Public Events: Conferences| Traveling exhibition Calypso Music in Postwar America: Photographs and Illustrations, 1945-1960 A Traveling Exhibition Organized by the Historical Museum of Southern Florida Schedule August 4 - September 26, 2004 Brooklyn Public Library - Central Library Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn, New York www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org October 4 - December 12, 2004 Brooklyn College Library West of Intersection of Nostrand Ave. & Campus Rd. Brooklyn College Brooklyn, New York February 24 - June 5, 2005 Historical Museum of Southern Florida 101 W. Flagler St. Miami, Florida January 9 - March 3, 2006 CLICO Gallery 29 St. Vincent Street Port of Spain, Trinidad June 20 - September 30, 2006 Kansas City Public Library 14 W. 10th Street Kansas City, Missouri January 19 - April 30, 2007 Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center 275 North Jordan Avenue Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana March 25 - August 10, 2008 Spurlock Museum 600 South Gregory Street University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, Illinois

Synopsis Calypso Music in Postwar America explores the major impact of Trinidadian calypso on the popular culture of the United States between 1945 and 1960. Rare photographs and promotional graphics are used to trace calypso in phonograph recordings, song publishing, nightclub acts, concerts, Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. During the postwar years, Americans were captivated by calypso's poetic statements, social observations and complex rhythms. In 1945 the Andrews Sisters' recording of Lord Invader's "Rum and Coca-Cola" soared to the top of the charts. In 1956 Harry Belafonte released Calypso, which became the first single-artist album in entertainment history to sell more than one million copies. Among the many other famous calypso artists of the period were Sir Lancelot, the Duke of Iron and Macbeth the Great, all from Trinidad, and Lord Flea from Jamaica. Calypsos were also sung by a variety of American popular singers, such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Josephine Premice, Maya Angelou, the Tarriers and the Easy Riders. By presenting documentation of this wide range of performers, the exhibition examines how calypso's popularity was shaped by mass media, a booming entertainment industry, Caribbean migration to the U.S., American military service and tourism in the Caribbean, and the postwar folk music revival. Calypso Music in Postwar America includes more than 100 photographs, songbooks, pieces of sheet music, record album covers, movie posters and other original graphics related to calypso in the United States, 1945-1960. Much of the material is from the private collection of Ray Funk, a popular music researcher based in Fairbanks, Alaska. Additional items are from a variety of archives in the United States, the United Kingdom and Trinidad.

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