Neville Marcano known as the Growling Tiger, is a Trinidadian

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

 calypsonian

Calypsonian

A calypsonian , originally known as the chantwell is a musician, from the Anglophone Caribbean, who sings songs called calypso. Calypsos are musical renditions having their origins in the West African griot tradition...

.

Born in Siparia

Siparia

Siparia is a town in southern Trinidad, in Trinidad and Tobago, south of Penal and south-east of Fyzabad. Also called "The Sand City," it was originally a non-Mission Amerindian settlement. Siparia grew to be the administrative centre for County Saint Patrick, and later the Siparia Regional...

, Tiger was originally a boxer who won the Trinidad bantamweight

Bantamweight

Bantamweight is usually a class in boxing for boxers who weigh above 115 pounds and up to 118 pounds . However, in Mixed Martial Arts it is 134-136 pounds . Wrestling also has similar weight classes including bantamweight...

 championship in 1929. He was active in calypso from his teens. He was a member of the Old Brigade of calypso singers, which included Lord Beginner

Lord Beginner

Lord Beginner from Port-of-Spain in Trinidad was a popular exponent of the Caribbean musical form Calypso.-Person:...

, Attila The Hun

Attila the Hun (calypsonian)

Attila the Hun , was a calypsonian from Trinidad.-Person:Atilla the Hun began singing in 1911 and was at his most prominent in the 1930s and 1940s. He was one of the pioneers in spreading awareness of calypso beyond its birthplace in Trinidad and Tobago...

, the Roaring Lion

Roaring Lion

Roaring Lion was a calypsonian...

, and Lord Pretender. In 1935, he went to New York with Attila and Lord Beginner

Lord Beginner

Lord Beginner from Port-of-Spain in Trinidad was a popular exponent of the Caribbean musical form Calypso.-Person:...

 to record for the Decca

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

 label. In 1939, he won the first Calypso Monarch competition with "The Labour Situation in Trinidad And Tobago."

More so than his contemporaries he sang about social and political issues. His best known songs are "Money is King," about economic inequality, and "The Gold in Africa," about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. Recording together with Atilla and Beginner as the Keskidee Trio, he recorded some lighter tunes, including "Don't Let Me Mother Know."

Folklorist Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

 recorded him in 1962. In 1966, Growling Tiger performed at the Newport Folk Festival

Newport Folk Festival

The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...

. In 1979, he recorded an album, Knockdown Calypsos, for Rounder Records

Rounder Records

Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...

.