Harry Belafonte has died(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Harry Belafonte has died
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/25/harry-belafonte-singer-dies-actor-singer-activist
62 comments
Belafonte's music is so wonderful. Happy sounding songs that fill your subconscious with joy while you sink into the melancholy meaning.
I'm making a playlist of songs I want my baby to listen to during the critical period to give the lil bean rhythm and culture. Belafonte was an early addition and its always a pleasure when his songs get shuffled on.
Thank you Harry for all the joy you've brought into the world!
I'm making a playlist of songs I want my baby to listen to during the critical period to give the lil bean rhythm and culture. Belafonte was an early addition and its always a pleasure when his songs get shuffled on.
Thank you Harry for all the joy you've brought into the world!
Lovely man, he came all the way to London to promote his biopic, Sing Your Song and sign his book. A complete and utter legend, maybe one of the very last people heavily involved with the movement. Xernona Clayton is still with us, as is Claudette Colvin, hopefully others. The fight isn’t over. RIP.
I grew up listening to Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall on my parent's old record player. He was my first favorite singer and my earliest exposure to folk music’s ability to educate and enlighten. From a young age I understood some of what discrimination must feel like from the characters in his songs, and still know every word to “Darlin’ Cora”. It built a basis of empathy for me to grow from and I’ll forever be thankful.
What an incredible 96 years of art and leadership in the pursuit of civil rights and equality.
What an incredible 96 years of art and leadership in the pursuit of civil rights and equality.
I am very sad. In kindergarten in 1968 I learned to sing "Jamaica Farewell" which is one of Harry Belafonte's signature hit songs. It was one of the first things I ever learned at school. My kindergarten teacher (who was french) played guitar and sang it to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh1ow6zKapQ&ab_channel=TheEd...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh1ow6zKapQ&ab_channel=TheEd...
Oh that's where that Day-O song came from. I thought it was a bespoke commercial jingle this whole time.
One Day Sale.
One Day Sale.
When I briefly worked at RCA/Victor on 1540 Broadway NYC ..one evening leaving the office I bumped into a tall gentleman walking out of the elevator into office I worked at. I looked up and it was Mr. Belafonte. Rip.
Ok - I bereave you!
Goodbye Sidney Potter
(Only die hard fans from the UK will get this)
(Only die hard fans from the UK will get this)
RIP. All together now: Day-o!
For everyone who is tired of Day-o, I recommend the song Star-o!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hPL9f9es9Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hPL9f9es9Q
"It's still too loud, man!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9h1pjTP74
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9h1pjTP74
Hide the deadly black tarantula
I think it was highly deadly ?
Which makes more sense?
A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas / Highly deadly black tarantula
A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas / Hide the deadly black tarantula
I'd say the second one.
A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas / Highly deadly black tarantula
A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas / Hide the deadly black tarantula
I'd say the second one.
Why would you want to hide a tarantula? Hide it where? From who? I always figured tarantulas and other spiders were just something banana boat workers had to watch out for while they did their jobs which makes sense for the song.
Just imagine David Attenborough:
"This bunch of ripe bananas looks beautiful and pristine. But it hides a dangerous beast: the deadly black tarantula."
It's well-accepted usage to say "Inanimate object X hides object Y", even if Y is an intelligent agent which has hidden itself.
"This bunch of ripe bananas looks beautiful and pristine. But it hides a dangerous beast: the deadly black tarantula."
It's well-accepted usage to say "Inanimate object X hides object Y", even if Y is an intelligent agent which has hidden itself.
I think it's the phrasing that gets to me.
"Hide the deadly black tarantula" sounds like an instruction, while "Hiding deadly black tarantula" or even "Hides the deadly black tarantula" sounds more natural.
"Hide the deadly black tarantula" sounds like an instruction, while "Hiding deadly black tarantula" or even "Hides the deadly black tarantula" sounds more natural.
Indeed, "A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas hides the deadly black tarantula" would indeed be more in line with the "official" US dialect of English. But part of Belafonte's goal in writing the song was to honor his Jamaican heritage; so he wrote the song in the dialect of the people who would be doing the work described. Hence "Daylight come and me wan' go home" rather than "Daylight is coming and I want to go home"; "tally me bananas" rather than "tally my bananas", and "hide" rather than "hides".
