Veteran singer Noel Ranasinghe who is acclaimed as the ‘King of Calypso’ is celebrating the golden jubilee in his journey of music and will perform at the ‘Country Roads Concert’ today, March 29 at Dutch Burgher Union, Bambalapitiya, Colombo 4.
Noel will be playing banjo with ‘Country Revival Band’ together with Rienzie Pereira, Faizal Samath and Ranjith Perera at the open-air acoustic concert extravaganza headed by UK folk sensation and recording artist Astrid Brook.
‘Noel is a musician with a wealth of experience who should be treated as a national treasure’ musician and the organizer of Country Roads, Faizal Samath said.
‘Despite his singing, composing and guitar, Noel is also one of the best banjo players in this country’ Faizal added.
The founder of calypso musical style, Noel, a devotee of country music started his journey in 1958 with the band ‘Flames’ together with his buddy Anton Ratnayake.
‘Flames’ was one of the pioneer music bands in the musical history of this country and later this because with the changes of members to ‘Blue Bells’, ‘Clef’, ‘Moonbeam’ and finally to ‘La Cellonions’ a band which was hailed for introducing Sri Lankan Calypso. Noel captivated the music scene with his evergreen hit ‘Hoiya Hoiya’ and ‘Dahaduka Nivala’ which was released in 1958 since then has presented a large number of songs.
‘I of course have lost count of it but according to my wife Sri (Sriyani) it is more than 300’ Noel said in a joyful tone. Noel is also one of the pioneers in pop music who paved the way to a generation of musicians including Milton Mallawarachchi, Clarence Wijewardena and Annesly Malewana.
Celebrating the golden jubilee Noel is ready with a collection of songs; a mixture of old and original with a novel style of country and calypso and a collection of guitar and banjo instrumentals.
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