The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens Songfacts The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens Songfacts Songfacts The original title was "Mbube," which means "lion." It was a hunting song originally sung in Zulu in what is now Swaziland. This was popularized in the 1930s by South African singer Solomon Linda, who recorded it in 1939 with his group, The Evening Birds. Apparently they were a bold bunch, and got the idea for this from when they used to chase lions who were going after the cattle owned by their families. This was recorded in South Africa, where it was a big hit. Around 1948, the South African record company sent a copy to Decca Records in the US, hoping to get it distributed there. Folk singer Pete Seeger got a hold of it and started working on an English version. In the 1950s, Miriam Makeba recorded this with the Zulu lyrics, and Pete Seeger recorded it with his band, The Weavers (who dominated the charts with "Goodnight Irene").

The Weavers recorded the refrain of the song (no verses) and called it "Wimoweh." Their version hit #15 on the US Best Sellers charts in 1952. In 1957, it was included on, The Weavers At Carnegie Hall, a very popular album in the world of folk music. Seeger thought they were saying "Wimoweh" on the original, and that's what he wrote down and how it was recorded in English. They were actually saying "Uyimbube," which means "You're a Lion." It was misheard for "Wimeoweh" because when pronounced, Uyimbube sounds like: oo-yim-bweh-beh. Hank Medress, Jay Siegel, and Phil and Mitch Margo, who made up The Tokens, had a Top 15 hit "Tonight I Fell in Love" in 1960, but didn't have a record label in 1961. They auditioned for producers Hugo and Luigi (Peretti and Creatore) by singing "Wimoweh" to them. Hugh and Luigi were impressed by the performance but decided that the song needed new lyrics.

With help from George Weiss, Hugo and Luigi rewrote the song, giving it the title "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The Tokens thought this had been nothing more than an elaborate audition - "Who is gonna buy a song about a lion sleeping" was their general sentiment. They were so embarrassed with the new title and lyrics that they fought the release of the recording (it was scheduled to be the B-side of another "import," a Portuguese song that they recorded in the same May 1961 session, "Tina"). Influential disc jockey Murray the K pushed "Tina," but once a New England DJ started playing the B-side on the air, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" started its climb to the #1 position, hitting the top of the charts in the Christmas holidays of 1961-62. The run at #1 for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was interrupted by a unique event: the return to #1 by Chubby Checker's "The Twist" 17 months after it hit the top spot on the Hot 100 for the first time. The Kingston Trio recorded this in 1959 on their Live From The Hungry i LP.

When introducing the song, singer Dave Guard stated that "Mbube" was a song about a sleeping lion (he doesn't refer to the song by name: he gives the background of the song before the Trio sings it). Part of the translated lyrics, as given by Guard: "Hush! Hush! If we all be quiet, there will be lion meat for dinner." The success of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" didn't ensure long-term recording security for The Tokens as a singing group. They didn't have a singing/recording contract, but they DID have a producing contract! After "Lion," members of the group had producing success with the Chiffons ("He's So Fine," "One Fine Day," "Sweet Talkin' Guy"), the Happenings ("See You in September," "My Mammy") and Dawn ("Knock Three Times," "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree"). In 1971, they produced a note-for-note remake of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by Robert John -- with Jay, Hank, and Mitch singing backgrounds and Ellie Greenwich singing bass. The new version peaked at #3.

When Hank left the group in 1972, the Tokens renamed themselves Cross Country and recorded an album. Their version of the Wilson Pickett hit "In the Midnight Hour" hit the Top 30 in 1973; the group disbanded shortly afterwards. The original members of the group reunited in 1981 for a "farewell concert," although one incarnation or another has been performing off-and-on since then. >> Suggestion credit: Brad Wind - Miami, FL, for all above Opera singer Anita Darien was brought in for the soprano during and after the sax solo. Her voice almost sounds like an instrument on the record. The Tokens sang backup on another version of the song made popular by Robert John 10 years later. In 1982 the group Tight Fit had a UK #1 hit with their cover version. None of Tight Fit actually sang on the record, but they looked good and promoted it well. Roy Ward of City Boy recorded the real vocals.

