Paul Gleitman
This is an excerpt from a book prepared for Mr. B's 95th birthday in early 2022,
filled with wishes from friends from around the world.
Paul died on March 1, 2024. He was a huge inspiration in pushing me to get this site done, and had seen previews during the build, as well as having requested / given permission that this expert be included.
It was 1954 when I first ran into your music, Mark Twain and Other Folk Favorites. I was thirteen years old, you were twenty-seven. I couldn’t believe my ears. Before that my favorites were Al Jolson and Gene Autry, in no particular order. Subsequently, I purchased Belafonte, Calypso and An Evening with Belafonte over the next three years. My parents bought me a portable record player with a diamond needle (which I must have replaced dozens of times despite its renowned reputation for durability) and spent endless hours listening to those four albums, over and over again at the expense of socializing, exercising, and even studying (though I mastered both simultaneously along the way). Naturally, with a young, fertile, fresh, absorbent mind I easily memorized every song on each album which I have maintained to this day - along with many others.
At least once a month I used to run down to “Sam The Record Man” on Yonge Street here in Toronto to look for your latest release. I couldn’t get there fast enough. From those early ventures came Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean, Belafonte Sings the Blues (your first LP in stereo), To Wish You a Merry Christmas, the ever beautiful Love Is a Gentle Thing, and Porgy and Bess with the late, fabulous, sensational Lena Horne. I am going to stop here (although I could go on for eons) and mention that in 1959, I purchased the inimitable, the unbelievable, the magnificent, superb double album concert, Belafonte at Carnegie Hall (your first concert album, first of many).
To my mind and without a shadow of a doubt to this day Belafonte at Carnegie Hall is the greatest concert album ever put out by an individual performer. Period! End of sentence! End of paragraph! It reached number three on the charts, was on them for eighty-six weeks, stayed in circulation for years and years. That it didn’t win a Grammy was a crime. It was racial. You did win two other Grammys but no album was more worthy than that magnificent two-night production in April 1959. An epic! The black jacket, the inscriptions (with sketches), the orchestra, the musical back up (featuring the late Millard Thomas and Norm Keenan), the opener “Darlin Cora” (your finest concert opener of them all), the closer (“Matilda,” what can I say) and that entire brilliant program in between, so beautifully set up. And Harry before I forget, the unbelievable orchestra crescendo leading up to “Darlin Cora” - it still sends shivers up my spine. I’ve put it in my will if Covid allows me to have an indoor funeral service.
I first saw you perform in 1960 at the O’Keefe Center in Toronto and went backstage to meet you that night. I then went to see you EVERY two years at that venerable old palace until 1982 when the lights were finally dimmed for your regular appearances, though I did catch you there one more time in 1991 (you were performing on a broken foot).
In 1986 I saw you at Massey Hall, 1990 at the Pantages Theatre, and in 1996 and 2001 (the last time you appeared in Toronto) at Roy Thomson Hall.
Practically every time you came to town I made it a point to come backstage to see you, usually bringing members of my family and or friends. The list includes a mother, a sister, two daughters, two ex-wives, and several former girlfriends. Thus, a friendship.
In 1983, you appeared at Kingswood Theatre in Canada’s Wonderland. I took my two daughters (then ages ten and six) to see you. Their mother told them that you knew me but they didn’t believe her. That night you used Hava Nagila as audience participation and I was the only one in the crowd to sing with you. You called out “is that you Paul?” and my girls went nuts, jumping up and down, screaming “he does know him, he does know him”. At the end of the concert I handed you my youngest, you kissed her and immediately gave her right back to me. Immediately!!!!! And yet to this day to hear her tell it, you asked her name, her age, her school, her grade, if she had any siblings, on and on. None of that happened Harry!!!!! Trust me!!!! None of that ever happened. Tell her that!!!!
Next to you she does the finest rendition of “Man Piaba” that I have ever heard. For that matter I have taught several generations of kids your songs
And then there were the tickets you sent me for the Harry Chapin ASCAP tribute to you in 2000. What a night in New York!!!! The woman I brought fell madly in love with you. That was always a problem for me. After they met you they forgot all about me !!!!
Well Harry, I’m supposed to be sending you birthday greetings not writing a biography. I apologize - I got carried away - there is so much more that I could say. I want to thank you for literally providing me with a lifetime of entertainment and enjoyment, my constant companion, either a vinyl record, a tape, a CD, a DVD or a movie, just a touch away. And now of course there are a multitude of videos on the Internet which will introduce you to a whole new generation of fans and preserve your magnificent legacy even longer.
I also want to thank you for your iconic work in civil and human rights. You have made a difference in this world.
Finally thank you for accompanying me through my life’s journey. You have brought me nothing but joy and pleasure. I don’t know where I would be without Harry Belafonte having been in my life.
I only wish that Sidney could be here for this occasion.
Happy Birthday
“biz hundert un tsvantsik”
- May you live to be one hundred and twenty years -
~ Paul, Toronto, Early 2022.