Irving Burgie composed 34 songs for Harry Belafonte, including eight of the 11 songs on the Belafonte album Calypso, the first album of any kind to sell one million copies.
12 Facts About Irving Burgie
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Irving Burgie's mother was from Barbados and his father was from Virginia.
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Irving Burgie joined the US Army in World War II, and served in Burma, China and India, where he started playing guitar and singing.
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Belafonte recorded other songs written by Irving Burgie, including "Island in the Sun", one of ten Irving Burgie compositions on his 1957 album Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean.
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Irving Burgie wrote eight of the twelve tracks on Belafonte's 1961 album Jump Up Calypso, and wrote "Can't Cross Over", and co-wrote "Goin' Down Jordan", on Belafonte's 1977 album Turn the World Around.
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Irving Burgie wrote the music and lyrics for the 1963 off-Broadway musical Ballad for Bimshire and co-wrote the book with Loften Mitchell.
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Irving Burgie wrote the lyrics for the national anthem of Barbados, "In Plenty and In Time of Need", adopted in 1966 at the time of the island's independence.
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Irving Burgie performed rarely after his initial success, but did appear in the early 1980s at venues including Gerde's Folk City.
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In 1996, the album Island in the Sun: The Songs of Irving Burgie was released, followed by The Father of Modern Calypso in 2003.
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Irving Burgie was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.
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Irving Burgie died on November 29,2019, at the age of 95, from heart failure, at his home in Queens, New York.
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Irving Burgie's death was announced by Barbados' Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley at the nation's Independence Day Parade.