The original version by Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds can be found on the album Crocodiles, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Solomon Linda and The Evening Birds and Others: Mbube Roots--Zulu Choral Music from South Africa, 1930s-1960s. The 3 surviving daughters of Solomon Linda sued for royalty rights to this song in 1999 and won a settlement in the case 6 years later. Solomon Linda died in poverty from kidney disease in 1962 at age 53. As part of the settlement with Abilene Music, who own the publishing rights, Linda's heirs receive 25% of past and future royalties from the song, which are considerable since it is used in so many movies and still receives airplay. In the 1950s Linda sold the rights to this song to Gallo Records of South Africa for 10 shillings (about $1.70), at a time when apartheid laws robbed blacks of negotiating rights. In the 1970s, Linda's widow signed over the rights to Abilene.

This song was also used in Disney's 1994 hit movie The Lion King. It was sung by Timon the meerkat (Nathan Lane) and Pumba the warthog (Ernie Sabella). >> Suggestion credit: Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) In the Jungle, the Unjust Jungle, a Small Victory By SHARON LaFRANIERE JOHANNESBURG ï¿½ As Solomon Linda first recorded it in 1939, it was a tender melody, almost childish in its simplicity ï¿½ three chords, a couple of words and some baritones chanting in the background. But the saga of the song now known worldwide as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is anything but a lullaby. It is fraught with racism and exploitation and, in the end, 40-plus years after his death, brings a measure of justice. Were he still alive, Solomon Linda might turn it into one heck of a ballad. Born in 1909 in the Zulu heartland of South Africa, Mr. Linda never learned to read or write, but in song he was supremely eloquent.

After moving to Johannesburg in his mid-20's, he quickly conquered the weekend music scene at the township beer halls and squalid hostels that housed much of the city's black labor force. He sang soprano over a four-part harmony, a vocal style that was soon widely imitated. By 1939, a talent scout had ushered Mr. Linda's group, the Original Evening Birds, into a recording studio where they produced a startling hit called "Mbube," Zulu for "The Lion." Elizabeth Nsele, Mr. Linda's youngest surviving daughter, said it had been inspired by her father's childhood as a herder protecting cattle in the untamed hinterlands. "The lion was going round and round, and the lion was happy," she said. "But my father was not happy. He had been staying there since morning and he was hungry." The lyrics were spartan ï¿½ just mbube and zimba, which means "stop" ï¿½ but its chant and harmonies were so entrancing that the song came to define a whole generation of Zulu a cappella singing, a style that became known simply as Mbube.

Music scholars say the 78 r.p.m. recording of "Mbube" was probably the first African record to sell 100,000 copies. From there, it took flight worldwide. In the early 50's, Pete Seeger recorded it with his group, the Weavers. His version differed from the original mainly in his misinterpretation of the word "mbube" (pronounced "EEM-boo-beh"). Mr. Seeger sang it as "wimoweh," and turned it into a folk music staple. There followed a jazz version, a nightclub version, another folk version by the Kingston Trio, a pop version and finally, in 1961, a reworking of the song by an American songwriter, George Weiss. Mr. Weiss took the last 20 improvised seconds of Mr. Linda's recording and transformed it into the melody. He added lyrics beginning "In the jungle, the mighty jungle." A teen group called the Tokens sang it with a doo-wop beat ï¿½ and it topped charts worldwide. Some 150 artists eventually recorded the song. It was translated into languages from Dutch to Japanese.

It had a role in more than 13 movies. By all rights, Mr. Linda should have been a rich man. Instead, he lived in Soweto with barely a stick of furniture, sleeping on a dirt floor carpeted with cow dung. Mr. Linda received 10 shillings ï¿½ about 87 cents today ï¿½ when he signed over the copyright of "Mbube" in 1952 to Gallo Studios, the company that produced his record. He also got a job sweeping floors and serving tea in the company's packing house. His eight children survived on maize porridge, known as pap. When they passed a grade in school, their reward was an egg. Two died as babies, one of malnutrition, said his daughter Ms. Nsele, now 47. "Chicken feet and pap, chicken feet and pap," she said. "That was our meal for years and years." When Mr. Linda died in 1962, at 53, with the modern equivalent of $22 in his bank account, his widow had no money for a gravestone. How much he should have collected is in dispute.

