Lord Melody - The Early Years (1949-1956)

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Description

A homemade collection of extremely rare 78-only material and a live track. Most tracks are early versions of more familiar songs, though some were never rerecorded. Of note is that the 1950 live track Englishman's Party didn't get a studio recording until 1957's Calypso Madness compilation.

This omits anything from Vitadisc or GEMS as Melody recorded so much for those labels they have their own videos. Rather these are the small labels Melody did a handful of recordings for and then left. It isn't a complete collection of Vee-Jay material either, but those 78s are quite hard to come by (and mostly rerecordings of Vitadisc and GEMS stuff as it is). The Vee-Jay version of Diana Come Back is however interesting, as is has a noticeably more latin jazz arrangement than the famous Vitadisc one.

Kiskedee (1949)
1. Weather Man Lying 0:00
2. Georgie Porgie 02:44

Live At Lord Invader's Calypso Club (March 16th 1950)

3. Englishman's Party 5:36

SaGomes (1950-1953)

4. Wild Indian 10:25 (later known as Carnival Proclamation / Nikivo)
5. One Gone 12:54 (later known as Jonah And The Bake)
6. MacDonald Almanac 15:36
7. The Whistler 18:26 (later known as Blackbird)
8. Court House Scandals 21:08
9. The Monkey 23:56

Vee-Jay Special (1955)

10. Roadside Gossip 26:30
11. Glory Mama Glory 29:18
12. Diana Come Back 32:02

Kay (1956)
13. Juanita 34:55 (King Cobra cover)
14. Chiquita 37:58
15. The Milkman 40:45
16. King And Queen 43:46
17. Janet 46:41

Vee-Jay Special Ace (1956)

18. Thelma Haynes Story 49:35
19. Mama Look A Boo Boo 52:23