Sir Lancelot (singer)

Pinard was born in Cumuto, Trinidad. His father, Donald Pinard, was a wealthy government official and Anglophile.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KZcUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ta0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6708,1691296&dq=sir-lancelot+calypso+pinard&hl=en "After 18 Years, Sir Lancelot Returns For Brief Stay Here."] Virgin Islands Daily News. September 24, 1963. Pinard attended exclusive parochial schools and his family regularly attended the opera (which gave him an informal musical education). He began singing traditional German lieder and Italian arias. He studied to be a pharmacist as a young man, and his family sent him to New York City to study medicine. After hearing a concert by the African-American lyric tenor Roland Hayes he gave up his medical education to study singing and music, and soon was performing classical works. He began including calypso in his performances, and eventually became a full-time calypso singer. About this time, he met the Trinidadian band leader Gerald Clark, perhaps the most significant promoter of calypso in New York City.Bright, Doug. "Rounder Label Unearths Calypso Treasure." Heritage Music Review. April 2000. Clark asked him to record some calypso songs, and Pinard agreed. He made his debut as Sir Lancelot in 1940 at New York City's Village Vanguard nightclub. He was a close friend of the photographer Seema Aissen Weatherwax, who took some of his first publicity photos.Halprin, Sara. Seema's Show: A Life on the Left. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-8263-3847-X}}

Sir Lancelot became a regular at the Village Vanguard, and by the 1940s "was widely considered the hottest calypsonian in the city."Thompson, Reggae and Caribbean Music, 2002, p. 61. His trademark became the tuxedo he wore in nearly every concert, and his popularity was nationwide for two decades.Browne, Pat. The Guide to United States Popular Culture. Madison, Wisc.: Popular Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-87972-821-3}}Cohen, Ronald D. Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940–1970. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. {{ISBN|1-55849-348-4}} In the 1940s he returned home for the first time but was largely disowned by his family, which felt that his calypso singing had shamed them. Sir Lancelot wrote the calypso song "Shame & Scandal" (also known as "Fort Holland") in response.Bansak, Edmund G. Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003. {{ISBN|0-7864-1709-9}}

Sir Lancelot toured with Lionel Belasco in California and Oregon in 1941. After a show in Los Angeles, he was offered a minor singing role in the picture Two Yanks in Trinidad (Columbia Pictures, 1942). His appearance was made possible by the Oscar-winning performance of Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind just two years earlier.Cripps, Thomas. Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900–1942. New York: Oxford University Press US, 1993. {{ISBN|0-19-502130-4}} He made more than 15 films, and his significant film appearances include:

:*Happy Go Lucky (1943), where he sang Roaring Lion's 1933 calypso hit, "Ugly Woman."

:*I Walked with a Zombie (1943), his first of three films made by the horror producer Val Lewton, as a calypso singer.Thompson, Dave. Reggae and Caribbean Music. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002. {{ISBN|0-87930-655-6}} His "Shame and Scandal" is performed, as is "The British Grenadiers".Williams, Tony. Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film. Madison, Wisc.: Associated University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-8386-3564-4}}

:*The Ghost Ship (1943), his second Val Lewton film, his first role in which he primarily acted rather than sang.

:*The Curse of the Cat People (1944), his third and last Lewton film, as Edward, a butler and cook

:*To Have and Have Not (1944)[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037382/fullcredits#cast "To Have and Have Not (1944)"], IMDb (full cast and crew page)

:*Zombies on Broadway (1945)[http://blogs.commercialappeal.com/the_bloodshot_eye/2009/10/twin-titans-of-terror.html Beifuss, John. "The 13 Days of Halloween 2009 – Day One: Twin Titans of Terror: 'Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics' on DVD."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091023043858/http://blogs.commercialappeal.com/the_bloodshot_eye/2009/10/twin-titans-of-terror.html |date=October 23, 2009 }} The Commercial Appeal. October 19, 2009.

:*Brute Force (1947)Silver, Alain; Ursini, James; and Duncan, Paul. Film Noir. Berlin: Taschen, 2004. {{ISBN|3-8228-2261-2}}

:*Romance on the High Seas (1948)

In the 1940s, Sir Lancelot made numerous records (signing with Apollo Records),Zolten, J. Jerome. Great God A'mighty!: The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music. New York: Oxford University Press US, 2003. {{ISBN|0-19-515272-7}} and sang in commercials.McGill, Lisa D. Constructing Black selves: Caribbean American Narratives and the Second Generation. New York: NYU Press, 2005. {{ISBN|0-8147-5691-3}} He also composed a score for the 1948 motion picture, Tarzan and the Mermaids. He allegedly made millions of dollars selling calypso records, and spent most of it.Feather, Leonad. "'Black' Music Spans the Spectrum." Los Angeles Times. October 6, 1968.

