Mighty Sparrow
Calypso music enjoyed a brief period of popularity in other parts in the world during the 1950s. Trinidadian expatriate Lord Kitchener had helped popularize calypso in England, and Sparrow also found some success there. In the United States, interest in calypso was sparked largely by Harry Belafonte's 1956 album "Calypso", the first LP to sell over one million copies. In January 1958, Sparrow, along with longtime rival Lord Melody, travelled to New York City seeking access to the American music audience. Sparrow had already been recording with Balisier and Cook Records, and with Belafonte's help he also began to record for RCA Victor. He did not achieve the success he had hoped for; he said in a 2001 interview, "When nothing happened for me, I went back to England and continued on with my career."
Chutney Soca
The father of Chutney soca is Garfield Blackman, who rose to fame as Lord Shorty with his 1963 hit "Clock and Dagger" and took on the name "Ras Shorty-I" in 1980 after a spiritual change in direction. He started out writing songs and performing in the calypso genre in the 1960s. Shorty's very first recording in 1962 was a calypso with a strong East Indian influence called "Long Mango". He next revisited the fusion of an East Indian style melody with calypso in a song called "Indian Singers" in 1966. In the early 1970s in an effort to modernize calypso, Shorty began regularly experimenting with it including his blending of Calypso with local Indian music & rhythms. Shorty added Indian instruments, including the dholak, tabla and dhantal. Shorty experimented with fusing calypso and elements of Indo-Caribbean music for nearly a decade before unleashing "the soul of calypso" - soca music