Revisited - The 1953 Dial Records of Carnival Music in Trinidad

[Pan Times]

by
Dr. Donald R. Hill, Professor of Africana/Latino
Studies and Anthropology

republished with expressed permission of the author
 

Global - When Aubrey “Bolo” Christopher, of Christopher Brothers Cycle and Radio Services, 7 Nelson Street, Port of Spain, Trinidad, met with Ross Russell, President and sole owner of Dial Records of New York, to record calypsos, steelband music, and other Carnival and religious music in late February and early March 1953, they ushered in a new era in the commercialization of Trinidad’s Carnival music.

The Dial 10” long playing albums were the first LPs recorded in Trinidad. They were marketed in the United States where a steady supply of 78rpm records and a couple of long-playing records by Trinidadians, North Americans of West Indian descent, and other North Americans fed a calypso boom that had been incubating since the late 1930s.

In Trinidad, Christopher marketed some of the DIAL recordings on the red 78rpm Calypso label. Christopher and Edouard Sa Gomes were the only Trinidadians making records between 1950 and 1954 and few other recordings were made between the end of World War II and the middle 1950s when the Mighty Sparrow burst on the scene.

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[Brenda Hosang]

Thank you for this detailed documentation of our history.  Very interesting reading.

Brenda H.

[Vernon A Seebaran]

As a boy I remember the red 78 rpm in my grandfather's gramophone.
" olay o lard carnival in Trinidad"

[Bugs]

Very, very interesting information. Required reading.

bugs