Currently Listening Mark II

A very good Steelpan version, thanks

The song has quite an interesting history. The music was written (and performed) in 1893 (I remember it well ) to a poem by a Haitian poet. The song was originally called Choucoune and was a Creole song.

Nina and Frederik made a fairly creditable attempt at performing it in the original Creole but it doesn't seem to have the life in it that it should have. It's not a version of the song that I would bother to listen to a second time.


The locals used to call the song 'ti twazo' (little birds).

It was rewritten into English and called Yellow Bird in the 50's (the words were changed completely but the tune was kept) and a number of artists made hits out of it. My favourite version was by Harry Belafonte, which became extremely popular over here but I can't find a clip of it.

So here's anothe clip of Harry showing the mellowness of his voice.



The song is from the musical 'The Fantastiks' and has been covered dozens of times by top artists in the last 50 years. Gladys Knight used the words as a very poetic and well performed intro to her 1979 live performance in Chile prior to singing a superb version of 'The Way We Were'. They fit very well together.

 

Although I, also, have had no luck in finding it I quite clearly remember it being played a lot on the radio. I know he worked a lot with Norman Luboff who did some early recordings of the song.

If I have time I shall try and do some links between other artists and Harry.

i.e. Miriam Makeba, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Hugh Masekela, Odetta, Buffy St Marie and, even obscurely, to John Denver.