Barbados Beach Club Sources of barbados beach club resources from the Web

Though mainstream audiences were still listening to R&B and rock, modern jazz retained a small core of followers into the 1960s. The foundation of the Belair Jazz Club in Bridgetown in 1961 helped to keep this scene alive.

Barbados is home to spouge music, which is played on guitars, mandolins and drums, but is best known as a second home for Trinidadian calypso and soca, as well as a reggae/soca fusion called ragga-soca. The 1974 revival of the Crop Over Festival, which features the Pic-O-De-Crop Calypso Competition, revitalized and organized the Barbadian calypso scene. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Barbadian artists like Spice, Gabby and Red Plastic Bag became popular in Trinidad and elsehwere, leading the way for a more fully-developed Barbadian sound (often characterized by Eddy Grant's Ring Bang pan-Caribbean fusion rhythm that arose around 1994) and was popularized by groups like Square One and krosfyah. Barbados is, along with Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and the Virgin Islands, one of the few centers for Caribbean jazz.

Though one might assume the island deals with severe tropical storms and hurricanes during the rainy season it actually does not. The island gets brushed or hit every 3.09 years and the average number of years between direct hurricane hits is once every 26.6 years.

The influence of the English on Barbados is more noticeable than on other islands in the West Indies. A good example of this is the island's national sport: cricket. Barbados has brought forth several great cricket players, including Garfield Sobers and Frank Worrell.

The bicameral Parliament consists of the House of Assembly and Senate. The 28 members of the House are elected by universal suffrage to 5-year terms. Elections may be called at any time the government wishes to seek a new mandate or if the government suffers a vote of no-confidence in Parliament. The Senate's 21 members are appointed by the governor general--12 with the advice of the prime minister, two with the advice of the leader of the opposition, and seven at the governor general's discretion.

Among the initial important British figures was Sir William Courten.

Citizens are officially called Barbadian, however residents of Barbados colloquially refer to themselves or the products of the country as "Bajan". The term "Bajan", may have come from a localized pronunciation of the word Barbadian which at times can sound more like "Bar-bajan". The term Barbadian, is used less frequently than is "Bajan".

Traditional African music continued in spite of legal restrictions, including the use of drums and rattles, and declamatory and improvised call and response vocals. Much African music was used in Obeah, an African religion found throughout the island. By the beginning of the 19th century, slaves provided most of the musical accompaniment for plantation festivities, such as the Harvest Home, while the white elites participate in dignity balls.

In May 1997, Prime Minister Owen Arthur hosted President Clinton and 14 other Caribbean leaders during the first-ever U.S.-regional summit in Bridgetown, Barbados. The summit strengthened the basis for regional cooperation on justice and counternarcotics issues, finance and development, and trade.