Peanuts

Showtime at the Drumbeat
Tropical Recording Co., LP – 2470
Southeastern Records, Hialeah, FL, 1964

Showtime at the Drumbeat
backside with signature

The (semi) legendary John Berkely "Peanuts" Taylor (MBE) ruled the show club industry in Nassau, Bahamas in the 1960s and 70s. Peanuts owned the Dreambeat. It was founded in 1964, the year I was born. The club doesn't exist anymore but Peanuts still occasionally delights the tourists coming in to the Nassau seaport with a virtuous drumbeat performance, "a snapshot of the young tiny Peanut that danced its way into hearts over seventy years ago." Records with Peanuts Taylor are not that rare here in Southern Florida, so close to the Bahamas, but I am delighted every time I find one. You can imagine then how I felt to come across this signed copy of Showtime at the Drumbeat to add to my ever growing collection of signed records. More than half of this collection features performers from the tourist nightclub industry. Showtime at the Drumbeat features calypsos by various different performers, all managed by Peanuts, some became well known in their own right (i.e. Richie Delamore, Johnny Kemp). To share with you I did however select one of the four tracks on the album performed by Peanuts himself on goombay and conga drums. All four tracks are untitled and the following is the third. The one track in which Peanuts is most prominently featured.