Blake Alphonso Higgs (1915 – 1986), better known as "Blind Blake", was the best-known performer of

goombay Goombay is a form of Bahamian music and a drum used to create it. The drum is a membranophone made with goat skin and played with the hands. The term Goombay has also symbolized an event in the Bahamas, for a summer festival with short parades ...

and calypso in the Bahamas from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Biography

Higgs was born in 1915 in Matthew Town, Inagua, Bahamas. For much of his career, Blind Blake was based at the Royal Victoria Hotel in Nassau. Included in his wide repertoire was "Love, Love Alone", a song (by

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

ian

calypsonian A calypsonian,Definition of CALYPSO
abdication of Edward VIII In early December 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King-Emperor Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing the divorce of her secon ...

. Blind Blake's version of this calypso is said to have been enjoyed by the former king himself, who, as the

Duke of Windsor Duke of Windsor was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 8 March 1937 for the former monarch Edward VIII, following his abdication on 11 December 1936. The dukedom takes its name from the town where Windsor Castle, ...

, served as Governor of the Bahamas during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Higgs played the banjo and sang, releasing four albums during his tenure at the Royal Victoria Hotel, one with singer Lou Adams, and several other lesser albums towards the end of his career. His first four albums were released on Floridian label Art, including a 10" with Lou Adams. Although Higgs was never famous in his own right, his music has been covered by various famous artists, including

Dave Van Ronk David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Ma ...

James "Stump" Johnson James "Stump" Johnson (January 17, 1902 – December 5, 1969) was an American blues pianist and singer from St. Louis. Biography James "Stump" Johnson was the brother of Jesse Johnson, "a prominent black business man," who around 1909 had moved ...

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, and Lord Mouse and the Kalypso Katz.

The Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by the ...

covered his 1952 recording of the Caribbean folk song "John B Sail" and called it "

Sloop John B "Sloop John B" (originally published as "The John B. Sails") is a Bahamian folk song from Nassau. A transcription by Richard Le Gallienne was published in 1916, and a version was included in Carl Sandburg's ''The American Songbag'' in 1927. Since ...

". His style was a mix of

Dixieland jazz Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...

, calypso/goombay, and American folk, probably because of the close proximity the Bahamas has to the USA. For several decades, he was arguably the most important figure in the Bahamian tourist entertainment industry. One of his most famous songs, the medley "Little Nassau/Peas and Rice", written during the US

prohibition era Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic be ...

, is about the easy access to alcoholic beverages in Nassau, then complaining of the locals' frustration with a diet of peas and rice. His ballad "Run Come See Jerusalem" is of particular interest as it describes a historical event of the 1929 Bahamas Hurricane and has been covered by many artists in the 1950-60s Folk Revival. It can be heard in a vintage recording with Blind Blake leading on YouTube.

Discography

* ''Blind Blake and the Royal Victoria Hotel "Calypso" Orchestra: A Group of Bahamian Songs'' (1951) * ''Blind Blake and the Royal Victoria Hotel "Calypso" Orchestra: A Second Album of Bahamian Songs'' (1952) * ''Blind Blake and the Royal Victoria Hotel "Calypso" Orchestra: A Third Album of Bahamian Songs'' (1952) * ''Lou Adams Plays Bahamiana Calypso featuring vocals by Blind Blake'' (1952) * ''Blind Blake and the Royal Victoria Hotel "Calypso" Orchestra: A Fifth Album of Bahamian Songs'' (1952) * ''A Cultural Experience'' (with Pandora Gibson) (1976) * ''Blind Blake & The Royal Victoria Hotel Calypsos: Bahamian Songs'' (2009) * ''Bahamas Goombay 1951-1959'', a vintage Bahamas music anthology (Frémeaux et Associés, 2011) * ''Calypso - The Dance Master Classics 1944–1958''

Footnotes

External links

Illustrated (Bahamian) Blind Blake discography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Higgs, Blake Alphonso 1915 births 1986 deaths Bahamian singers Calypsonians People from Nassau, Bahamas Blind musicians People from Inagua 20th-century Bahamian people 20th-century male musicians