Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
By virtually everyone's estimate, the musical patriarch of Bermuda was
Hubert
Smith,
who was the island's official greeter in song. A balladeer of formidable talent
and originality, Smith composed and performed songs for the visits of nearly all the
foreign heads of state who graced Bermuda's shores in recent memory. His perfor-
mances for members of the British royal family included one of the most famous
songs ever written about the island:
Bermuda Is Another World.
The song is now the
island's unofficial national anthem; it's included in the best-selling album
Bermuda Is
Another World
(Edmar 1025).
RECORDINGS
In the last 2 decades, Bermuda saw the rise of many other recording artists, whose
CDs are available in local stores. A five-man calypso band,
The Bermuda Strollers,
with their lively rhythms, can be heard on their album
The Best of
(Edmar 20G6), and
also in a collection of musical odes to the island's natural beauty,
South Shore Ber-
muda
(Edmar 1156). Another balladeer and comic of great talent is
Gene Steede.
His popular album is called
South Shore Bermuda
(Edmar 2003). A challenger is
Jay
Fox,
known for his songs of love, joy, and sorrow, all heard in the album
Island Para-
dise
(Jay Fox 1601).
Bermuda ballads, songs of love, and calypsos are also performed by
Stan Sey-
mour,
a popular soloist who has been compared to Harry Belafonte. Look for
Our
Man in Bermuda
(Edmar 1070).
The lively calypsos of Trinidad and the pulsating rhythms of Jamaica have also
influenced musical tastes in Bermuda.
Youth Creation,
a dreadlock-sporting local
reggae group, adopts the Rastafarian style in
Ja's on Our Side
(Edmar 2002).
For those who find that nothing quite stirs the blood as well as good old-fashioned
oom-pah-pah, there are the live as well as recorded performances of the
Bermuda
Regiment,
whose bagpipes, trumpets, and drum tattoos evoke the finest British
military traditions—and must strike a nostalgic chord or two in many a British or
Bermudian listener. The regiment's album
Drummers Call Bermuda
(Edmar 1152) is
a perennial favorite.
The late
Lance Hayward
was a Bermuda-born musician who established his
musical reputation far from home. His most appreciative audiences were found in the
smoke-filled jazz houses of New York's Greenwich Village. With a musical style that
has been compared to the soft jazz of George Shearing, his most popular album is
Killing Me Softly
(Island 90683).
A Bermuda-born trio,
Steel Groove,
became known for performing only instru-
mentals in the Trinidadian style. Their trademark adaptations used the calypso-
derived steel pan combined with a keyboard, an electric guitar, and often a bass
guitar. Their most popular album became
Calypso Hits.
An even earlier Calypso
group,
Esso Steel Band,
also became widely known island-wide with the release of
their albums,
The Esso Steel Band
(Sunshine 1003) and
It's a Beautiful World.
2
EATING & DRINKING
For years, Bermuda wasn't known for its cuisine; the food was too often bland and
lacking in flavor. However, the culinary scene has notably changed. Chefs seem bet-
ter trained, and many top-notch (albeit expensive) restaurants dot the archipelago.
Italian food is in vogue, as is Chinese. (On the other side of the coin, fast food,
including KFC, has arrived, too.)