Over the years, he and his family have received royalties for "Wimoweh" from the Richmond Organization, the publishing house that holds the rights to that song, though not as much as they should have, Mr. Seeger said. "I didn't realize what was going on and I regret it," said Mr. Seeger, now 86, adding that he learned only recently that Mr. Linda received less than the 50 percent of publishing royalties Mr. Seeger says he was due. "I have always left money up to other people. I was kind of stupid." But where Mr. Linda's family really lost out, his lawyers claim, was in "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a megahit. From 1991 to 2000, the years when "The Lion King" began enthralling audiences in movie theaters and on Broadway, Mr. Linda's survivors received a total of perhaps $17,000 in royalties, according to Hanro Friedrich, the family's lawyer. A lawyer for Abilene Music, the publishing house for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," did not return repeated calls for comment.

But Owen Dean, a South African copyright lawyer who also represents the family, said the amount was a mere pittance compared with the profits the song generated. The Lindas say they knew no better. Ms. Nsele said she remembered hearing her father's tune on the radio as a teenager in the 1970's and recalled: "I asked my mother, 'Who are those people?' She said she didn't know. She was happy because the husband's song was playing. She didn't know she was supposed to get something." Indeed, few people knew until Rian Malan, the South African author and songwriter, documented the inequity in 2000 in Rolling Stone magazine. In a telephone interview this month, Mr. Malan said he was stunned "by the degree to which everyone was relying on the Lindas never asking the question" of why they were paid so little. Mr. Malan's article embarrassed several major players in the American music industry and brought both Mr. Friedrich and Mr. Dean to the family's defense. The Lindas filed suit in 2004, demanding $1.5 million in damages, but their case was no slam-dunk. Not only had Mr.

Linda signed away his copyright to Gallo in 1952, Mr. Dean said, but his wife, who was also illiterate, signed them away again in 1982, followed by his daughters several years later. Ms. Nsele contends the family was hoodwinked by a South African lawyer, now deceased. Mr. Friedrich said the lawyer appeared to have worn two hats, simultaneously representing the family and the song's copyright holders. In their lawsuit, the Lindas invoked an obscure 1911 law under which the song's copyright reverted to Mr. Linda's estate 25 years after his death. On a separate front, they criticized the Walt Disney Company, whose 1994 hit movie "The Lion King" featured a meerkat and warthog singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Disney argued that it had paid Abilene Music for permission to use the song, without knowing its origins. But for a company built on its founder's benevolent image, the case "had all the makings of a nightmare," Mr. Dean said ï¿½ a David and Goliath story in which Disney raked in profits from the song while Mr.

Linda's children toiled as maids and factory workers, lived without indoor plumbing and sometimes had to borrow from their lawyer for food. In February, Abilene agreed to pay Mr. Linda's family royalties from 1987 onward, ending the suit. No amount has been disclosed, but the family's lawyers say their clients should be quite comfortable. A representative for Disney would not discuss the circumstances behind the lawsuit, but the company said in a statement that Walt Disney Pictures had licensed " 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' in good faith" and was pleased that the litigation had been resolved "to everyone's satisfaction." Some injustices cannot be redressed: in 2001, Mr. Linda's daughter Adelaide died of AIDS at age 38, unable to afford life-saving antiretroviral treatment. "I was angry before," said Ms. Nsele, who, as a government nurse, is one of the few of Mr. Linda's descendants who is employed. "They didn't ask permission. They just decided to do anything they wanted with my father's song." "But now it seems we must forgive, because they have come to their senses and realized they have made a mistake," Ms.

