Stanley And The Ten Sleepless Knights / Quelbe!
Album: Quelbe!   Collection:World
Artist:Stanley And The Ten Sleepless Knights   Added:Mar 2016
Label:Smithsonian/Folkways  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2016-04-03 Pull Date: 2016-06-05 Charts: Reggae/World
Week Ending: Jun 5 May 29 May 22 May 1 Apr 24 Apr 17
Airplays: 1 2 1 1 1 1

Recent Airplay
1. Dec 29, 2016: Melange
Garty Balantine
4. May 27, 2016: Cardinal Importance
Waltz
2. Nov 02, 2016: At the Cafe Bohemian
Cigar Win The Race
5. May 23, 2016: Celtic By Caronis
Beautiful Girl, Lagoon Mouth, Cigar Win The Race
3. Jun 02, 2016: Melange
Beautiful Girl
6. May 21, 2016: Music Casserole
Garty Balantine

Album Review
Margy Kahn
Reviewed 2016-03-31
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


Track Listing
1. Cigar Win The Race   9. Gart Ballantine
2. Lagoon Mouth   10. Garty Balantine
3. Sly Mongoose   11. Hilly
4. Beautiful Girl   12. Waltz
5. Lancers Number 4   13. Matty Gru
6. When You Had Me   14. Labega Carousel
7. Ho Bin Sen Yo?   15. Marie Bull
8. Don't Walk Deh   16. Queen Mary
  17. Musician Want Something To Drink