Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall

Harry Belafonte

1960/1994: RCA Victor 09026-62690-2

1. Jump Down Spin Around
2. Suzanne
3. A Little Lyric of Great Importance
4. Chickens
5. Vaichazkem
6. I Do Adore Her
7. The Ballad of Sigmund Freud
8. I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain
9. Water Boy
10. A Hole in the Bucket
11. The Click Song
12. One More Dance
13. The Ox Drivers
14. The Red Rosy Bush
15. Didn’t It Rain
16. Henè Ma Tov
17. I Know Where I’m Going
18. Old King Cole
19. La Bamba

This is an album I grew up with and which helped make world music a natural part of my tastes. Highlights include Miriam Makeba singing “The Click Song” and (with Belafonte) a charming song about marital infidelity; Odetta punctuating the silence of the hall with her guitar like an axe on “Water Boy” and making “A Hole in the Bucket” just hysterical with Belafonte; the Belafonte Folk Singers being intense but with a too-refined “voice;” and Belafonte himself being just marvelous throughout, especially toward the end with “Old King Cole” and “La Bamba.”

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Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.