Bibliography

Calypso Resources: Bibliography Discography Web Sites

Most of the books listed below are in print and can be purchased through major online stores. Other materials can be obtained through libraries and interlibrary loan services.   Bellour, Hélène, Jeffrey Chock, Kim Johnson, and Milla Riggio. Renegades: The History of the Renegades Steel Orchestra of Trinidad and Tobago. Oxford: Macmillan, 2002. Study of the history and contemporary life of one of Trinidad's top steelbands, based on extensive interviewing and photographic documentation. Also includes general material on steelbands in Trinidad.   Bourne, Stephen. Black in the British Frame: Black People in British Film and Television, 1896-1996. London: Cassell, 1998. Includes material on Edric Connor, Cy Grant and other performing artists associated with calypso in post-World War II Britain.   Caribbean Quarterly 4, Nos., 3-4 (1956). Seminal analysis of the Trinidad Carnival in a special issue of a Caribbean studies journal. Includes an article edited by Andrew Pearse on legends related to calypso. Issue was republished as Trinidad Carnival (Port of Spain, Trinidad: Paria Publishing Company, 1988).   Cohen, Abner. Masquerade Politics: Explorations in the Structure of Urban Cultural Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Anthropological study of the Notting Hill Carnival in London.   Collins, John. West African Pop Roots. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. Includes information on the influence of calypso on highlife and other forms of West African popular music.   Cowley, John. Carnival, Canboulay and Calypso: Traditions in the Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Study of the emergence of calypso and other Carnival traditions in Trinidad. Extensive use of nineteenth and early twentieth-century newspaper articles and other archival sources.   Cowley, John. "Cultural 'Fusions': Aspects of British West Indian Music in the USA and Britain 1918-51." In Popular Music 5: Continuity and Change, edited by Richard Middleton and David Horn, pp. 81-96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Examination of the dissemination of music from the Anglophone Caribbean to the United States and Britain, with particular attention to Trinidadian musicians Sam Manning and Cyril Blake.   Cowley, John. "London is the Place: Caribbean Music in the Context of Empire 1900-60. In Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music, edited by Paul Oliver, pp. 58-76. Milton Keynes, U.K.: Open University Press, 1990. Overview of Anglophone Caribbean music in Britain, particularly after World War II. Includes material on the British recordings of Lord Kitchener, Lord Beginner and other calypsonians.   Crowley, Daniel J. "Toward a Definition of 'Calypso.'" Ethnomusicology 3 (1959): 55-66, 117-124. Overview of calypso in Trinidad and related song forms in other Caribbean islands.   Dudley, Shannon. "Judging 'By the Beat': Calypso Versus Soca." Ethnomusicology 40 (1996) 269-298. Musicological analysis of the characteristics of calypso and the style of calypso known as "soca."   Dudley, Shannon. Carnival Music in Trinidad: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Introduction to the history and aesthetics of calypso and steelbands. Includes transcriptions of music and a CD.   Elder, Jacob D. "Kalinda: Song of the Battling Troubadours of Trinidad." Journal of the Folklore Institute 3 (1966): 192-203. Study of traditional stickfighting music in Trinidad, one of the sources of calypso.   Eldridge, Michael. "Remains of the Day-O: A Conversation with Harry Belafonte." Transition 92 (2001): 110-137. Extensive interview with Harry Belafonte, including comments on calypso and "world music."   Eldridge, Michael. "There Goes the Transnational Neighborhood: Calypso Buys a Bungalow." Callaloo 25, no. 2 (2002): 620-38. Interpretation of recordings made by the Roaring Lion, Atilla the Hun and other calypsonians in New York during the 1930s.   Gibbons, Rawle. No Surrender: A Biography of the Growling Tiger. Tunapuna, Trinidad: Canboulay Productions, 1994. A short biography of one of the major calypsonians of the mid-twentieth century.   Hill, Donald R. Calypso Calaloo: Early Carnival Music in Trinidad. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993. Historical/anthropological examination of calypso, with particular attention to diverse performance settings for the music and the impact of the recording industry. Focuses on Trinidad during the first half of the twentieth century, with some material on the United States and Britain.   Hill, Donald R. "'I Am Happy Just to Be in This Sweet Land of Liberty': The New York City Calypso Craze of the 1930s and 1940s." In Island Sounds in the Global City: Caribbean Popular Music and Identity in New York, edited by Ray Allen and Lois Wilcken, pp.74-92. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Detailed examination of calypso in the New York recording industry and the city's nightclubs and theatrical shows. Covers such figures as Gerald Clark, Roaring Lion, Atilla the Hun, Sir Lancelot, Duke of Iron and Macbeth the Great.   Hill, Errol. The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. A classic study of Trinidadian Carnival traditions. Includes an examination of historical source materials on calypso, along with an analysis of calypso style and performance. New edition published by New Beacon Books (London) in 1997.   