NEW YORK (AP) – Composer Irving Burgie, who helped popularise Caribbean music and co-wrote the enduring Harry Belafonte hit "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", has died at the age of 95.
At the Barbados Independence Day Parade on Saturday (Nov 30), Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced Burgie died on Friday.
"Day-O", written in 1952, has been ubiquitous, appearing in everything from the film and Broadway musical "Beetlejuice" to an E-Trade commercial.
"Day-O" was also the wake-up call for the astronauts on two Space Shuttle missions in the 1990s. When a superstar list of music royalty gathered to film the "We Are the World" video in 1985, most burst into a playful version of "Day-O" in between takes. Lil' Wayne used a sample of "Day-O" in his "6 Foot 7 Foot."
According to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Burgie's songs have sold over 100 million records throughout the world. Many were recorded by Belafonte, including eight of the 11 songs on Belafonte's 1956 album, "Calypso," the first album to sell over 1 million copies in the US Burgess also penned songs for the Kingston Trio ("The Seine," "El Matador," and "The Wanderer") and for other groups.
His "Jamaica Farewell" has been recorded by Belafonte, Jimmy Buffett, Carly Simon and others. Others who have sung his songs include Mantovani, Miriam Makeba and Julio Iglesias. Burgie's classic Caribbean standards include such familiar hits as "Island in The Sun," "Angelina," and he was co-writer of "Mary's Boy Child." He also wrote the 1963 off-Broadway musical "Ballad for Bimshire" that starred Ossie Davis.
He served in an all-black US Army battalion in World War II and used GI Bill funds to pay for music studies. Burgie studRead More – Source