It’s the bananas that are hiding the tarantula. Behind a seemingly tasty treat lurks a deadly foe.
I just did a quick lookup of the lyrics and that's what popped first...
Whoa, man, that's too sharp, too piercing...
Daylight come an' me wan go home.
Odds Against Tomorrow is a really good movie.
I just watched this a few weeks ago. It is fantastic. Belafonte was a producer as well as the star. He’s playing a man trying balance being a father and musician with a giant gambling problem. His character is only good at being a musician and failing at everything else. He pairs up with a racist criminal to try and relieve a debt. The movie is firing on all cylinders.
I bought a bunch of his vintage albums afterwards and really enjoy them.
I bought a bunch of his vintage albums afterwards and really enjoy them.
He is personally responsible for saving MLK's Birmingham campaign when it was at risk of failure and collapse. RIP. Turn the world around.
Less than a year after the landmark Loving v. Virginia decision by the US Supreme Court, Harry Belafonte and Petula Clark made history when Clark touched Belafonte’s arm on US primetime TV: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/04/harry-belafonte...
"It has erroneously been described as the first instance on American television of physical contact between a black man and a white woman,[26] forgetting many previous instances, including Frankie Lymon dancing with a white girl on Alan Freed's live ABC T.V. show "The Big Beat" on July 19, 1957,[citation needed] Nancy Sinatra kissing Sammy Davis, Jr., on her 1967 Movin' with Nancy TV special,[27] and Louis Armstrong shaking hands with "What's My Line?" panelists Dorothy Kilgallen and Arlene Francis in 1953."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petula_Clark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petula_Clark
Thanks for the link. The first half of that paragraph is also interesting: “In 1968 NBC-TV invited Clark to host her own special in the US, and in doing so, she inadvertently made television history. While singing a duet of "On the Path of Glory", an antiwar song that she had composed, with guest Harry Belafonte, she took hold of his arm, to the dismay of a representative from the Chrysler Corporation (the show's sponsor), who feared that the moment would incur racial backlash from Southern viewers.[22] When he insisted that they substitute a different take, with Clark and Belafonte standing well away from each other, Clark and the executive producer of the show—her husband, Wolff—refused, destroyed all other takes of the song, and delivered the finished programme to NBC with the touch intact.[23][24] The Chrysler representative was terminated, and the programme aired on 8 April 1968, four days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., with high ratings, critical acclaim,[25] and a Primetime Emmy nomination.”
This continued into the 90s apparently
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/former-teen-idol-says-she-16...
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/former-teen-idol-says-she-16...
She touched his arm, seven months later Shatner kissed Nichelle Nichols.
Despite the racism, I have always wondered why a majority of US ‘Top 40 Hits’ were by black artists in the 1960s. Soul, R&B, and Motown were continually at the top of the charts.
and the rest of the hits by white performers were either "heavily inspired" or literal re-performed versions of black songs that wouldn't be played or broadcast by white-only radio stations and TV shows.
It's not crazy that such blatant racism occurred in the late sixties, it's crazy that people pretend all the racists and the way they thought just suddenly disappeared. Lots of those people are still alive. My grandma and mom both grew up in a segregated south. Even as an elementary school kid, the way the civil rights movement was taught made it unbelievable that my mom was a kid watching MLK on TV.
it's probably not a coincidence that some of those people are voting in the oldest median age congress we have ever had.
it's probably not a coincidence that some of those people are voting in the oldest median age congress we have ever had.
I'm older than median around here but still firmly working age. A black man was lynched in my hometown during my lifetime. There was no trial.
One of the things most consistently infuriating about discussions of american policy on HN is how firmly committed we are overall to not reckoning with this. This is very recent history, they didn't just admit defeat or become wholesome ex-segregationists for the most part. The policies continue to have effects, and the intergenerational nature of wealth imbalance means even if they didn't we'd still expect to see consequences into the present.
I jokingly refer to the way the civil rights era is taught to elementary school children as "and then the last racist killed MLK." I don't think that's necessarily even an inappropriate way to first bring it up with young children. But I wish people here expected more of themselves.
