Wilmoth Houdini

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Wilmoth Houdini (Frederick Wilmoth Hendricks, November 25, 1895, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago – August 6, 1977, New York, USA) was a prominent calypsonian. In 1916 he started his career in earnest when he began working with the African Millionaires, a large carnival group consisting of about 25 members. He arrived in New York sometime around 1927, after working on cargo ships and travelling extensively. Not long after his arrival there, he began cutting records with local bands for Decca Records, notably Gerald Clark's Night Owls. He released well over a hundred different 78s between 1928 and 1940, also under the names of Fredrick Wilmoth Hendricks (his given name), Edgar Leon Sinclair (the name on his US passport), and King Houdini. His 1939 composition "He Had It Coming" was a hit for Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald under the new title "Stone Cold Dead in the Market". The song stayed on the top of the R&B charts for five weeks, and reached no. 7 on the pop charts. Gaining a good deal of recognition, Houdini wasted no time in organizing high-profile calypso festivals and concerts around New York, quickly becoming a respected member of the Caribbean communities there. After moving to New York (as one of the earliest Trinidadian émigrés), he was often the object of derision by the calypsonians still in Trinidad, who claimed that he was stealing their ideas and capitalizing on them in the USA. This can be seen in numerous calypsos of the early to mid-1930s, from Roaring

top songs

albums

The Calypso Way

The Cooks in Trinidad

Poor But Ambitious

Rum and Coca-Cola

Calypso Legends - Wilmoth Houdini (1929 - 1940)

Rum & Coca-Cola

Poor but Ambitious: Calypso Classics from Trinidad 1928-1940

Poor But Ambitious: Calypso Classics

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Calypso Music Of The 1920s & 1930s

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Calypso Capers

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Muriel's Treasure, Vol. 1: Vintage Calypso from the 1950s & 1960s

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history of carnival

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