Quelbe!

Old-time music of the U.S. Virgin Islands by Stanley Jacobs and The Ten Sleepless Knights; legacy Folkways recording from the Smithsonian; music is called called Quelbe (KWEL-beh); acoustic instruments with authentic folk lyrics sung in English creole with traditional instruments – steel flute, steel drum, and squash (sic); casual pick-up band style, very light and sweet, upbeat and bouncy

NO FCC's detected; Favorite tracks: 1, 4, 10

*1-5:40 – simple happy music starts with steel flute, percussion, singing comes in; about how a horse named “Cigar” won the race

2-3:17-- traditional West Indian rocking beat about a man who fell into a lagoon along with his cart and all his belongings

3-3:27- originally a Jamaican song, “Sly Mongoose,” familiar tune with steel flute, voice

*4- 5:43 – Beautiful Girl – calypso-- special Puerto Rican style beat

5-2:09 – to accompany a quadrille dance from Europe at the end of the 19th century; steel flute with banjo and percussion; all instrumental

6-3:04 –“When You Had Me” --to the rhythm of a jig used in quadrille dancing; vocals;

7-5:06 – “flotation marengue” for changing partners during quadrilles; (originally Dominican)

8-3:04 – “Bronco Jig” – with vocals about how quadrilles were danced, light and bouncy

9-5:06-- cautionary lyrics to a daughter about not going near a priest who could get her pregnant

*10-5:50 – more quadrille music about a one-eyed man complete with simulated goat bleating

11-5:03 –a jig – nice long intro before vocals about “Hilly the girl that I really love”

12-2:43-- instrumental waltz; moves right along

13-3:43 – “Matty Gru” -- West Indian version of the Childe Ballade “Matty Groves” about an adulterous wife and lover caught in flagrante by her husband

14-3:58- song about political protest to boycott a carousel owned by unfair boss

15-4:09-”Marie Bull” - another “flotation marengue”

16-2:52 - “Queen Mary” – best known song from St. Croix

17-2:07 --”Musician Want Something to Drink” – end of the set; nice fade