One of the things most consistently infuriating about discussions of american policy on HN is how firmly committed we are overall to not reckoning with this. This is very recent history, they didn't just admit defeat or become wholesome ex-segregationists for the most part. The policies continue to have effects, and the intergenerational nature of wealth imbalance means even if they didn't we'd still expect to see consequences into the present.
I jokingly refer to the way the civil rights era is taught to elementary school children as "and then the last racist killed MLK." I don't think that's necessarily even an inappropriate way to first bring it up with young children. But I wish people here expected more of themselves.
Lynching.
Is such a major part of Americas history especially from 1863-1950
EJI has a very cool and sad interactive map of Americas recorded lynchings by county.
https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore
Is such a major part of Americas history especially from 1863-1950
EJI has a very cool and sad interactive map of Americas recorded lynchings by county.
https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore
That's fucking appalling. I am horrified.
It is not only that people even here on HN believe that discrimination of black people doesn't happen anymore, but worse there is a vocal group that thinks that white men are now the major victims. They quite literally state that white men (mainly if they receive pushback for racist/mysoginist statements) have it as bad as black people in the 60s.
As an external observer of American news, I don’t find it surprising when race is increasingly stressed, occasionally in not directly relevant context. E.g. there was a cnn headline recently along the lines of “Black and Latino man got in the car of White policeman and disappeared” with the races capitalised from source. No matter if the intention is against racism, the capitalisation and emphasis on races does not help from my vantage (and admittedly remote) viewpoint. Now if the story was definitely a racist one it would make sense but I did not get that in the context of the article itself.
I think we all tend to victimise ourselves. The people in advantage will do so even more.
I think we all tend to victimise ourselves. The people in advantage will do so even more.
It's a common but I think unhelpful observation that americans make racism worse by focusing on race more. I see it often in the comments here, people saying things like "why make it about race" or "we should ignore everyone's race."
The thing is it was already about race. Even if that cop disappeared those men for completely non-racist reasons (and we pretend their motivation is even knowable in that way), the racial history of american policing is such that it's part of the story anyway.
A black person reading the race-sanitized headline is going to immediately think "yeah and I bet I can guess their skin colors too" and on looking into it find out they were right and come to conclusion it was obscured out of intentional complicity.
There is no race-neutral way to report on or discuss many things in an american context because those things are not race-neutral. We can certainly wish it were otherwise, but when we try to enforce that fictional neutrality we both obscure and create other problems.
The capitalization thing is just part of an ongoing and unsettled reevaluation of what "races" even are, what their boundaries and prerogatives are, how they refer to themselves and how they are to be referred to, etc. I respect your discomfort with it and would point out that probably very few people are happy with the current state of this nomenclature, but that it's almost completely irrelevant to the problems themselves.
The thing is it was already about race. Even if that cop disappeared those men for completely non-racist reasons (and we pretend their motivation is even knowable in that way), the racial history of american policing is such that it's part of the story anyway.
A black person reading the race-sanitized headline is going to immediately think "yeah and I bet I can guess their skin colors too" and on looking into it find out they were right and come to conclusion it was obscured out of intentional complicity.
There is no race-neutral way to report on or discuss many things in an american context because those things are not race-neutral. We can certainly wish it were otherwise, but when we try to enforce that fictional neutrality we both obscure and create other problems.
The capitalization thing is just part of an ongoing and unsettled reevaluation of what "races" even are, what their boundaries and prerogatives are, how they refer to themselves and how they are to be referred to, etc. I respect your discomfort with it and would point out that probably very few people are happy with the current state of this nomenclature, but that it's almost completely irrelevant to the problems themselves.
> A black person reading the race-sanitized headline is going to immediately think "yeah and I bet I can guess their skin colors too" and on looking into it find out they were right and come to conclusion it was obscured out of intentional complicity.
This works the other way too. People see an article about a crime that doesn't mention race and they'll go out of their way to track one down that does to confirm their bias that certain people are criminals. There's no reason for that though. Either way it's a very unhealthy way to view the world and worse it's entirely one sided. You don't see headlines like: "Black man pulled over by White cop, has friendly interaction, let off with a warning"
The media knows that fear and outrage generate views and ad impressions and that's what they push at us while we wonder why everyone is so fearful and angry all the time. It's not healthy. The news should report race in headlines where it's actually relevant to the situation and provide details and historical context in the text of articles. It does little good to stoke outrage and confirm bias at a glance.
