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Today, we look very briefly at his life & career (with song charts and video below).
Harry Belafonte was born March 1, 1927 in New York City, his father & mother both born in Jamaica and moved to the US before Harry was born. He spent his first 5 years in Harlem, but then moved back to Jamaica to live with his grandmother and attend school. Moving back to the US in his teen years, Belafonte, he dropped out of school, served briefly in the Navy (serving in WW2), and worked as a janitor throughout the remainder of the 1940s.
It was then that he met Sidney Portier (also completely unknown at the time) and fell in love with theater, radically altering the course of his life.
By the end of the 1940s, he was not only enrolled in acting classes, which he paid for by being a club singer (as he was already a very talented singer), and doing small productions with the American Negro Theater.
During those club singer days, he appeared on stage with a variety of major acts. In fact, his very first club gig saw him backed by Charlie Parker's band (which included Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach, & others), and signed a deal with the small label Roost Records. This was followed by his first exploration into folk music (which he researched relentlessly), mixing folk musics with jazz sensibilities, and by 1953 had signed his first recording contract with RCA Records....and his talent was so vast that by 1954 he had also already appeared on Broadway and won his first Tony Award.
By 1955, his second RCA album, "Belafonte", was released and his song "Matilda" helped drive the album to #1, which was followed immediately by his classic album, "Calypso", which rocketed to the top of the charts and yielded multiple hit singles including his most famous songs "Day O (Banana Boat Song)" and "Jamaica Farewell".
At the same time, Harry was appearing on TV (Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, etc) and movies (Carmen Jones, Island in the Sun, etc) and theater (John Murray Anderson's Almanac, 3 for Tonight, etc) in addition to the concert stage.
We could continue moving from decade to decade, but suffice to say it was an incredible run, and one that garnered both commercial and critical acclaim. Belafonte is one of only a 23 EGOT winners in history (that's being a recipient of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards), National Medal of the Arts, Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Kennedy Center Honors, and more.
While this short piece is focused on his artistic (and specifically musical) career, I would be remiss to not at least mention his incredible contributions within the political sphere (which, it should be noted, was acknowledged both by JFK appointing him a cultural advisor for the Peace Corps as well as a late 1980s UNICEF appointment as Goodwill Ambassador, not to mention being the recipient of multiple humanitarian awards over the years). He was involved with Martin Luther King, Jr (he was a close personal friend as well as financial supporter), vocal advocate in the fight against Apartheid in South Africa, helped organize & finance the Grammy winning project "We Are the World" (written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson), performed at LIVE AID, was a fellow at The Sanders Institute...and the list goes on!
Below are a few song charts so you can play along with these classics...and then check the video at the bottom of Belafonte's entire appearance on "The Muppet Show" in 1978 (including the 5/4 "Turn the World Around (Earth Song)", a drum battle, and more).
"Matilda" (1955)
E - - - /E - - - /A - - - /A - - - /
B7 - - - /A - - - /B7 - A E /E - - - /
capo @2
E - - - /A - B - /E - - - /B7 - E - /
repeat throughout
"Jamaica Farewell" (1956)
capo @4
verse
C - - - /F - - - /G - - - /C - - - /
C - - - /F - - - /G - - - /C - - - /
chorus
C - - - /Dm - - - /G - - - /C - - - /
C - - - /Dm - - - /G - - - /C - - - /
"Turn the World Around" (1977)
capo @1
5/4
E - - A - /B - - E - /
E - - A - /B - A E - /
repeat
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