Hubert Smith

 

Hubert Smith is best known for being the composer and singer of the “unofficial anthem” of the island; ‘Bermuda is Another World’.
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Born on May 9, 1920, he had an impressive career that spanned over fifty years. Mr.Smith passed away on December 3, 2001, leaving a permanent imprint on Bermudian musical history. In the early 1950′s he formed his own band ‘Hubert Smith and the Coral Islanders’.

They performed regularly at the Clayhouse Inn in Devonshire, later moving on to perform at various hotels through Bermuda.

Mr. Smith said:

The managers used to come down to Clayhouse to investigate because we were taking all the people out of the hotels. And the reason is they saw the performances there is the reason they started to hire us in the hotels. They took us from Clayhouse Inn into the hotels.

In the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, Hubert Smith and the Coral Islanders performed in Britain, Canada and the United States as part of a marketing campaign organized by the Bermuda Department of Tourism.

He provided the music for the two American television series; Crunch and Des, an NBC television series [1955/56] which was filmed in Bermuda and Adventures of the Sea Hawk [1958].

Travel guide Frommer’s had this to say:

By virtually everyone’s estimate, the musical patriarch of Bermuda was Hubert Smith, who was the island’s official greeter in song.

A balladeer of formidable talent and originality, Smith composed and performed songs for the visits of nearly all the foreign heads of state who graced Bermuda’s shores in recent memory.

His performances for members of the British royal family included one of the most famous songs ever written about the island, “Bermuda Is Another World.” The song is now the island’s unofficial national anthem; it’s included in the best-selling album Bermuda Is Another World.

Below is a slideshow set to Hubert Smith’s notable song ‘Bermuda is Another World’: