“From the Balade!” Lion Roars

Have you ever sang “He Come from the Glory” for Christmas? The writer of that classic is the equally classy calypsonian the Roaring Lion, Raphael de Leon (1908 – 1999). Lion was an educator of calypso who maintained that the artform is of French origin from the balade. Though his claim is today shrouded in silence, its logic still roars across the ages.