This works the other way too. People see an article about a crime that doesn't mention race and they'll go out of their way to track one down that does to confirm their bias that certain people are criminals. There's no reason for that though. Either way it's a very unhealthy way to view the world and worse it's entirely one sided. You don't see headlines like: "Black man pulled over by White cop, has friendly interaction, let off with a warning"
The media knows that fear and outrage generate views and ad impressions and that's what they push at us while we wonder why everyone is so fearful and angry all the time. It's not healthy. The news should report race in headlines where it's actually relevant to the situation and provide details and historical context in the text of articles. It does little good to stoke outrage and confirm bias at a glance.
>It's a common but I think unhelpful observation that americans make racism worse by focusing on race more.
Common, unhelpful, and selective. The whole idea of "race" is arbitrary and meaningless. Ask someone to come up with a specific definition of who qualifies as a member of what "race", and they won't be able to, because it doesn't exist. Obviously we are saddled with the barbaric vestiges of the past, but that doesn't mean that we are forced to carry them on, codify them, and pretend like they have any sort of objective meaning. All the identify fetishists, racialists, and those who insist on codifying the nonsensical racial nonsense from the past are part of the problem, do a disservice to society and prevent us from moving forward.
Common, unhelpful, and selective. The whole idea of "race" is arbitrary and meaningless. Ask someone to come up with a specific definition of who qualifies as a member of what "race", and they won't be able to, because it doesn't exist. Obviously we are saddled with the barbaric vestiges of the past, but that doesn't mean that we are forced to carry them on, codify them, and pretend like they have any sort of objective meaning. All the identify fetishists, racialists, and those who insist on codifying the nonsensical racial nonsense from the past are part of the problem, do a disservice to society and prevent us from moving forward.
The most unhelpful opinion is "pretend history doesn't exist and pretend people formed their opinions from the collective worldwide knowledge of when I made this comment". It is of no use in the actual world that exist and just is an idealized version of what people who haven't experienced the problems wish to be true.
My real life experience is that people who benefited directly or indirectly from racism and inequalities from the past, want people to not question their status and would rather pretend that living memory is something that was fake.
Edit: Petrov, your entire post history seems to be riddled with whataboutism and seemingly bad faith arguments
My real life experience is that people who benefited directly or indirectly from racism and inequalities from the past, want people to not question their status and would rather pretend that living memory is something that was fake.
Edit: Petrov, your entire post history seems to be riddled with whataboutism and seemingly bad faith arguments
Race is arbitrary but that doesn't mean racism is imaginary? Arbitrary things can have profound material effects on our lives, racism is actually a powerful example of this.
Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.
> It's a common but I think unhelpful observation that americans make racism worse by focusing on race more. I see it often in the comments here, people saying things like "why make it about race" or "we should ignore everyone's race."
> The thing is it was already about race. Even if that cop disappeared those men for completely non-racist reasons (and we pretend their motivation is even knowable in that way), the racial history of american policing is such that it's part of the story anyway.
> A black person reading the race-sanitized headline is going to immediately think "yeah and I bet I can guess their skin colors too" and on looking into it find out they were right and come to conclusion it was obscured out of intentional complicity.
> There is no race-neutral way to report on or discuss many things in an american context because those things are not race-neutral. We can certainly wish it were otherwise, but when we try to enforce that fictional neutrality we both obscure and create other problems.
Unfortunately, that's the entire point; it's not a coincidence that questioning "why make it about race?" is overwhelmingly from people who benefit from the history you mention. It's just another form of the same cognitive dissonance of that much-overused but often apt Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
> The thing is it was already about race. Even if that cop disappeared those men for completely non-racist reasons (and we pretend their motivation is even knowable in that way), the racial history of american policing is such that it's part of the story anyway.
> A black person reading the race-sanitized headline is going to immediately think "yeah and I bet I can guess their skin colors too" and on looking into it find out they were right and come to conclusion it was obscured out of intentional complicity.
