Harry Belafonte – 20 Golden Hits

This is one of the most random records on this list. I got it from my father's aunt who has long since gotten rid of her vinyl player. She had heard that I was into records and I was buying lots of old vinyl records, so she suggested that I can take any of her old albums I want. This was among those albums. I knew Harry Belafonte mainly just by his name. Then, when I started listening to this album, i realised that actually I know many of these songs. I must have heard them in various movies and TV-series, or heard them on the radio. Turns out that Harry Belafonte has actually sold a lot of records back in the day and you definitely should know him, if you claim to know anything about music history. He was called the King of Calypso, and I guess this name is accurate as many of his songs are calypso or other Caribbean musical genres.



Apparently Harry Belafonte introduced Caribbean music to masses in the Western world. This kind of music is not really something I would listen to often, but I guess it's refreshing to broaden my knowledge listening to something like this. And as a record collector, I'm really very pleased that I own a record like this. It includes many big hits.

I have actually heard many of these songs before. The most notable song is Banana Boat (Day-o) that has been used in various films and tv-series. and people have made various versions of this song. I was also familiar with Songs like Angelina.

There are also some songs that other performers have made famous as well, such as Danny Boy and When the Saints Go Marching In. Some of the later songs on this album are really cheesy. A Strange Song has these incredibly strange whistle parts that make it sound totally cheesy. The early songs just sound like they should be listened to on the beach with a cocktail in hand. This kind of music doesn't really fit into the cold climate of Northern Europe.

I think it's important to broaden your horizons listening to various types of music and I'm grateful to my great aunt that she has given me these albums that I would never have bought myself. This just goes to show that owning music is great even in a situation where you haven't really made the decision to buy it yourself.

Listen to the album on Spotify.