වොලී බැස්ටියන්
3 songs performed · 1 composition
Wally Bastiansz (also written Wallie Bastien and Wally Bastian, වොලී බැස්ටියන්) was a Sri Lankan singer and songwriter widely regarded as the father of chorus baila, the call-and-response style of Sinhala baila he shaped in the 1940s. He is the voice behind enduring favourites such as Irin Josapin and Mithura, and is often called the King of Sri Lankan Baila.
He was born on 9 June 1914 in Piyadigama, Galle, in what was then British Ceylon. Baptised Ogustus Martalanus and known in the family as Olinton Mervin Bastiansz, he trained as a musician on guitar, banjo, and violin. By profession he served as a police officer in the traffic division, work that exposed him to a wide range of imported music he would later fold into his own writing.
Bastiansz took the marching tunes and parlour standards circulating in mid-century Ceylon, including melodies like “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Mademoiselle from Armentieres”, and reworked them into Sinhala baila built around a singing chorus. His songs were written about ordinary people and everyday life, which is a large part of why they stayed in the popular memory. Across his career he recorded more than forty songs for labels including HMV, Philips, and Sooriya Records.
Among his best-known recordings are “Nurse Nona”, written for his own sister Felicia, and the much-covered “Irin Josapin Rosalin”. The latter, shortened to Irin Josapin, remains one of the most recognisable baila songs in the Sri Lankan repertoire and has been re-recorded by many later artists. His “Mithura Kiuwama” survives today simply as Mithura. As Wally Bastian, his catalogue has been reissued on streaming services under the banner “King of Sri Lankan Baila”.
Wally Bastiansz died on 10 January 1985, aged 70. His blending of English phrases and Western tunes with Sinhala lyrics set the template that every later baila singer would follow, and his songs are still played at parties and celebrations across Sri Lanka and the diaspora. For listeners who know the music only through later covers, the spelling Wallie Bastien on these pages points back to the same artist who first recorded these baila standards.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Wallie Bastien.