Nsele said. "The Bible says you must try to forgive." "Not 'try,' " her 17-year-old daughter Zandile corrected. "It says 'forgive.' " The Tokens — The Lion Sleeps Tonight — Listen, watch, download and discover music for free at Last.fm pop "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", also known as "Wimoweh" and originally as "Mbube" is a song recorded by Solomon Linda and his group The Evening Birds for the South African Gallo Record Company in 1939. It was covered internationally by many 1950s pop and folk revival artists, including The Weavers, Jimmy Dorsey, Yma Sumac, Miriam Makeba, and The Kingston Trio. In 1961, it became a number one hit in the U.S. as adapted by the Doo-Wop group The Tokens. It… read more Don't want to see ads? Subscribe now Similar Tracks The Lion Sleeps Tonight :: SteynOnline The Lion Sleeps Tonight Solomon Linda and the Original Evening Birds This column comes by way of request from several readers, ever since the demise of Cecil the Lion hit the front pages.

Here is the story of the biggest hit ever to come out of Africa - and why its author never reaped the benefits: In the jungle, the mighty jungle The Lion Sleeps Tonight... A third of a century ago, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" got to Number One in Britain for Tight Fit. Can't quite place Tight Fit? It sounds like a vaguely parodic name for a boy band, but in fact they were a coed combo - one boy, two girls, a male model and two female dancers, hired as a photogenic front after the record had already been made. The girls had failed to make the cut at an audition for the more successfully contrived group, Bucks Fizz, and were shortly booted out of Tight Fit, too. But for a few weeks in 1982 on the BBC's "Top Of The Pops" they did well enough moving about in synchronized "Wimowehs" while the male model mouthed to a vocal track actually sung by a guy from the band City Boy. The bottom inevitably drops out of the Tight Fits of the music biz, but "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" roars on regardless.

It's one of the biggest songs ever about a lion, apart from the Oscar-winning "Born Free" and the Eagles' "You can't hide those lion eyes". "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" has been a hit in every medium - on movie screens all over the world, in Disney's The Lion King, and then on Broadway, in the stage version. Before Tight Fit, it was a Billboard Number Three for Robert John in the Seventies, a Number One for the Tokens in the Sixties; under the title "Wimoweh", it was a hit for the Weavers in the Fifties, and in the Forties, as "Mbube"... Ah, but that's where the story gets murkier. Who wrote those words about the mighty jungle? It was a guy called George Weiss, a reliable man about Manhattan in the Fifties and Sixties. He wrote the lyrics for Mister Wonderful on Broadway, and the title song did very nicely for Peggy Lee and "Too Close For Comfort" did very nicely for Sammy Davis Jr, Eartha Kitt, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Steve and Eydie, and pretty much everybody else. Later he did very nicely by Louis Armstrong with "What A Wonderful World".

And with the hot music-biz producers Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore he adapted "Can't Help Falling In Love" from the old chanson "Plaisir d'Amour" and gave Elvis, Andy Williams and the Stylistics a boffo smash. That was the brief for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". In 1961, the Tokens, a group from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, turned up to audition for Hugo and Luigi at RCA and sang "Wimoweh", a beloved staple of the Weavers, the Kingston Trio and other luminaries of the folk boom. And it was fine, but Hugo and Luigi were in the market for something a little less folkie and turned to their pal George Weiss to see if he'd be interested in turning it into a more or less regular pop song. Weiss didn't much care for the guys a-hootin' an' a-hollerin' "A-wimoweh a-wimoweh" bar after bar like a bunch of buttondown Brooklynite tribesmen, but an eight-bar instrumental phrase at the end of all the zeudo-Zulu chanting tickled his fancy.

So he moved it up and made it the melodic center of the song and then figured out what the lyric ought to be about. The Tokens had mentioned to Huge and Luge (as they called their pop biz honchos) that the South African consulate had told them the the song was something to do with a lion. Okay, thought Weiss. So it's a song about a lion. What's the lion doing? Not much: In the jungle, the mighty jungle The Lion Sleeps Tonight... The lyric's a masterful way of taking what's really little more than a wonderfully catchy hook and using it to hint at a whole world. After that first phrase, Weiss mulled it over and for the next couplet added one new adjective: In the jungle, the quiet jungle The Lion Sleeps Tonight... Okay, now what? Well, who else is in the neighborhood? Near the village, the peaceful village The Lion Sleeps Tonight... And how about we reprise the hit adjective from the previous verselet? Near the village, the quiet village The Lion Sleeps Tonight... And then Weiss hints at just a wee bit of potential drama: Hush, my darling, don't fear, my darling The Lion Sleeps Tonight...

