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Friday 28 August 2009

Donkeyoke!

This coming weekend is August Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, which means among other things the Notting Hill Carnival. My original plan was to put up a selection of hot soca tunes to get us all in the mood but I got distracted and ended up posting the King of Cardigans instead.

I set off with the best of intentions. The opening selection is from an album called "Carnival 93", released as you will probably have guessed in 1993. Here are United Sisters with "Whoa Donkey".

All the references to donkeys got me thinking about one of the greatest of all calypsonians, Lord Melody, who recorded a number of calypsoes using donkey based imagery such as "Belmont Jackass". On his album "Mas Is Devil Power" - which has a fantastic cover - there is a song called "In The Name Of The Law", which relates a tale of the trouble that ensued when someone wouldn't move their ass out of the way. I'm told there may be some double entendre involved here, but I can't see it myself.

And if you are going to start playing songs about recalcitrant donkeys, you really can't leave this one out: Val Doonican with "Delaney's Donkey".

Apologies for failing to capture the carnival spirit. I will try to concentrate next time. But we can't leave the subject without Mr Bob Blackman and his classic contribution to popular culture:

3 comments:

  1. My gosh! What a great cover! I'd be most grateful if you could re-post the Melody song. I'm very interested to hear something off this LP.

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  2. Fredrik

    It's a pleasure - new post (6 October 2010) with Melo tracks going up any minute now

    Ernie

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  3. Thanks! But where can I find the new link? If I click on "In The Name Of The Law" above, The Box tells me the file is removed.

    ReplyDelete