Kasinitz, Philip. Caribbean New York: Black Immigrants and the Politics of Race. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Includes material on the Labor Day Carnival in Brooklyn.   Liverpool, Hollis “Chalkdust.” From the Horse’s Mouth: Stories of the History and Development of the Calypso from the 1920s To 1970s. Trinidad: Juba Publications, 2003. A calypso oral history collection, compiled by a teacher/scholar who has also been a leading calypsonian since the 1970s.   Liverpool, Hollis “Chalkdust.” Rituals of Power and Rebellion: The Carnival Tradition in Trinidad & Tobago, 1763-1962. Chicago: Research Associates School Times Publications, 2001. Wide-ranging exploration of the development of Carnival traditions in Trinidad, with much material on calypso.   Manuel, Peter, with Kenneth Bilby and Michael Largey. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. Overview of musical genres throughout the Caribbean. An in-depth chapter by Kenneth Bilby on Jamaican musical traditions includes material on mento.   Mason, Peter. Bacchanal!: The Carnival Culture of Trinidad. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Journalistic study of Carnival in contemporary Trinidad. Includes a chapter on calypso.   Mitchell, Joseph. "Houdini's Picnic." New Yorker (May 6, 1939): 61-71. First-hand account of a party thrown by the calypsonian Houdini in Harlem in the late 1930s.   Neely, Daniel. "Long Time Gal!" The Beat 20, no. 6 (2001): 38-42. Overview of Jamaican mento and its connections with calypso.   Nizer, Louis. My Life in Court. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1961. Includes a lengthy chapter on the court battle over the copyright for the music of the calypso "Rum and Coca Cola," written by Lord Invader.   Olsen, Dale A. and Daniel E. Sheehy, eds. South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, volume 2. New York: Garland Publishing, 1998. Reference book with chapters on the musical traditions of most Caribbean islands and territories.   Puri, Shalini. "Canonized Hybridities, Resistant Hybridities: Chutney Soca, Carnival, and the Politics of Nationalism." In Caribbean Romances: The Politics of Regional Representation, edited by Belinda J. Edmondson, pp. 12-38. Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1999. Study of chutney soca in relation to the cultural politics of Trinidad.   Quevedo, Raymond. Atilla's Kaiso: A Short History of Trinidad Calypso. St. Augustine, Trinidad: Department of Extra Mural Studies, University of the West Indies, 1983. Overview of the calypso art form by one of its greatest exponents: Atilla the Hun (Raymond Quevedo). Atilla lived from 1892 to 1962.   Regis, Louis. The Political Calypso: True Opposition in Trinidad and Tobago, 1962-1987. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999. Study of political commentary in calypsos after the independence of Trinidad and Tobago in 1962. Particular attention to the administrations of Prime Minister Eric Williams and the People's National Movement.   Rohlehr, Gordon. Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad. Port of Spain: Gordon Rohlehr, 1990. Comprehensive study of calypso's roots in folk traditions, the emergence of diverse genres of calypso over time, and the centrality of the art form to the social and political life of Trinidad. Covers developments from the nineteenth century to 1962.   Rohlehr, Gordon. "Music, Literature, and West Indian Cricket Values." In An Area of Conquest: Popular Democracy and West Indies Cricket Supremacy, edited by Hilary McD. Beckles, pp. 55-102. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle, 1994. Analysis of calypsos about cricket from the 1920s to the present.   Rohlehr, Gordon. "'We Getting the Kaiso That We Deserve': Calypso and the World Music Market." The Drama Review 42, no. 3 (1998): 82-95. Examination of how contemporary Trinidadian calypsonians negotiate local and foreign markets in their composition of calypsos.   Scher, Philip W. Carnival and the Formation of a Caribbean Transnation. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Anthropological study of relationships between Carnivals in Trinidad and Brooklyn. Focuses on masquerades and cultural politics.   Sherwood, Marika, et al. Claudia Jones: A Life In Exile. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1999. Includes material on the establishment of a Caribbean Carnival in London by journalist/activist Claudia Jones in 1959.   Stuempfle, Stephen. The Steelband Movement: The Forging of a National Art in Trinidad and Tobago. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995. Historical and ethnographic overview of the steelband movement in Trinidad. Particular attention to the steelband as a contested symbol of national identity.   Warner, Keith Q. Kaiso! The Trinidad Calypso: A Study of the Calypso as Oral Literature. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1985. Literary study of the language and themes of calypso, including social/political topics and male-female relationships. Also considers representations of calypso in Trinidadian novels and short stories.   Winer, Lise. "Socio-Cultural Change and the Language of Calypso." New West Indian Guide 60 (1986): 113-148. Examination of changes in calypso lyrics in relation to social developments in Trinidad since the late nineteenth century.

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