Biography
Jamaica's most cherished folklorist, author, and vocalist, Louise Bennett—widely known at home as "Miss Lou" and formally honored as the Honorable Louise Simone Bennett-Coverly—entered the world in 1919. She attended Ebenezer and Calabar Elementary Schools before continuing at St. Simon's College, Excelsior College, and Friends College in Highgate. Her earliest publication, a volume of poems that appeared in the first half of the 1940s, included Humorous Verses in Jamaican Dialect. Between 1945 and 1946 she held the position of resident artist with "Caribbean Carnival." Once World War II ended, her writings reached wider audiences while she began presenting Jamaican traditions and music through performances and lectures, first across her homeland and later in England and the United States. Those activities intensified after she entered the studio for Folkways Records in the early 1950s. A BBC broadcast featured her work, and she later hosted her own five-year program on Kingston's ZQI. Although subsequent writings centered more on poetry, she maintained a musical presence well into the 1970s and remains among the handful of artists whose discography spans both Folkways Records and Island Records.
Albums