> There is no race-neutral way to report on or discuss many things in an american context because those things are not race-neutral. We can certainly wish it were otherwise, but when we try to enforce that fictional neutrality we both obscure and create other problems.
Unfortunately, that's the entire point; it's not a coincidence that questioning "why make it about race?" is overwhelmingly from people who benefit from the history you mention. It's just another form of the same cognitive dissonance of that much-overused but often apt Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Class war disguised as a culture war. The old gits still play the same games.
And no I don’t care about ageism; not when the elders hid climate change from the young.
Tacit ageism against next generations constantly wrapped up in equivocation and appeals to authority embedded in long dead mens political documents.
Generational churn of post war shell shocked paranoids that went stupid drinking lead, huffed leaded gas and other crap before bans on industrial messes needs to go faster
And no I don’t care about ageism; not when the elders hid climate change from the young.
Tacit ageism against next generations constantly wrapped up in equivocation and appeals to authority embedded in long dead mens political documents.
Generational churn of post war shell shocked paranoids that went stupid drinking lead, huffed leaded gas and other crap before bans on industrial messes needs to go faster
Sadly true. You only have to jump across to the thread on Rosalind Franklin to see the crypto-racists out in force.
>It's not crazy that such blatant racism occurred in the late sixties, it's crazy that people pretend all the racists and the way they thought just suddenly disappeared.
It's equally crazy that many people pretend that racism in 2023 is remotely as bad as it was in the 60s. That isn't to say racism doesn't exist or that it isn't a lingering issue for society, but there is no doubt that for the last ~25 years we have been moving in the wrong direction as far as perceptions go. Can anyone honestly say that racism and discrimination is worse in 2023 than it was in 2001? But since the very effective propaganda narrative pushed by the media and the DC blob seeks to divide people along racial and identity lines (to avoid any sort of class solidarity), many believe that "racial relations" are at, by far, the lowest point in decades!
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/race-relations.aspx
It's equally crazy that many people pretend that racism in 2023 is remotely as bad as it was in the 60s. That isn't to say racism doesn't exist or that it isn't a lingering issue for society, but there is no doubt that for the last ~25 years we have been moving in the wrong direction as far as perceptions go. Can anyone honestly say that racism and discrimination is worse in 2023 than it was in 2001? But since the very effective propaganda narrative pushed by the media and the DC blob seeks to divide people along racial and identity lines (to avoid any sort of class solidarity), many believe that "racial relations" are at, by far, the lowest point in decades!
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1687/race-relations.aspx
> Lots of those people are still alive.
At least one of my still-alive parents (vaguely) remember "colored" water fountains in some areas. They were just young children, but witnessed a bit of that. Their parents certainly witnessed it. People in my immediate family, in their lifetime. Not history book stuff. They were there. It's crazy.
At least one of my still-alive parents (vaguely) remember "colored" water fountains in some areas. They were just young children, but witnessed a bit of that. Their parents certainly witnessed it. People in my immediate family, in their lifetime. Not history book stuff. They were there. It's crazy.
A couple of them got together to make three US Supreme Court appointments recently.
My mom taught his daughter (probably Gina) art in NYC in the 70s. I wonder what he thought of the Beatlejuice scene? :)
RIP. First time I heard Harry as a kid was in Beetlejuice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbkybaDR_Co
I’ve never seen Beetlejuice, but this video makes me want to.
You do want to see it, you maybe just don't know it yet!
He's apparently in a rare category of performer to have one song break into the top 40 chart in two separate decades.
Banana Boat showed up in the charts in 1956 and 1988.
Banana Boat showed up in the charts in 1956 and 1988.
Same for me. Such a bold and genius move to use calypso music in a goth comedy movie, I would love to know what inspired Burton (or maybe it was Danny Elfman's idea?) to use those songs.
Thanks Harry. I could never sing that Banana Boat song like you have but it will never stop me trying as I fly down the highway alone, cycling through all the songs of the soundtrack inventing lyrics for all those I have forgotten.
I've never quite been able to get any of them close to the originals but I've always done well enough to serve as a reminder to myself that I should be glad I never tried to make it a career.