June 25, 1916 – January 27, 1981
Pianist and bandleader, Al Harris made a significant contribution to the development of live music shows in Bermuda.
He was an exceptional musician and showman who captivated hotel and nightclub audiences for more than 40 years. His stature and larger than life personality earned him the stage name “Big Al”.
Franklyn Alphonso Harris was the sixth and youngest child of Edward and Ellen Lynch Harris. His parents were St. Kitts’ natives who moved to Bermuda in 1913. Harris was the only one of their children to be born in Bermuda.
Harris wanted to be a lawyer, but because his family could not afford to send him to law school, he became a construction worker. His talent for music first emerged in the family basement, where he began to experiment with old musical instruments which his father collected.
At age 17, he began taking piano lessons from a neighbour. A strong believer in learning the fundamentals of music, he later studied piano, music theory and harmony with Berkeley Institute music teacher Joseph Richards, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music.
Harris’ first job was playing bass fiddle with the Berry Brown Orchestra at the New Windsor Hotel on Queen Street, Hamilton. He worked on a construction site during the day and played in the band for six months without pay. Holding down two jobs was a major challenge for Harris—who had to rely on horse-drawn transport—but his commitment to music paid off. When the band’s pianist took sick, Harris became his replacement. The next season, Berry Brown offered him a full-time position.
In 1945, Harris formed his own 14-piece orchestra and played at many of Bermuda’s top nightspots. Harris’ orchestra played jazz and popular music that had Rachmaninoff, Ravel and Debussy influences. The source of the classical influences would almost certainly have been his piano teacher, Joseph Richards.
Changing musical tastes and smaller hotel entertainment budgets, however, eventually led to Harris having to cut his band down to 12, then eight and finally to four musicians.
Harris’ popular eight-piece band included such well-known players as Clifford Darrell, Eddie Bean and Olaf Simmons on saxophone, Walton Joseph on trumpet, Alan “Hot” Tuzo on guitar, Edward “Buster” Simmons on bass and Charles Butterfield on drums. The band performed regularly at the popular Angel’s Grotto in Harrington Sound as well as many other nightspots.
In the late 1950s, in response to the growing popularity of calypso, Harris formed his calypso band. Members included lead vocalist Bishop Caines, accordion player Noel “Red” Smith, drummer Charlie Butterfield, bass player Bernell “Chalky” Virgil and singer Celeste Robinson.
After playing at Inverurie Hotel and other venues, the group became the resident band at Harmony Hall. The calypso shows Harris and his band presented in the hotel’s Gombey Room became legendary. Tourists and locals alike were thrilled by the band’s Caribbean rhythms, Bishop Caines’ vocals and tap dancing and the distinctive, raspy voice of Celeste Robinson.
Harris and Robinson also performed as a duo at Harmony Hall. In addition, Harris played for other acts, including Kingsley Swan and his Calypso Islanders.
In the 1960s, Al Harris returned to the Windsor Hotel building where he had started his musical career many years before. The hotel’s Alibi Room had been reborn as the Jungle Room nightclub and Harris became bandleader and master of ceremonies for one of Bermuda’s most popular limbo and calypso acts.
Cruise ships passengers formed long lines along Queen Street, sometimes waiting as long as an hour to gain entrance to the “Fiery Limbo Show.” The show included calypso singers backed by the Al Harris trio, a group of extraordinary drummers, “fiery” limbo dancers, whose leaders went one better by dancing on broken glass.
Harris introduced each act and at the end of every performance, he would say “How ‘bout that”, which always elicited a lively response from the audience.
In the early 1960s, Big Al Harris became a union and political activist and wrote letters to newspaper editors in support of Bermudian hotel workers. His activism came to an abrupt end when he was expelled by the short-lived Bermuda United Workers Party.
Harris went back to using his talents to assist musicians and entertainers in need of financial assistance often with medical bills. He played at countless benefit concerts and had a soft spot for children’s charities because, as he once explained, he and his wife Sybil had no children of their own. The couple also opened their St. John’s Road, Pembroke home to visiting entertainers who needed a place to stay.
Harris played regularly for patients in the music therapy programme at St. Brendan’s, the psychiatric hospital. One newspaper report said that Harris
“probably does more benefit work than any other popular musician.”
Harris ran a popular talent show in the 1960s and became a familiar face to a generation of young Bermudians as the resident pianist for the popular children’s 1960’s television show “Junior Club”.
He also coached aspiring musicians and vocalists among them Pam (Saltus) White and Violeta Carmichael.
Harris made several records which have been preserved for posterity. Harry Bloom, a Canadian recording studio owner who Harris met in 1955, recorded his music and those of other local musicians. The original vinyl copies have since been converted into a set of four CDs, which were presented to the Bermuda Archives in April 2012.
Harris died on January 27, 1981 at age 64 leaving an impressive legacy as one of the island’s most unforgettable entertainers.
In 2008, he was one of several entertainers, Celeste Robinson among them, honoured in a ‘Bermuda Troubadors’ commemorative stamp. Later the same year, he was a recipient of a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bermuda Arts Council. In 2011, he was inducted into the Bermuda Music Hall of Fame.
