Trinidad Loves To Play Carnival 1914-1939

This disc in the Matchbox Calypso Series ranks among the best. Few others give as strong a sense of calypso's origins as Carnival music. It includes a wide variety of seasonal music for Christmas and Carnival and also contains many of the stickfighter songs that have been so influential in the development of calypso. Some of the songs are in French Creole (called Patois in Trinidad) and all are masterfully transcribed and annotated. It has several kalindas including one recorded in 1914 ("Bagai Sala"), Radio's haunting "Texilia" and many others. ~ Don Hill