Calypso Rose

Artist: Calypso Rose

LP: Splish Splash

Song: "Me Ein't Going"
[ listen ]

Record Archive is humongous. When I first laid eyes on its Tweety Bird yellow exterior walls, I figured there was simply no way that the entire building could be filled with record store. But it is. I felt like Charles Foster Kane in Xanadu when I stepped inside. It's got to be one of the vastest record stores I've ever seen. Anyway, after recovering from my awestruck state, I had only about 45 minutes to browse before they closed for the day. So of course I was back the next morning when they opened the doors to pick up where I'd left off. Even then I was only able to dig through a small fraction of the records they have for sale. 

It was at Record Archive that I finally found the ever-elusive 7" of Missing Persons' "Walking In L.A.," which I'd been hunting for since the 1980s; I found a Bohannon record I hadn't seen before, a couple of Billy Williams LPs, and a few other goodies too—including this 1970s album by Calypso Rose (she was called Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis, when she was born, so you can hardly blame her for the name change). Rose has been living in New York City since before I started looking for that Missing Persons single, and even earlier than that she was the first woman to win the Trinidad Road March competition. That was in 1977, and she won again in 1978 too! There's more to know about this dynamite diva on Wikipedia here.

[ Record Archive — Rochester, NY ]