Lionel Belasco

Lionel Belasco (1881 – c. 24 June 1967) was a Trinidadian-Venezuelan pianist, composer and bandleader, best known for his calypso recordings. According to various sources, he was born in Maracaibo (Venezuela) and others in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. He grew up in Trinidad, the son of an Afro-Caribbean mother and a Sephardic Jewish father. He travelled widely in the Caribbean and South America in his youth, absorbing a wide variety of musical influences. He was leading his own band by 1902. He made his first phonograph recordings in Trinidad in 1914. One of his biggest claims to fame is composing the music to "Rum and Coco-Cola", a song that was first popular in Trinidad as "L'Année Passée" in 1943 and then very popular shorlty thereafter in the U.S. as "Rum and Coco-Cola". Lionel first wrote the music for the song in 1906. The song had lyrics added by Lord Invader in early 1940s. Morey Amsterdam, who was visiting Trinidad in 1943, had the song copywritten in the U.S. with Amsterdam and others as songwriters. The song hit #4 overall for Abe Lyman and His Californians, and #8 overall by Vaughn Monroe, both in March of 1945. It became the #1 song in the country for the Andrew Sistes in June of 1945, spending 10 weeks there. After the song's popularity in the states, Belasco and Lord Invader sued for copyright infringement. In 1948, after many years of litigation, both won their cases, with Lord Invader receiving an award of $150,000 in owed royalties. Amsterdam, however, was allowed to retain copyright to the song.