MUSIC-REGGAE: Who was Carolina?

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Fitzroy Nation

AMSTERDAM, Nov 8 1994 (IPS) - The song that epitomises the durability and richness of Jamaican music, and attests to the amazing informality and graft of the industry that guided its growth, has had its day in court.

Through loudspeakers installed in British High Court in London, a Judge dressed in horsehair wig and judicial robe listened carefully for a final time last week (Nov 4) to the lyrics of ‘Oh Carolina’.

Seated before Deputy Judge Anthony Grabiner were two aging men with different accounts of the inspiration behind the song’s composition. Hundreds of thousands of pounds in royalties hung on the outcome of the case.

In the end, Judge Grabiner climaxed the five-day hearing by ruling that Dr John Folkes was the song’s author, and not Prince Buster, who has long claimed the credit – and the royalties accruing from its recent success.

Buster, 56, whose real name is Cecil Campbell, says he will appeal the ruling. Folkes, 53, a teacher in Canada with a PhD in Literature, could earn a fortune.

When he wrote the song in 1958, Folkes was a poor boy in Trench Town, Kingston, cradle of early Jamaican music and spiritual influence and hardship-posting for its foremost stars.

Folkes was the son of a preacher. He had two brothers. He said he wrote the song to escape from poverty. The girl in question was Noelena Daniels and she had left him for another man. Hence his plaintive plea for her to return.

It was on the crucial second verse of the song that the case hinged. Folkes said the lyrics were: “Oh I’m so lonely Carolina, why did you leave last night”.

Buster was a producer, a boxer, and owner of a dance hall. He told the court that he also ran a Chinese restaurant. A particular girl visited the restaurant frequently. Buster insisted the second verse of the song, which was released in 1959, actually said: “Oh I’m so lonely Carolina, what did you eat last night”.

The judge said: “Giving full weight for poetic licence and my own ignorance of song-writing skills, I do not begin to see how Prince Buster’s version can be the correct one. It does not fit with the rest of the song.”

In the rich annals of Jamaica’s music, ‘Oh Carolina’ has a resonance beyond the beat and the intrigue of its lyrics about unrequited love which made it the most durable record in the island’s history. (MORE)

= 11080301 DAP0003