Day-O!: Harry comes and we welcome him home

Anne Hosier

Friday, Sept. 19, 1997 | 9:25 a.m.

When Harry Belafonte was a young man, his mother gave him some valuable advice: Never sing a song you don't like, because if it becomes popular, you'll have to sing it for the rest of your life.

Her words proved prophetic: More than 40 years after recording "The Banana Boat Song," -- more popularly known as "Day-O" -- Belafonte continues to be deluged with demands for live performances of the song.

But he doesn't mind.

"I enjoy it -- hugely," he says in his recognizably smoky voice during a telephone interview. "When I see the way people's faces light up, when they cheer, when I know that the minute they sat in their seat, walked in the theater, that that's the thing they most wanted to hear, and when you finally give it to them it's like manna from heaven.

"(When) they sing with you with such gusto, it says a lot."

Tonight, when Belafonte performs at the Las Vegas Hilton, he will again be singing "Day-O" along with other hits like "Jamaica Farewell" and "Matilda." But far from being a night of "oldies," in which a legendary performer relives the glory of a bygone era, the show will be an avant-garde exploration of new harmonies and rhythms culled from contemporary African and Latin sources. Even the traditional hits will be delivered with a new, distinctive sound.

"All the material will be new, or will give the appearance of being new," Belafonte says. "(My music) goes through an evolution, and today it reflects more of the nuances that have been permitted to invade American culture, so that the themes now are very heavily African-driven and they have a lot of Caribbean-salsa-samba feel to them."

During the concert, Belafonte will be backed by his world beat band "Djoliba," (pronounced "jo-la-ba") which was named after the source of the Niger River in Africa, "since my music comes from the roots of African rhythms." The band is comprised of young contemporary African artists, including Richard Bona, a native of Cameroon who sings and plays bass, drums, flute and piano.

Bona, who is the band's musical director, will also be the first of several artists to launch a record under Belafonte's new record label "Niger" later this year (Island Records, Inc. will distribute the albums produced by the independent label). Belafonte plans to use the label as a vehicle to launch cutting-edge African musicians and American artists influenced by African music, and to introduce audiences to out-of-the-mainstream compositions.

"I've often felt that Africa has given the world a lot culturally, whether it's jazz in America, or samba in South America, or Afro-Cuban music, Africa has been central to so much the world enjoys," he says. "I would like to use the label to expose the artists who come from that source, and reflect the music that comes from that source."

Still vital

Although few entertainers continue to break ground artistically nearly a half century into their careers, it should come as little surprise that Belafonte, now 70, would take that risk.

"That's just what he does," says director Robert Altman, who worked with Belafonte on several films, including "The Player" and "Kansas City," in which Belafonte gave an award-winning performance as a black gangster known as "Seldom Seen." (Altman and Belafonte are currently co-producing "Amos and Andy," a project which Altman says is "probably a year or so off.") "He's a very independent person."

As a young black man growing up during the era of segregation, Belafonte quickly learned the importance of taking chances and being persistent. "Whoever the guy is who says 'no' to you today, there'll be someone else in his chair tomorrow. Go to them and they'll say 'yes.' "

Born in Harlem to parents of West Indian descent, Belafonte was sent away from the ghetto at a young age to live in Jamaica. There he was exposed to calypso, reggae and other forms of Caribbean folk music that would later heavily influence his own musical style.

After serving a two-year tour of duty in the U.S. Navy and working briefly as a garment worker and subsequently as a janitor's assistant, Belafonte enrolled under the G.I. Bill in the Dramatic Workshop of the School of Social Research in New York. Studying alongside Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, Tony Curtis, Bea Arthur, Rod Steiger and other then-aspiring actors, he began to set his sights on an acting career. However, his musical talents and other circumstances conspired to draw him away from the theater toward music.

For a musical production at the workshop, Belafonte wrote and performed a song called "Recognition" which caught the attention of Monty Kaye, a highly respected promoter for the reknowned jazz club The Royal Roost. Kaye hired Belafonte as an intermission singer at the club and rounded up some musician friends to play back-up, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and Tommy Potter. Belafonte earned high praise for his singing, but remained steadfast in his determination to build a career in theater.

When it became clear to Belafonte -- and his friend Sidney Poitier -- that America was not ready to embrace black actors, Belafonte grew discouraged and opened a small restaurant in Greenwich Village. It wasn't long, however, before his appearances on the nightclub circuit led to a part in the Broadway musical "John Murray Anderson's Almanac." Belafonte's performance in the musical won him a Tony and helped launch his career as both an actor and a singer.

Reflecting on the discrimination he faced during his career, particularly in the early days, Belafonte admits: "I was bitter when it happened. But I've come to understand why, what it's about, and I've just gotten on with the business of trying to end it wherever I see it."

To that end, he became active in the Civil Rights movement, using his growing international popularity to mobilize support for the movement abroad. Dr. Martin Luther King, who became a close friend of Belafonte's, applauded the young singer's contributions, saying: "Belafonte's global popularity and his commitment to our cause is a key ingredient to the global struggle for freedom and a powerful tactical weapon in the civil rights movement here in America."

