The Duke Of Iron

Born Cecil Anderson in Trinidad to a musician father, the Duke of Iron earned lasting recognition as a calypso legend. Joining Jules Sims in 1913, he produced the earliest vocal calypso recordings, after which the next ten years remain largely undocumented. The narrative picks up in 1923, when he moved to New York City and performed at neighborhood clubs and university venues without drawing notice. Attention from leading music figures finally arrived in 1940, securing him a ten-month headlining engagement at the Village Vanguard; afterward he journeyed to the West Coast, crisscrossed the country on tour, and reentered New York in 1943. Throughout those years he maintained an active recording schedule, chiefly with the Monogram label. His output included the singles “Parakeets,” “The Naughty Fly,” “Kockeemoonga (Means You Are a Dope),” “Marry a Woman Uglier Than You”—the model for Jimmy Soul’s 1961 novelty pop hit “If You Want to Be Happy”—and, above all, the ribald cult favorite “The Big Bamboo.” In December 1946 the Duke of Iron shared the stage with Lord Invader, Macbeth the Great, and Gerald Clark at a landmark calypso program presented by noted archivist Alan Lomax at New York’s Town Hall; the performance was captured and later issued by the Rounder label as Calypso at Midnight! One year afterward he topped the bill of Caribbean Carnival, the Samuel Manning–directed production that remains the sole calypso musical mounted on Broadway. Opening on 5 December 1947 at the International Theatre, the opulent show employed more than fifty singers and dancers yet drew unfavorable notices and shuttered quickly, prompting the Duke of Iron to return to Trinidad. Calypso’s mid-1950s resurgence in the United States, fueled by the enormous success of singer and actor Harry Belafonte, brought the Duke back to New York in triumph in 1956, where he anchored an extended run at the Jamaican Room. The next year he appeared in the Angie Dickinson film Calypso Joe. As rock & roll gained traction, calypso once more receded from public favor, and the Duke of Iron again settled in Trinidad for the remainder of his life.