He is lithe and balletic, slinking easily about the stage, like a stalk of tall grass bending in the breeze. There is video of Belafonte performing his song вЂњMatildaвЂќ in 1966, at a benefit for Martin Luther King, Jr. ItвЂ™s a beautiful, manifold collection, and reiterates BelafonteвЂ™s standing as one of AmericaвЂ™s most vital and insurrectionary folk singers. This week, Sony Legacy is releasing вЂњThe Legacy of Harry Belafonte: When the Colors Come Together,вЂќ a new anthology of his work. On March 1st, Belafonte will turn ninety. I looked like Carmen Miranda in drag, only in bare feet, with a big toothy grin, as if I were saying, вЂCome to dee islands!вЂ™В вЂќ The first mockup he saw featured his body with вЂњa big bunch of bananas superimposed on my head. Belafonte had bickered with RCA over the cover. 5 on the charts, and вЂњCalypsoвЂќ became the first full-length record of any sort to sell a million copies. вЂњNone of us had any idea, when we recorded it, that it would be spun off as a single,вЂќ Belafonte admits, in his 2011 autobiography, вЂњ My Song.вЂќ вЂњDay-OвЂќ went to No.

BelafonteвЂ™s friend and collaborator, the novelist Bill Attaway, introduced Belafonte to Burgess, whom Attaway had called вЂњthe black Alan Lomax-a walking library of songs from the islands.вЂќ The trio camped out in a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where Belafonte was performing a string of shows, and fiddled around with вЂњDay-O,вЂќ which was known at the time as вЂњThe Banana Boat Song,вЂќ or вЂњHill and Gully Rider.вЂќ One of the writing credits for BelafonteвЂ™s iteration goes to Irving Burgie, or Lord Burgess, a Brooklyn-born songwriter of Barbadian descent. Top Forty with their versions these range from rich and enveloping (the jazz singer Sarah Vaughn) to unsettlingly polite (the folk-pop band The Tarriers).

Incredibly, in 1957, five more artists made it onto the U.S. вЂњDay-OвЂќ is so suffused with joy and pathos-that age-old human mishmash-that almost anybody with an actively beating heart sounds awesome singing it. вЂњMe wanвЂ™ go homeвЂќ is perhaps as universal a plea for freedom as weвЂ™ve got. It is an infinitely applicable refrain, no matter what your metaphorical banana might be, or which cocktail seizes your imagination come quitting time. вЂњDaylight come and me wanвЂ™ go home,вЂќ his chorus chants. Tally Man, tally me banana,вЂќ Belafonte implores. By 1890, the sugar trade in Jamaica had been toppled by an assortment of wars, acts of God, and political upheavals, and bananas had become the countryвЂ™s primary export. ItвЂ™s a call-and-response work song, likely concocted spontaneously by overnight dockworkers cramming bunches of bananas onto ships, hot-footing it away from loose spiders, and fantasizing about rum. The song was written sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, though to suggest that вЂњDay-OвЂќ was formally composed in any sort of premeditated way might be overstating things.

A new anthology of the work of Harry Belafonte, pictured here in the nineteen-forties or fifties, reiterates his standing in American music.

Come mister tally man