FORT HOLLAND CALYPSO SONG (SHAME & SORROW)

Created on 25/10/2007
Latest update on 02/03/2024

Artist: Sir Lancelot
Author: Lancelot Pinard/Ardel Wray
Label: RKO
Year: 1943

In the RKO film I Walked With A Zombie where he had his part. Sings Shame and sorrow for the family there. The song tells the story of a woman doing it with her brother, then gets cursed and becomes a zombie. Sir Lancelot acted in some 15 Hollywood movies; the US were more home to him than Trinidad. In film script for I Walked With A Zombie this song is mentioned as the Fort Holland Calypso Song, the place of the scene. Coauthor Ardel Wray was involved in the script writing, so the song may well have been written for the film exclusively.

Covers:

1946:

Sir Lancelot with Gerald Clark's Calypso Serenaders [on Keynote as Scandal In The Family; again he sings "Shame and sorrow" instead; the film version and the record version have the same lyrics; reissued on Mercury in '53, triggering covers by the dozen]

1956:

Odetta [as Shame And Scandal on lp Sings Ballads And Blues, as if it was an old folk song]

1956:

Burl Ives [as The Harlem Man]

1957:

Maya Angelou [as Scandal In The Family]

1961:

Gateway Singers

1962:

Lord Melody [influential version as Waa Waa, where a son comes home with a girl he can't marry because according to his father she's his sister; for his mother marriage is no problem since his father happens not to be his natural father anyway]

1964:

Shawn Elliott [n°1 B as Shame And Scandal In The Family credited to obscure calypsonians Huon Donaldson and Slim Henry Brown]

1964:

Hiltonaires

1964:

Kingston Trio [as Ah Woe, Ah Me]

1965:

Lance Percifal [idem]

1965:

Cocktail Trio [as Groot Schandaal In De Familie]

1965:

Mounties [as Wie Is Wie, Groot Schandaal In Onze Familie]

1965:

Derrick Harriott

1965:

Sacha Distel [as Scandale dans la famille]

1965:

Surfs [idem]

1965:

Peter Tosh & The Wailers

1965:

Don Drummond & The Skatalites

1965:

Maskers [as Potverdrie, Groot Schandaal in onze Familie]

1966:

Blues Busters

1968:

Trini Lopez

1968:

Johnny & Rijk [as Oh, Oh, Wat Een Familie; top 30 NL]

1970:

Horace Faith

1971:

Johnny Chester & Jigsaw [hit Australia]

1982:

Clint Eastwood & General Saint

1994:

Freddie McGregor

2000:

Africando [as Scandalo]

2002:

R.L. Burnside [as He Ain't Your Daddy; joke on live cd Burnside On Burnside, exactly the same storyline as Lord Melody's version]

2003:

David Lindley & Wally Ingram

2003:

Relator

2005:

Madness [most as Shame & Scandal]

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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