meeting Harry.

While my earliest memory may well be dancing around in the living room to a HB record (which included "Will his Love be Like his Rum" and "Hosanna, I Built a House" - put on to keep me out of the kitchen while my mother and grandmother stretched strudel dough over the kitchen table -), my Harry Belafonte story really starts many years later as a moody teen at a Sunday matinee concert at Place des Arts in Montreal. It had been a weird few days, and I didn't really feel like being there - but it didn't take long to surrender. A few songs in - "Try to Remember" - and there were tears on my cheeks. Get to "Going Down Jordan," Mr. B. jumping into the audience to tease the sinners, and I had a stitch in my side from laughing so hard.

I left the theatre stunned by the gamut of emotions drawn out of me in such a short amount of time, and by the power I witnessed of that one man on stage.

A couple of weeks later after finishing a homework session at the library, I did a search on Belafonte to see what I could find. And that led to more. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. A young white Canadian teen, I knew very little about the Civil Rights struggles, Martin Luther King Jr., or the Kennedys. And here I was unearthing stories about how this man I had seen on stage was not allowed in the front door of theatres he was playing at, and how involved he was with these great men and the Civil Rights struggle. I remember counting the years and realizing some of the absurdities I was reading about had happened not so long ago. This was an education. With the education came admiration, and the desire to hear, see, and learn more.

I nervously waited at the Artist's entrance on the first day of his run after what I learned later was the sound check. He finally emerged carrying a big boom box. After I gave him the gift, he brought me backstage, and we sat down on a bench while he unwrapped it, and carefully flipped through it. He asked me to sign my name on the front page and put my phone number there. I obliged while mumbling something about how I should be asking him for his autograph. He invited me to come backstage a few days later when I'd be attending the show and he would have something for me then.

I'd rounded up a group of friends from school to go to the show with me but headed to the artist's entrance alone. He had not yet arrived. Someone from his management team gave me a business card and said that Mr. B. met so many people, that I should not be upset if he passed me by on his way in - and if that happened, I should give his card to security, and he'd make sure to get me backstage. But when Harry came in, he came right for me with a big smile. He brought me backstage to that same bench and called for someone to bring him a souvenir book and a pen. He took his time, and when he was done, read it to me: 

It was a Friday night. I'd made myself a piggy bank and saved up coins from my paper route for those front row tickets. $12.00! It seemed like so much back then. There was the warmth of his smile as he beamed down on me and my friends. And a sly look or two during "Judy Drownded."

The show. The shows. I'd sit in that audience and let the music sweep through and around me. Songs and sounds from around the world and instruments I'd never seen or heard. Guests like Sivuca, or Letta Mbulu. Always such a connection to the audience. It was a rich experience.

Many, many years later....

I am married and home with three young kids and there's this new thing called "the internet." Some random searching, and much to my surprise,  I find he is still performing - had just the night before somewhere....

Wanting to keep my toe in Graphics, I started a website. It was simply links to pages and stories I could find on Harry, including his humanitarian work, and when I could find it, concert information. This is before Google - imagine that. Before most concert halls were selling tickets online. I had that site from about ~1997 to early 2011. What I had not foreseen was the gifts it would give - a community of people from around the world. We started to connect and share stories, photos, videos, and recordings and sometimes managed to meet for shows.

There was a Casino run in Louisiana when we (new friends from Texas and I) ran into him on the first day in a restaurant and I told him about the website. "Is that the one I keep hearing about?" YES!

There was a train ride from Philadelphia to New Haven when we (same friends) ended up pre-boarding with him, and he invited us to sit and talk for the second leg of the trip. He talked about all sorts of things - from how much he was enjoying his current band, to changing the roll of toilet paper the week before and noticing how it was puffed with air to look bigger, to how Hostess was putting so many fewer chips in their bags - "shrinkflation" back in 2001.

On that ride, I asked if I could possibly do the artwork for a rumoured next CD ("Another Night in the Free World" - never released, but we still believe tracks had been completed), and he "as a test" asked me to modernize the Sankofa logo, which led to a whole other thread of experiences.

That same train ride day after the concert-in-the-park sound check he walked through the crowd to come and meet my children. Just my children. I have to yet again thank my Texas friends for pictures of that.

Later that year I am in Toronto - and, about my Sankofa drawings, he says "I told them I want to use almost everything from Canada. You're Canada." I'm not sure who "them" was and nothing came of that, but how cool. That was in the Fall of 2001. I believe it was the last concert I saw; he stopped touring in 2003.

In 2013 Harry was here in Montreal for a showing of "Sing Your Song." I wrote BEI letting him know the kids and I would be there. He called suggesting we attend the press conference the day before and that he would meet with us after that. We were there, but the plan did not work as he was spirited to another place for one-on-one media interviews. He phoned me the next day to make sure we would be at the Q&A that evening, and after that event was done, it was announced over the intercom that we should come backstage. That was the second and last time I asked for a photo. Harry made a point of posing for individual photos with each of us - but I'll only include the family one here.

I last saw Harry and Pam in 2017 in Albany NY for a talk. I held back from the meet-and-greet line as I always did, as I loved to watch his interaction with everyone -  but Pam, who I said hello to while she was getting Harry a bottle of water, suggested I jump in as he was planning on leaving early. When I got to him, he, as always, rose and kissed me on both cheeks. He told me he missed his touring days, but there was so much more other work to be done. 

In 2022, for Harry's 95th birthday, I made another book. Our internet community had dwindled through the years, but Albert and I managed to reach quite a few of our old friends who were happy to send pictures and greetings to this man we all so admired. To read other people's stories - from Argentina to Japan - and see how he had touched them in many different ways was again a gift to all who participated.

Harry wrote back that he often thought of the people he met while touring, and that the book we sent put a dance in his heart.

That's not every story—just the highlights of the ones that come to mind. I have never stopped feeling thankful for every one of my adventures, or for Harry's presence, wit, humor, grace, and kindness. I would be hard-pressed to clearly list the many ways my life, and the way I walk through it, are different because of the fact that he took a bit of time to say hello to me back when I was 16.

When I learned of his death, we were on vacation in Florida. At one point, we stopped into a souvenir shop. There waiting for me was a baseball cap - the only one that didn't have touristy info on it - it just simply says "Blessed." That's my tip of the hat to Harry.

~ Judy Paul, Montreal ~ January 2025.