entitled Songs from Jamaica.[12] This recording of songs was based on a collection made by a British Council staff member in Jamaica, Tom Murray, entitled "Folk Songs of Jamaica", published by Oxford University Press in 1951. Murray had arranged thirty Jamican songs for voice and piano, and Edric Connor's recording generally uses Murray's arrangements. Although Connor's accent is slightly 'un-Jamaican' (as Connor came from Trinidad), the recording was very influential. The group included the song "Day Dah Light", which portrayed the hard life of Caribbean field workers. The song was later recorded by Jamaican folk singer Louise Bennett in 1954, and was rewritten in 1955 by Irving Burgie and William Attaway. The version performed by Harry Belafonte became known as "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", reaching number five on the Billboard charts in 1957,
2019-12-02 20:10:30
In reply to Casper
a more accurate account there.
2019-12-02 20:21:16
In reply to JayMor
Jay I haven't heard about a Clairmont reunion. Most likely my older brother knows about it. He grew up in Clairmont with my paternal grand parents. When my father married my mother in 1942 he left Clairmont and lived in my mothers district for a time. My grand mother was from Clairmont, she had 3 brothers and one sister living there and one brother living in Jericho. As a little boy I visited Clairmont quite often with my father. If you have Morris relatives in Clairmont, chances are we might well be related. My grand mother's maiden name was Morris.
Back to hole him Joe. If I recall, the song goes something like this. Donkey want water , Hole him Joe. Spring round the corner, hole him joe, donkey no want carry load, hold him joe.etc.
I suspect that Akimba lacka chimba is likely a euphemistic sexual expression. Spring is a time when Donkeys get into heat. At that time of the year Some of those jacks don't want to be hampered, they get violent, chew rope and hunt down ginnys.
2019-12-02 20:48:40
I must say, I do very much appreciate the wiser presence on CCcom of some older heads and others who do share their experiences of growing up in different parts of the Windies.
Reminds me of growing in certain parts of Bim where the older ones, most often men, would gather around at some street corner, regaling each other with stories on life or on sports, cricket especially, as younger one, like me, would have to stand at a distance, seen but not heard, but with ears perked up, soaking it in.
2019-12-02 20:56:26
In reply to JayMor
I'm going to ask the real expert on the language - Maureen Warner Lewis.
2019-12-02 20:57:40
In reply to Casper
Good account
2019-12-02 22:16:20
Very nice thread this!
I enjoy reading the historic account of the songs, language etc. from you fellas.
Thanks.
2019-12-02 22:41:39
In reply to Casper
I must say, I do very much appreciate the wiser presence on CCcom of some older heads and others who do share their experiences of growing up in different parts of the Windies.
That's because you're a genuine Caribbean person and not one of the insular posters
2019-12-02 23:07:55
Wonderful thread! I love my West Indian culture and its history ...Im more familiar with Barbados and Trinidad so this is enlightening.
Note: Burgie did not wrote Mary's Boy Child either...it is accredited to a Jester Hairston.
Island in the Sun and Jamaica Farewell are classics though and they epitomise Burgie's greatness as a song writer.
2019-12-02 23:56:43
In reply to sudden
Burgie wrote an Anglicized cover.
2019-12-02 23:59:54
How many of you know that this is the original and not the Culture version
2019-12-03 00:10:27
In reply to Chrissy
You are correct - Harry B is a cover King up there with D Brown
And Whitney the cover queen? All down to "Jesus loves me this I know..." to rass.
Oh sorry, we talking Windians only?
2019-12-03 00:16:14
In reply to Chrissy
How many of you know that this is the original and not the Culture version
I know of that version. Loved even the Buju and guests one too.
2019-12-03 00:29:12
In reply to JahJah
2019-12-03 00:47:47
In reply to DonD
If/When I hear anything further (like the date) I'll let you know. I'm sure Sir Kenneth will attend but I won't. LOL. I understand that Jericho's will be in 2021; I'll be there if all is well.
I listened several versions of "Hold em Joe" and it seems like only Belafonte's has that "Akimba lacka chimba" line. I wonder if 'akimba' is 'akimbo"? Dunno. Yes Chrissy, I'd definitely love to hear Maureen's take on it.
--Æ.
2019-12-03 14:25:55
In reply to DonD
"Hol im Joe"
Heard this on record first as a child in the 50's. Was sung by Count Lasher in Mento. Remember this Count Lasher song goes like this:
"Dig, dig waterboy, dig till yu come to the wata
Dig,Dig waterboy perseverance will make you conqua"
Man, you, Ewart and Hubert are real treasures on this board. Keep sharing the history.
2019-12-03 14:45:18
In reply to CWWeekes
Man, you, Ewart and Hubert are real treasures on this board. Keep sharing the history.
THIS
2019-12-04 08:54:57
In reply to JahJah
"Day O by all accounts is a Jamaican traditional song that Burgie and someone else changed, and/or added words to. They did not write the original. I'm guessing most reports are not pointing this out."
Well said! The British media reports did not say that this was a traditional Jamaican folk song....
2019-12-04 08:57:41
In reply to Ewart
"Alright! I am 79 now and lived in St Mary the great banana parish between age 6 and 10. Your account is the best so far. We learnt and sang Day Oh, the Jamaican song back in '47-51, long before it became The Banana Boat Song with Belafonte."
Well said!
2019-12-04 13:55:34
In reply to mikesiva
It is obvious the guy did not write the song, what was his connection to Ja to be able to communicate in the local language?
2019-12-06 00:39:40
In reply to JayMor
She's working on it
2019-12-06 00:55:47
In reply to camos
It is obvious the guy did not write the song, what was his connection to Ja to be able to communicate in the local language?
His mother was born in Jamaica, the child of a Scottish white mother and a black father. His father also was born in Jamaica, the child of a black mother and Dutch Jewish father of Sephardi origins. Belafonte has described his grandfather, whom he never met, as "a white Dutch Jew who drifted over to the islands after chasing gold and diamonds, with no luck at all".[
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2019-12-06 01:53:53
In reply to openning
He's talking about Burgie, I believe.
I think it's common knowledge that Harry went to Wolmer's.
2019-12-06 02:48:59
In reply to JahJah
correct!
2019-12-06 09:53:48
From MWL
Good to have received a more believable account of Higgins life than the thought that a Barbadian descendant would have made up a song
about the banana industry which does and did not exist in B'dos. It
was good though that the newspaper carried the story about him.
Re 'akumba laka chimba' - I looked for those words in Swahili and
Kikongo. More likely Swahili with 'kumba' meaning 'shove, push, or
'attack, destroy' and 'chimba meaning 'dig, bore'. Can't help any
further though. Higgins and Belafonte may have picked it up from some
song they knew of, and it rhymes, so it makes a good nonce line:
ku-mba/ chi-mba.
Such nonce lines serve as fillers in songs the world over, even though
their original meanings may be lost to younger generations - in other
words, they may once have meant something.
about the banana industry which does and did not exist in B'dos. It
was good though that the newspaper carried the story about him.
Re 'akumba laka chimba' - I looked for those words in Swahili and
Kikongo. More likely Swahili with 'kumba' meaning 'shove, push, or
'attack, destroy' and 'chimba meaning 'dig, bore'. Can't help any
further though. Higgins and Belafonte may have picked it up from some
song they knew of, and it rhymes, so it makes a good nonce line:
ku-mba/ chi-mba.
Such nonce lines serve as fillers in songs the world over, even though
their original meanings may be lost to younger generations - in other
words, they may once have meant something.
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