Josephine Premice
Josephine Premice (1926-2001) was the most prominent female calypso performer in the U.S. during the 1940s and 1950s. She was born in Haiti in 1926 and moved to New York at age 10. Initially, she planned to be an anthropologist and obtained a degree from Columbia University. But she was swept into show business, first as a dancer, then as a singer and, finally, as an actress. As a result of a chance encounter on the subway at age 19, she appeared as a dancer in the short-lived 1945 Broadway musical Blue Holiday. She subsequently sang at both the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel nightclubs in New York. These performances led to a nationwide tour with Josh White (who also appeared in Blue Holiday) in which she danced and sang a range of material, including calypsos.
In 1947 Premice performed in Sam Manning's calypso musical Caribbean
Carnival. Her first recording was a calypso single in 1949. She then
moved to Paris and toured France, Italy, Spain, England and Scandinavia
for several years. During the 1956-57 "calypso craze," she returned
to the U.S., performed in nightclubs and released two albums of calypsos.
She was chosen as the second lead to Lena Horne for the Broadway hit musical
Jamaica and sang the most calypso-like numbers in the show. After
the calypso craze, Premice married and raised a family, but continued
to perform in theater and, later, in television sitcoms.
