The first thing I saw on the book’s pink dust jacket were the black faces of happy dancing people. They were not stereotypical black as I was used to seeing on the covers of books from that era. These were much more stylish and benign, and these folks seemed to be in high spirits.
The artwork had the look and feel of some of the Haitian paintings I had bought at auction. So I was not surprised when I finally read the title of the book: “Calypso Song Book: Authentic Folk Music of the Caribbean.” The jaunty dancers were islanders celebrating and enjoying their own music.
The book had been partially hidden under a child’s Winnie the Pooh book and several large paperbacks of reproduction paper dolls. Among them, the calypso book was the treasure, and I apparently wasn’t the only person who thought so. When the books came up for auction, another bidder went tit-for-tat with me until he finally backed out. I’m sure he had his eye on the calypso book, too.
It was a first edition published in 1957, written by William Attaway and illustrated by Bill Charmatz. I had never heard of either of them so I went sleuthing. I learned that Charmatz was a noted illustrator for some of the country’s most well-known publications, including the New York Times and Sports Illustrated. His works were both whimsical and humorous, as I could now see in the illustrations in the calypso book. He also illustrated children’s books.
What I learned about Attaway was even more fascinating. He was a contemporary and friend of writer Richard Wright, dancer/choreographer Katherine Dunham, artist Romare Bearden and actor/singer Harry Belafonte. He seems to have been overshadowed by many of those friends.
His greatest claim to fame was perhaps as co-writer of the Banana Boat song that Belafonte made famous. Among some literary circles, he was likely better known for his second novel, “Blood on the Forge,” marking him as one of the literary “chroniclers” of the Great Migration.
After learning of the origin of the Banana song, I was certain that it was in the book. And there it was, song No. 4 titled “Banana Boat Loader’s Song,” and described as “a ‘digging’ or work song from Jamaica, sung in several versions according to the particular job involved.”
Attaway was very much a Renaissance man. He was a novelist, screenwriter, TV and radio writer, songwriter and playwright. He was not a child of the islands but moved there later in his life. He was born in Greenville, MS, in 1911 into a family of means – his father was a physician and businessman, and his mother a schoolteacher. The family headed north to Chicago in 1918 as part of the Great Migration of African Americans seeking to escape the harsh racism of the South for a better life up North, according to the 2011 book “Writers of the Chicago Renaissance.”
Attaway developed an interest in literature in high school after reading a poem by Langston Hughes, whom he learned was black. His interest flourished while at the University of Illinois in Chicago, where he spent much of his free time writing short stories and plays. He left college and hoboed across the country for about two years, picking up odd jobs. Tired of that lifestyle, he returned to college and graduated with a pre-law degree, according to the renaissance book.
While at college, he wrote and acted in campus plays (he had written plays for his sister Ruth’s early drama groups. An actress, she would play Serena in “Porgy and Bess” in 1959, as well as other Broadway and film roles). He invited Richard Wright – whom he apparently had met at the Federal Writers’ Project in 1935 – to speak to a literary group on campus. They became fast friends and remained so for several years.
Attaway wrote two novels, “Let Me Breathe Thunder (1939)” and “Blood on the Forge (1941).” He was most noted for the latter, described as a protest novel that tells the tragic story of three African American brothers from the South who migrated north to find work in the steel mills of Pittsburgh (Attaway had worked in at least four steel mills). Thunder was about two white migrants hoboing through the West during the Depression. Neither of the books sold very well.
He found a fellow music lover and friend in Belafonte. By the 1950s, Belafonte was becoming a brand name, singing in clubs in New York and appearing in movies in Hollywood and plays on Broadway, according to the renaissance book. Attaway’s career was on an upswing again, too, as a TV writer, one of the first African Americans to write for TV and the movies. Attaway, a staff writer at NBC, and Belafonte partnered on a TV show called “Winner by Decision” on the General Electric Theater, which also featured actress Ethel Waters.
For another NBC show, he and Belafonte worked on a segment for The Colgate Comedy Hour. Along with songwriter Irving Burgie, they decided to go with a Caribbean theme and calypso music. Attaway and Burgie co-wrote “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)” and several others for the show, according to the renaissance book.
The segment was a hit; Belafonte recorded an album of the music and Attaway wrote the liner notes. Here’s Belafonte singing the song.
Here’s how Attaway described the song in the liner notes:
“Day O is based on the traditional work songs of the gangs who load the banana boats in the harbor at Trinidad. The men come to work with the evening star and continue through the night. They long for daybreak when they will be able to return to their homes. All their wishful thinking is expressed in the lead singer’s plaintive cry: ‘Day O, Day O … The lonely men and the cry in the night spill overtones of symbolism which are universal.”
Released in 1956, the album made Belafonte an international star and catapulted calypso as a vital music form. Attaway published the “Calypso Song Book” a year later. The book, aimed at children, contains 25 songs and an essay on the meaning of calypso.
Attaway was said to have produced 400-500 TV scripts. In the mid-1960s, he wrote a special for ABC on black humor titled “One Hundred Years of Laughter” with Redd Foxx, Moms Mabley, and Flip Wilson, among others.
His final book was another music book titled “Hear America Singing” in 1967. He wrote screenplays, and had a hand in writing scripts for “The Hustler” (for which he got no credit) and “The Man” (from which his script was rejected), according to the renaissance book.
Attaway was also involved in the civil rights movement, participating in the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. In the late 1960s, he moved his family to Barbados and remained there for 10 years before returning to the United States and settling in California. He wrote several TV scripts, including a docudrama on the Atlanta child murders. He died in 1986 before finishing it.
