Recorded by Moses Asch in New York 1955. Lord Invader (1914-1961) was arguably the most prominent Calypsonian of the genre's early period. Recognition is deserved from his vocal style alone, however the subject matter of his songs are equally impressive. Ranging from politics and race to light-hearted social songs like Rum and Coca-Cola, this is easily one of the most impressive styles of 20th Century's legacy of folk music.
When listening to Calypso I can't help but recall Jean-Francois Lyotard's description of the role of rhythm in the transferring of narrative forms of knowledge:
A fourth aspect of narrative knowledge meriting careful examination is its effect on time. Narrative form follows a rhythm; it is the synthesis of a meter beating in time in regular periods and of accent modifying the length or amplitude of certain of those periods. This vibratory, music property of narrative is clearly revealed in the ritual performance of certain tales: they are handed down in ceremonies...in a language whose meaning is obscured by lexical and syntactic anomalies, and they are sung as interminable, monotonous chants....
...[Narrative knowledge] exhibits a surprising feature: as meter takes precedence over accent in the production of sound (spoken or not), time ceases to be a support for memory to become an immemorial beating that, in the absence of a noticeable separation between periods, prevents their being numbered and cosigns them to oblivion. Consider the form of popular sayings, proverbs, and maxims: they are like little splinters of potential narratives...In their prosody can be recognized the mark of that strange temporalization that jars the golden rule of our knowledge: "never forget".
- The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
Get it here: Lord Invader & His Trinidad Caribbean Orchestra - Calypso & Liner Notes (PDF)