And that's pretty much it. Sixty-two words, or (excluding repetitions) 16 words. I can't improve on the brilliant analysis by Ilonka David-Biluska, who was briefly a Continental vedette in the Sixties and billed as "The Voice of South Africa", despite her Hungarian name. Invited by EMI in Amsterdam to sing the Dutch version of the song, Ilonka wasn't impressed: I looked at the lyrics and my heart sank. Apart from a prodigious number of 'Wimowehs', there were only three lines. I shall paraphrase: a lion is sleeping in a mighty but quiet jungle, near a peaceful and quiet village and a darling, presumably somewhere in a hut in the village, is told to hush and not to fear because the lion is asleep tonight. The Dutch translation, according to the sheet music (which was later published with my photograph on the cover) left out the fearful darling and noted merely that the jungle was big, the village small and the night dark. Oh yes, the lion was still asleep. I refused to sing it. Back in New York, the Tokens did as they were told but didn't care for it.

"We were embarrassed," said Phil Margo, "and tried to convince Hugo and Luigi not to release it. They said it would be a big record and it was going out." It had an orchestra, a trio of Tokens doing the wimoweh-ing, Jay Siegal's falsetto, an opera singer with a spare half-hour who came in and did a bit of contrapuntal ululating. The first time the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson heard it he had to pull off the road he was so overawed. Carole King declared the record a bona fide "motherf---er". It hit Number One at Christmas 1961. Ilonka David-Biluska's version, "De Leeuw Slaapt Vannacht", reached Number One in the Netherlands. Henri Salvador's "Le lion est mort ce soir" was Number One in France. Pace Phil Margo and Ilonka, it is, in fact, very hard not to make a ton of dough from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Unless, that is, you're a fellow called Solomon Linda.

Those words about "the jungle, the mighty jungle" sit so perfectly and indivisibly on those notes they sound like they've belonged to each other for all time. We know the lyric is George Weiss', but where did the tune come from? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? It was a "Zulu chant" - ie, "traditional - ie, "anonymous" - ie, out of copyright. Which meant someone else could put it back in copyright. In the Fifties and early Sixties, public demand for "authentic" "traditional" music created a huge windfall for savvy Tin Pan Alleymen. You take some half-forgotten folk dirge, tweak it here and there, and then copyright your version as a full-blown composition in its own right. Everyone was doing it: in the Fifties, "Frankie And Johnny", "Auld Lang Syne", "Greensleeves" and a bunch of other things that had been around forever were being copyrighted as brand new songs. Huge and Luge had done it with "Can't Help Falling In Love", né "Plaisir d'Amour".

So the first thing they wondered, when the Tokens showed up and began doing their Zulu impressions, was where did this "Wimoweh" thing come from anyway? They looked at the song credits: "Paul Campbell" and "Albert Stanton". Bingo! There was no such "Paul" and no such "Albert". Mr "Campbell" was the name Pete Seeger and the Weavers put on the sheet music when they'd recorded a folk tune and decided they'd like to cut themselves a piece of the songwriting action. And Mr "Stanton" was the name Al Brackman at the Richmond publishing house put on the music when he wanted to do the same for his bank account. Messrs "Campbell" and "Stanton" thus became successful mid-20th century songwriters who apparently hadn't written anything since the mid-19th century. So the minute Huge and Luge saw those names on "Wimoweh" they knew it was a plum just ripe for a second picking.