Sir Lancelot was politically active for much of his life. After hearing Henry A. Wallace's "century of the common man" speech on May 8, 1942, Sir Lancelot composed the "Common Man" calypso song. Wallace later wrote him a long letter of thanks. He composed several popular calypso songs with left-wing lyrics in the 1940s, including "Defenders of Stalingrad" and "Walk in Peace" (1946).Scheurer, Timothy E. Born in the U.S.A.: The Myths of America in Popular Music from Colonial Times to the Present. Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. {{ISBN|1-934110-56-6}} His stand on war and peace issues was so well known that a cartoon version of him appeared in Columbia Pictures' 1944 animated short film, The Disillusioned Bluebird (in which the calypso-singing character tells a bluebird that the world will not always be at war).Shull, Michael S. and Wilt, David E. Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939–1945. 2d ed. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2004. {{ISBN|0-7864-1555-X}} According to Pete Seeger, the 1948 Lead Belly song "Equality for Negroes" was inspired by a Sir Lancelot song.Wolfe, Charles K. and Lornell, Kip. The Life and Legend of Leadbelly. Boston: Da Capo Press, 1999. {{ISBN|0-306-80896-X}} Sir Lancelot became a U.S. citizen in 1960.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=55oUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Dq4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4518,2096051&dq=sir-lancelot+calypso+pinard&hl=en "Singing Citizen Is Sir Lancelot."] Virgin Islands Daily News. March 17, 1960.

Sir Lancelot spent six years touring in Europe in the 1950s, which negatively impacted his career in the U.S. Sir Lancelot's last film appearance was in 1958 (with Yul Brynner in The Buccaneer), although he made a noted appearance in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show in 1967. Through the 1960s and into the early 1970s, he recorded several "Gospel calypso" songs. He was widely popular in Europe into the late 1960s. His popularity in the U.S. at the time was still strong enough for Sherwood Schwartz to use Sir Lancelot's musical style as inspiration for the original theme song to the television program Gilligan's Island and nearly had Sir Lancelot sing the theme.Schwartz, Sherwood. Inside Gilligan's Island. New York: Macmillan, 1994. {{ISBN|0-312-10482-0}} His music, too, endured, with Lord Melody covering "Shame and Scandal" in the 1960s.Manuel, Peter Lamarche; Bilby, Kenneth M.; and Largey, Michael D. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music From Rumba to Reggae. 2d ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 2006. {{ISBN|1-59213-463-7}} He continued to work as a musician until at least 1973, briefly coming out of retirement in the 1980s to perform at McCabe's Guitar Shop (Los Angeles) with Van Dyke Parks, Ry Cooder and other musicians.Snowden, Don. "Calypso King Back on Throne." Los Angeles Times. December 13, 1984. He also performed and recorded with Steven Springer, Arizona-based band Sanctuary, and his nephew Brian Pinard, recording his last album under the name "Knights of the Holy Trinity," with his last recording being "Pinardhymns – Religious Calypso."

Sir Lancelot was a Roman Catholic who married and had three daughters. He spent his last years in Australia with his nephew, Brian Pinard.

Sir Lancelot died of natural causes in Anaheim, California and is buried at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.{{Cite book|last=Wilson|first=Scott|title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons|publisher=McFarland|pages=422}}

• List of calypso musicians

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|0484240|Sir Lancelot}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20021231003310/http://www.tabletnewspaper.com/old%20tablet/vol2iss_14/hwooddeath.htm Hollywood Deathwatch: Sir Lancelot]
• [http://www.calypsoworld.org/noflash/artists-17.htm Lancelot Pinard (Sir Lancelot)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050405204709/http://eeweems.com/val_lewton/cast_lancelot.html Sir Lancelot] (includes CD discography and Los Angeles Times obituary)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060505045851/http://music.msn.com/artist/default.aspx?artist=148195 Sir Lancelot] at MSN
• {{Find a Grave|6754443}}

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Category:1902 births

Category:2001 deaths

Category:Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City

Category:Calypsonians

Category:20th-century Trinidad and Tobago male singers

Category:20th-century Trinidad and Tobago singers

Category:Trinidad and Tobago emigrants to the United States