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Jamaica Johnny was Cornelis Lionel Liefeld's nickname.Liefeld was born in 1919 in Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam, a small state on the northeast coast of South America - a Dutch colony until 1954, then a member of the Dutch Kingdom until final independence in 1975. During the Second World War he joined the Dutch Navy and was stationed in the Netherlands after the end of the war. Attracted by Amsterdam's lively music and cultural scene, he left the army and became a singer in the band of his compatriot Max Woiski. In the mid-50s he went into business for himself as Jamaica Johnny and formed his own band, the Milagro Boys. Now he sang Calypso in English at the height of the Calypso craze.

With his band he mostly performed in the Netherlands, but he also toured other European countries, especially in Scandinavia, where he was able to recruit a large fan base.

Besides his own versions of popular Calypso numbers, Jamaica Johnny wrote new songs himself and regularly recorded for Phillips - and he even recorded Calypsos for commercials of the Amstel Brewery.

In the early 6o's Cornelis L. Liefeld founded a family in the Netherlands and left show business. From then on he worked in the automobile industry, among others. He died in 1993.

Producer Nico Feuerbach, with the great support of our Dutch trainee Akout Valentino, located Cornelis Liefeld's son, who was able to close many information gaps.

The Dutch records of Jamaica Johnny apparently sold well back then and are another example of the range of international calypso madness in the late fifties, which was by no means limited to the USA, and show Jamaica Johnny as the leading representative of the genre in the Netherlands.

Trinidad The Land Of Calypso - Jamaica Johnny & His Milagro Boys