If it ever came to court, Huge, Luge and George Weiss' defense would be yes, they'd plagiarized it not from Campbell & Stanton but from the same 19th century Zulu natives Campbell & Stanton had plagiarized it from. And, because Pete Seeger, the Weavers and the Richmond organization well understood that, they never did bring it to court. The trouble was, whether you call it "Wimoweh" or "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", the tune that sits under those words wasn't a traditional Zulu work chant. It was the melodic inspiration of one man - a man who, unlike "Paul Campbell" and "Albert Stanton", actually existed. And we can date the point of creation very precisely, to the third take on a recording session at Eric Gallo's studio in Johannesburg 75 years ago. As the South African writer Rian Malan described it: Once upon a time, a long time ago, a small miracle took place in the brain of a man named Solomon Linda. It was 1939, and he was standing in front of a microphone in the only recording studio in black Africa when it happened. He hadn't composed the melody or written it down or anything.

He just opened his mouth and out it came, a haunting skein of fifteen notes that flowed down the wires and into a trembling stylus that cut tiny grooves into a spinning block of bees wax, which was taken to England and turned into a record that became a very big hit in that part of Africa. Indeed. They had to ship a lot of 78s from London to Jo'burg: it was the first African record to sell over 100,000 copies. "Mbube", as they called it, means "the lion", and Solomon Linda had been inspired by a childhood memory from his days herding cattle in the Zulu heartland. "The lion was going round and round, and the lion was happy," said his daughter Elisabeth. "But my father was not happy. He had been staying there since morning and he was hungry." In the Thirties, many young men from the rural hinterland of Natal came to Johannesburg, and wound up washing dishes or working factory shifts and living in the black shanty towns. Some of them sang in a capella groups.

But few made the splash Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds did: very snazzy in trilbies, pinstripes and two-tone shoes, with harmonies to match, and Solly's falsetto soaring above it all. Supervised by Eric Gallo and his sidekick Griffiths Motsieloa (South Africa's first black record producer), "Mbube" was a three-chord chant with minimal lyrics - "mbube" and "zimba", which boils down to "Lion! Stop!" As Rian Malan tells it: The first take was a dud, as was the second. Exasperated, Motsieloa looked into the corridor, dragooned a pianist, guitarist and banjo player, and tried again. The third take almost collapsed at the outset as the unrehearsed musicians dithered and fished for the key, but once they started cooking, the song was glory bound. 'Mbube' wasn't the most remarkable tune, but there was something terribly compelling about the underlying chant, a dense meshing of low male voices above which Solomon yodelled and howled for two exhilarating minutes, occasionally making it up as he went along.

The third take was the great one, but it achieved immortality only in its dying seconds, when Solly took a deep breath, opened his mouth and improvised the melody that the world now associates with these words: 'In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight..' In South Africa, it was huge. "Mbube" became not just the name of a hit record but of an entire vocal style - a high-voiced lead over four-part bass-heavy harmony. That, in turn, evolved into "isicathamiya", a smoother vocal style that descended to Ladysmith Black Mambazo and others, taking its cue from the injunction "Cothoza, bafana" - or "tread carefully, boys". That's to say, Zulu stomping is fine in the bush, but when you're singing in dancehalls and restaurants in you've got to be a little more choreographically restrained, if only for the sake of the floorboards. "Tread carefully, boys" is good advice for anyone in the music business.

A few years after Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds made their hit record, it came to the notice of Pete Seeger, on the prowl for yet more "authentic" "traditional" "vernacular" "folk music" for the Weavers to make a killing with. He misheard "Mbube" and transcribed it as "Wimoweh". That's a great insight into the "authenticity" of the folk boom: the most famous Zulu word on the planet was invented by a New York socialist in 1951. Still, Seeger was chanting all the way to the bank. "Wimoweh" is a tune that works in any form - as big band (Jimmy Dorsey), folk-rock (Nanci Griffith), country (Glen Campbell), Euro-easy listening (Bert Kaempfert), kiddie-pop (*NSync), reggae (Eek-A-Mouse) military march (the New Zealand Army Band), exotica (Yma Sumac), Yiddish (Lipa Schmeltzer), football singalong (the official theme of the 1986 England World Cup Squad).

