The Charmer

It seems that Nation of Islam leader "Screwy Louis" Farrakhan has a bit of a history. From Fade to Black comes this story:

In a biography entitled "Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation" [1996 Harper Collins Publishing] the author Arthur J. Magida briefly touches on an obscure fact that in the 1950's Louis Farrakhan was a Calypso Singer who went under the name "The Charmer" [Page 29].

Although unfamiliar with Calypso music we had a hunch that these recordings would be rich with comedic possibilities.... we were not wrong.

So, we donned our grass skirts, grabbed our favorite maracas, put on our Carmen Miranda headsets, and dove into the world of Calypso music. We called hundreds of antique record stores across the country, dug through countless bargain bins and placed numerous 'want ads' in search of any and all recordings by "The Charmer".

After a six month search, we were able to find only three albums with music by "The Charmer". ("The Charmer", "Calypsos Too Hot To Handle" and "Calypsos from the West Indies.") After purchasing the albums (from people oblivious to whom "The Charmer" really was) we digitized all the songs and now bring them out of obscurity.

They have a number of the songs available as RealAudio (really unfortunate choice of Codec) It would be fun to blast these at one of his oh-so-serious "gatherings"