PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP/Getty Images
SGranitz / WireImage / Getty Images
ROBYN BECK / AFP via Getty Images
PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP/Getty Images
Numero Group via AP
Karl Walter / Getty Images
Jack Taylor / Getty Images
Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Rob Loud / Getty Images
AP
Stephen Shugerman / Getty Images
Charles Payne / New York Daily News
Larry Ellis/Express/Getty Images
Craig Mathew / AP
LOIC VENANCE / AFP/Getty Images
Rune Hellestad - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images
AP
AP
Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for Lung Transplant
Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images
Mario Suriani / AP
Caroline McCredie / Getty Images
Jordan Strauss / Invision/AP
Vincent Riehl / New York Daily News
Andrew Medichini / AP
Richard Drew / AP
Tim Mosenfelder / Getty Images for iHeartMedia
Ed Bailey / AP
MARK RALSTON / AFP via Getty Images
Fred Ramage/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Wade Payne/Invision/AP
AP
Albert L. Ortega / Getty Images
Fred Morgan / New York Daily News
Larry Ellis / Getty Images
Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images
Noel Vasquez / Getty Images
Al Bello / Allsport / Getty Images
Jon Kopaloff / Getty Images
ShowBizIreland / Getty Images
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
TOLGA AKMEN / AFP/Getty Images
Bryan Pace for New York Daily News
Anonymous / AP
Paul CHARBIT / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Paul Hawthorne / Getty Images
RALPH GATTI / AFP/Getty Images
Unimedia/REX/Shutterstock
Jerry Mosey / AP
Osamu Honda / AP
Jon Kopaloff / FilmMagic / Getty Images
AP
Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
Francois Durand / Getty Images
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Walter McBride / Getty Images
Matthew Simmons / Getty Images
Susan Watts/New York Daily News
Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo / AP
Kevin Winter / Getty Images
Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
David Livingston / Getty Images
Gary Miller / Getty Images
Gabe Ginsberg / Getty Images
Darryl Dyck / AP
Matthew Eisman / Getty Images
Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images
Noam Galai / Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows
NBC Universal via Getty Images
Kevin Winter / Getty Images
AP
Joshua Blanchard / Getty Images for Magnolia Pictures
NICK UT / AP
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images
Chris Pizzello / Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Paul Sakuma / AP
Dove / Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Paras Griffin / Getty Images for BMI
Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Harry Dempster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Chris Carlson / AP
Dominik Bindl / Getty Images
Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images
Amanda Edwards / Getty Images
Pace, Bryan Freelance NYDN
Bryan Steffy / Getty Images
Teresa Kroeger / Getty Images
NBC / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
New York Daily News
Robin Marchant / Getty Images
Kevin Winter / Getty Images
Michael Caulfield / AP
Justin Walters / AP
Michael Buckner / Getty Images
Toby Canham / Getty Images
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for WWE
Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Alan Diaz / AP
Gary Gershoff / Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame
Richard Drew / AP
Richard Vogel / AP
Richard Shotwell / Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Matt Sayles / AP
Carlos Alvarez / Getty Images
Keystone / Getty Images
Martyn Goodacre / Getty Images
Lou Rocco / ABC
Theo Wargo / Getty Images
Les Lee / Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
REX/Shutterstock / REX/Shutterstock
Cindy Ord / Getty Images
Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Win McNamee / Getty Images
Evan Agostini / Getty Images
Globe Photos/MediaPunch/IPX via AP
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Josh Anderson / AP
Mark Davis / Getty Images for WIN
Bryan Pace for New York Daily News
FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP/Getty Images
Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Chris Pizzello / AP
Phillip Faraone / Getty Images for Roc Nation
John Sciulli / Getty Images
Brooklyn-born songwriter Irving Burgie, whose songs sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, found his greatest success with a calypso classic penned for Harry Belafonte — and resurrected by “Beetlejuice.”
Burgie, who died Friday at the age of 95, catapulted Belafonte to the top of the 1956 music charts with the irresistible single “Day-O” as the pair launched a collaboration that eventually included more than 30 songs over three best-selling albums.
Thirty-two years later, “Day-O” resurfaced during a memorable dinner party scene in the hit movie “Beetlejuice” before returning yet again this year in the Broadway production of the Tim Burton-directed classic. The popular hit single was also used to rouse snoozing U.S. astronauts orbiting in outer space in 1990 and 1997.
Burgie, known professionally as Lord Burgess, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007 and wrote the lyrics to the national anthem for his mother’s homeland of Barbados after the island nation achieved independence on Nov. 30, 1966.
Among the artists who recorded his songs were Jimmy Buffett, the Kingston Trio, Brian Wilson, Carly Simon, Chuck Berry and Sam Cooke.
Burgie collaborated with his friend Belafonte across three albums of material: “Calypso,” with its hit single “Day-O,” followed by “Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean” and “Jump Up the Calypso.” He wrote eight of the 11 songs on the breakout “Calypso” album, the first million-selling LP by a solo artist in history, and penned the Christmas classic “Mary’s Boy Child.”
“Irving Burgie wrote brilliant lyrics that found their way into the ears of people all over the world,” said one of his biggest fans, poet Maya Angelou.
Burgie’s death was announced Saturday by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley at the nation’s Independence Day Parade, and a moment of silence was observed in his honor.
As a kid, Burgie was a stickball player and a fan of the beach at Coney Island. He played in a local drum and bugle corps, but never took music seriously until he returned from serving in an all-black U.S. Army battalion during World War II.
Using the G.I. Bell, he majored in voice at the prestigious Juilliard School and learned how to play guitar before launching his prodigious career as a singer/guitarist at venues like the Village Vanguard in Manhattan.
Burgie soon found his niche as a songwriter, and an annual scholarship in his name is awarded annually by the ASCAP Foundation to an African-American songwriter from New York City.