13103: Barnes post re "Fey" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Johnandrewbarnes@aol.com

In the summer of 1965 I attended the musical review "Wait a Minim!" at
London's Fortune Theater with a cast of eight white South African and British
performers.  The show feature a variety of African instruments, songs, and
skits.  I still have the "vinyl" album (Decca LK 4610).  The third cut is
marked "Foyo" and was performed by a trio with Kalimba, guitar, and a
home-made bull-fiddle.  It was to me a beautiful song, and described in the
notes as "Haitian Patois Lullaby".  However I had not a clue as to the
meaning of the Creole lyrics being sung with South African accents (ag. Foy
yo for fey yo). Seven years later I went to Haiti for the first time to run
the school for the employee children at Hospital Albert Schweitzer.  Quite
often at gatherings of staff or at parties, Dr. Muller Garnier, the hospital
director, and Joel Laborde, OR assistant (now and MD somewhere in the
Midwest) would lead us in the singing of "Fey yo" and I realized that I had
first heard it in London.  As I learned Creole in Deschapelles, seven years
after hearing "Foyo" for the first time, I realized that the lyrics were as
beautiful as the music.  The Boukman Eksperyans version of "Fey" on Kalfou
Danjere is my favorite.