Today, Belafonte believes that America's black community remains plagued by "a lot of pain and anguish and struggle." But he also notes that considerable progress has been made: "When I was growing up, segregation was the law, and today segregation is illegal.

"There's greater evidence of black people being present in places where they were never present before ... I think as much as people have tried to kill out affirmative action it was one thing that helped save America's soul."

Risk and reward

Belafonte took a risk in 1955 when he recorded "Calypso," an album of songs heavily influenced by Caribbean folk music, including the legendary "Day-O." At the time, the island sound was virtually unheard of in the U.S. But "Calypso" was a smashing success, becoming the first album ever to sell over a million copies, and setting the standards for the Grammys.

Critics quickly attacked Belafonte, charging that his music wasn't authentically "calypso." The comments exasperated Belafonte, who claims he never tried to pass himself off as such, but was pigeonholed by people who really didn't understand the origins of Caribbean music. "Everybody called all the music I did 'calypso,' when in fact very little of it was calypso," he says. "It was based on Caribbean folk music with calypso as an aspect of it ... (But) the company decided to call it calypso and that's how the world decided to relate to it. And it became too difficult to resist the terminology so we just accepted it."

As for how the public at large received the album, Belafonte was both astounded and encouraged: "The American public then said to me that they weren't just narrow in their taste, and it wasn't just the American pop culture scene that they had use for. Certainly what I was doing in those days was outside of mainstream American culture."

The music industry was slow to realize and respond to the demand for new, internationally influenced sounds. "The music industry isn't noted for its class," Belafonte says wryly. In recent years, that nearsightedness has cost them profits in the tens of millions, he says. "I think the reason for that is the public is declaring itself as having been fed up with the one-dimensional, uni-cultural material they've been getting," he says. "The commercial components that go toward making up what drives America culturally have become thwarted, corrupted, myopic and relentless in its need for profit."

For that reason, Belafonte has, in recent years, begun to avoid dealing with the corporate music machine. "Those of us who have something else to offer cannot find the resonance within that canvas," he says. "So what we do is we decide to go around mainstream forces and mainstream directors and go directly to people and get to small towns and university campuses in some enlightened way, and slowly rebuild a constituency that says 'we want change,' like we did back in the '60s."

This attitude is one of the reasons Altman admires him: "He doesn't follow everybody else, 'this is where the money is,' " Altman says. "He's a very special person. He does what he thinks he should do, he does artistically what he wants to do."

Renaissance man

Belafonte's performance on Broadway helped pave the way for roles in over a dozen films, including "Island in the Sun," and "White Man's Burden," which starred John Travolta.

But Belafonte wasn't content to simply star in films -- he also wanted to direct and produce. Becoming the first African-American TV producer, he churned out Emmy-nominated projects for each of the three major networks. He also teamed up with his old friend Sidney Poitier to produce and star in "Buck and the Preacher."

Despite his busy touring schedule -- he tours part of the U.S. and abroad each year -- Belafonte has managed to continue working in both film and television. Among the projects currently in the pipeline is a film called "Port Chicago Mutiny," which he'll be directing for Turner Network Television along with Paula Weinstein. "It's a Second World War movie about 50 sailors who were courtmartialed by the U.S. Navy unjustly."

Another project, a mini-series on South Africa's apartheid history, which Belafonte was producing for ABC, has been tabled. "A new regime came in (at ABC) and the project took too long, and when it was finally ready, there was no more appetite for it," he says, conceding disappointment. But, he adds ,"It will resurrect itself in the next millenium or the next generation. It won't go away."

'Human element'

In choosing his projects, Belafonte alway considers "the human element, whether it be tragic, or comic or dramatic. I look for 'How was the human family touched by the experience?' I like to translate that in ways for people to leave the theater with something to think about or enjoy."

Although he claims he doesn't necessarily seek out projects that deal with social injustice, more often than not he seems to gravitate toward them -- a tendency that would only seem natural, given his extensive efforts in the area of human rights.

Beyond being "a real artist," Belafonte is also "a warm human being," says George C. Wolfe, producer of The Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, who has worked with Belafonte. "Passion" and "integrity" are the two words that come to Wolfe's mind when Belafonte's name is mentioned.

During the '80s, Belafonte became deeply involved in relief work in Africa, accepting an appointment as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and launching a campaign for the immunization of African children. In 1990 he helped host the United Nations World Summit for Children, and signed a plan of action for the protection and development of children.

His other humanitarian projects, too numerous to list in total, have won him awards from such diverse groups as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the State Department, the American Jewish Congress, the NAACP, The Urban League, the Boy Scouts of America and the Peace Corps.

But when asked whether he'd prefer to be remembered as a humanitarian or a performer, Belafonte replies: "There's no need for me to be remembered. If that's why you're doing it, to be remembered, why bother? You should be doing it because it's essentially correct to be doing it, morally correct."

As Belafonte moves into what he calls "the spring of my winter years," he's realized: "If age has taught me anything, it's that you're lucky if you live long enough to know that it wasn't all you thought it was going to be."

But some would beg to differ.

"As a performer and musician (and producer), he's just great," Altman says. And as a human being?

'That's his strongest suit."

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