Note
the correct spelling of Cumana as opposed to Koomahna in the song
"Rum and Coca Cola". For full view of the map of Trinidad, please
go here
"
Rum and Coca Cola" just
has to be the best known Calypso of all times, made famous by the Andrews
Sisters in the 1940's. It also became a court case against Leo Feist,
Inc., the publisher of the song and the alleged composer of it, an American
comedian , called Morey Amsterdam. The
plaintiff was Maurice Baron, a music expert, who claimed that the song
was plagiarized from a book published by him called " Calypso Songs
of the West Indies", only the song was called "L'Année Passée
" and was composed by Lionel Belasco in 1906 !
"L'Année
Passée ", meaning "Yesterday" ( lit. Last year ), is the true
story of a girl named Mathilda Soye. She was the daughter of a very
prominent Trinidad family and was educated at a Convent school. She
fell in love with a man "in the street", a "common" fellow, who was
no good. She lived with him for some time and then he made her work
as a prostitute. The song was written in French Patois and was a lament
of the girl on how just the other day she was a little girl and now
she was a prostitute, walking the street.
This story became known in 1905 and Lionel Belasco, who was a young
man at that time, composed the song "L'Année Passée ",
which told that story. It is common practice in Trinidad to compose
calypsos dealing with whatever social/political events happened in that
year.
In 1941
Lionel Belasco and a singer, Massie Patterson, submitted a group of
twelve songs from The West Indies, composed by Lionel Belasco, to Maurice
Baron for publishing. Maurice Baron transcribed the music. One of those
songs was "L'Anné Passée".
Baron hired one Olga Paul to translate the Patois lyrics into English. One year
later " Rum and Coca Cola" was published, crediting Morey Amsterdam
with composing and writing the lyrics for it. Morey Amsterdam claimed
that, when he went to Trinidad to perform for the American soldiers
on the base at Chaguaramas, he heard the soldier, wo was in the car
that transported him, sing a song to the tune of " It ain't gonna
rain no mo" which inspired him to write " Rum and Coca Cola".
At the
trial, the trial lawyer, Louis Nizer, found prominent witnesses on behalf
of the plaintiff, among them a Trinidad doctor, Walter Merrick, educated
at Howard University. He was a childhood friend of Lionel Belasco's
and also a musician and music expert. He testified that Lionel Belasco
taught him "L'Année Passée " in 1906, the year he wrote
it. Other witnesses also testified that they knew Lionel at that time
and that they had learnt the song from him. Lionel Belasco, almost 70
years old at the time of the trial, came from Trinidad and testified.
He pointed out that one of the chords Maurice Baron used for "L'Anné
Passée " when he transcribed the music was unusual in that it
was a "harsh toned" chord, emphasizing the word "fille"(girl) in the
song to emphasize the difference between having been a little girl the
year before and now being a street walker. The plagiarized "Rum and
Coca Cola" also had the same "harsh toned" chord at the same place of
the music, but underlining an inappropriate word, the word "feel" from
the sentence "They make you feel so glad". This is a "happy" sentence
and therefore did not need a dissonant chord. Obviously, the person
who plagiarized "L'Année Passée " did not know the meaning
of the Patois words and copied the music as it was.
It was
established in court through complicated musical comparisons of musical
notes and chords of both "L'Année Passée" and "Rum and
Coca Cola" that, undoubtedly, the compositions were identical and therefore
Lionel Belasco was the original composer of the music. The
judgement went in favour of the plaintiff, Maurice Baron, and ordered
the defendants "to deliver up for destruction all infringing copies
and devices, and all plates, molds , matrices and other matter for making
such infringing copies, of plaintiff's said copyrighted song and all
parts of musical instruments on which defendants' infringing song, entitled
"Rum and Coca Cola" has been transcribed or recorded, and all plates,
molds, matrices and other matter for making such infringing parts of
such musical instruments". The
judgement was appealed against by the defendants in the Circuit Court
of Appeals, but they lost there again.
These facts
came from a book written by the Trial Lawyer, Louis Nizer. The book
is out of print, but you can obtain copies via http://bookfinder.com
Go
back up
"Since