And that's before we get to REM and They Might Be Giants and Baha Men, and, of course, The Lion King. Solomon Linda's song has penetrated every corner of the globe. It's the most famous tune ever to have come out of Africa. He and his family must be multi-multi-millionaires, right? Not exactly. Linda sold it to the Gallo record company for ten shillings: that would be about 87 cents. Tread carefully, boy. In 1962, just as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" was reaching Number One around the world, he died of kidney disease in Soweto, on the edge of Johannesburg, in a concrete hovel with a couple of bedrooms with dirt floors covered in cow dung. He left his widow the equivalent of $22 in the bank and unable even to afford a headstone for his grave. For the last decade he'd swept floors and made the tea at the packing house of the Gallo company. His family lived on a diet of maize porridge - "pap" - and chicken feet. After Rian Malan drew attention to the plight of Solomon Linda's heirs, a few music critics took the usual line on the subject.

As Thomas R Gruning writes in Millennium Folk: American Folk Music Since The Sixties: Beyond the economic implications of 'Mbube/Wimoweh', the musical development of the song in its different versions illustrates a highly charged symbolic field in which the violence done to Linda's original piece further reinscribes contested and inequitable power relations between the West and Africa. That is, the issue shifts from conventional notions of cultural imperialism to a more convoluted and complicated process in which 'plundering and counterfeiting of black culture' denies the racial authenticities claimed by... Zzzzzzz. That argument works fine with the likes of Hugo and Luigi and George Weiss. They're Tin Pan Alley professionals, assignment men. Give Weiss a Broadway score, an Elvis movie theme, and a Zulu chant, and it's all the same: that week's job. Who knows what "authenticity" means to such a man? But the only reason the showbiz types were able to "reinscribe" the song in the first place is because of Pete Seeger and the other leftie folkies. The child of wealthy New York radicals, Seeger has always been avowedly anti-capitalist - supposedly.

Yet his publisher had a deal with Gallo Music: they snaffled up the rights to "Mbube" cheap and in return sub-licensed to Gallo the South African and Rhodesian rights to "Wimoweh". And Seeger knew Solomon Linda was the composer. Years later he would plead that back in the Fifties he instructed his publishers to give his royalties from the song to Linda, and he was shocked, shocked to discover decades later that they hadn't in fact been doing so. But it never occurred to him, as an unworldly anti-capitalist, to check his royalty statements. It was, on his part, supposedly a sin of omission. Not everyone can plead the same accidental oversight. Having persuaded Linda to sign away his copyright four decades earlier, the relevant parties made sure to slide some forms in front of his illiterate widow in 1982 and his daughters some years later to make sure the appropriation paperwork was kept in order. And for all Mr Gruning's huffing about "cultural imperialism" above, it was, in the end, a legacy of colonialism that ended the injustice.

There are significant differences between US and British copyright law, and one of them is that the latter attempts to restrain the damage a foolish creator can do to himself. Under British Commonwealth law, the ownership in any intellectual property reverts to the author's heirs 25 years after his death regardless of what disadvantageous deals he may have signed. In the courtroom, the quiet courtroom, the lawsuit slept for decades, until Solomon Linda's daughters were apprised of this significant feature of Commonwealth copyright law, and took action. The sleeping lion also took on the Mouse - the Walt Disney corporation, whose film The Lion King had introduced the song to a new generation of children. In America, Linda's family really had no legal leg to stand on, but, faced with potentially catastrophic complications in Britain, South Africa, Australia, India and other key markets, Disney were only too keen to settle. In 2006, Solomon Linda finally received his due. Fifteen improvised notes in 1939 powered Africa's biggest selling record, an entire genre of music, and two separate hit songs on five continents.

And, even though those 15 notes and the man who wrote them were buried under all the other names that encrusted to the work, in the end they're what shine through. Listen to the Soweto Gospel Choir's recording from a couple of years ago, which somehow manages to capture all three versions of the song. Or go back to Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds' original, which still sounds pretty good. Listen to that inspiration late in take three and hear a global phenomenon being born. It took seven decades and a lawsuit, but in the village, the peaceful village, the lion sleeps tonight. © 2017 Mark Steyn Enterprises (US) Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of Mark Steyn Enterprises. Got a comment on a column? Drop a line to Mark's Mailbox . receive the latest by email: subscribe to steynonline's free weekly mailing list en Harry Stoneham - Bert Kaempfert Medley ( That African Sound ) - YouTube Harry Stoneham - Bert Kaempfert Medley ( That African Sound ) Want to watch this again later?

Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Feb 4, 2015 ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE CHARTS - 1979 Song that entered the charts : "Rise" Performed by : Herb Alpert HCP = 1 - The song was written by Andy Armer and Randy Bandazz. and was taken from the album "Rise." HARRY STONEHAM Harry Stoneham was a British organ player, arranger and composer. Stoneham was born in West Ham, London, England. He is known for his work with the BBC on A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1987), Parkinson (1971) and Fresh Fields (1984). He was a great admirer of the American jazz bands and on several occasions he stated that often he had been inspired by that music. Before joining the BBC, Stoneham worked as an "organ promotor" (playing at numerous sales events and fairs) with the Hammond company.

He recorded numerous easy listening albums, of which his "Go-Go series" (with medleys of recent pop songs) is best known with his British (and other) fans. THAT AFRICAN SOUND "Afrikaan Beat" and "A Swingin' Safari" are Original Kaempfert compositions and have become icons of easy listening. "Wimoweh" (or "The Lion Sleeps Tonight") is a song written in 1939 by Solomon Linda and was originally titled "Mbube" (Zulu for "lion"). Later, in 1961, the title was changed to "The lion sleeps tonight" and The Tokens recorded what would become the most famous version of this song. MHO And here is another "Bert Kaempfert extravanganza" with British organ player Harry Stoneham playing his "African Sound" Medley. Bert's most famous African themes (Afrikaan beat and Swingin" Safari) have been mixed with that other well known African tune "Wimoweh". Notice how all three songs have been adjusted to fit the warm hammond sound.

The "jungle sounds" at the beginning and at the end of this medley add a little "African authenticity" to the recording. Musical transitions between the songs are smooth and 'polished' and so all in all this is just a great listen. Enjoy ! Category The Tokens - The Lion Sleeps Tonight - YouTube The Tokens - The Lion Sleeps Tonight Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Dec 14, 2007 The Tokens, Rock & Roll The Lion Sleeps Tonight - LOVE MACHINE (1968) - Pop Archives - Sources of Australian Pop Records from the 50s, 60s and 70s The Lion Sleeps Tonight (George Weiss - Hugo Peretti - Luigi Creatore - Albert Stanton - 'Paul Campbell' [The Weavers]) Australia 1968 #9 Sydney #4 Brisbane For this recording on Festival, producer Pat Aulton recruited the members of Tymepiece, a Sydney band that originated as punk/garage band The Black Diamonds in the New South Wales coal town of Lithgow. See The Blog for commentary on The Black Diamonds' classic song See The Way . Reference: Ian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of Australian Rock & Pop. Suggestion from Terry Stacey. HENRI SALVADOR Le Lion Est Mort Ce Soir France 1962 #3 France Version by popular French singer, guitarist, songwriter and TV host Henri Salvador (1917-2008), born in French Guiana.

He was also popular in Brazil and is thought to have been influential in the development of bossa nova through his song Dans mon île (1957). Pow Wow had a #4 hit in France with Le Lion Est Mort Ce Soir in 1992 Reference, further reading:�The Wikipedia article is a good summary and has links to other sources. See also the article on bossa nova which mentions Salvador's contribution. � (George Weiss - Hugo Peretti - Luigi Creatore - Albert Stanton) USA 1961 Original version with these lyrics #1 USA #11 UK #1 Sydney #14 Melbourne #1 Brisbane #3 Adelaide #2 Perth Single on RCA label. The lyrics are by George Weiss, who reworked Wimoweh and added the "lion sleeps tonight" lyrics after the Tokens decided to record their version of the Weavers' 1951 record. Peretti and Creatore were a top producing team at RCA known as Hugo & Luigi, or 'Huge & Luge' as the Tokens called them.

The name of Albert Stanton, added after the initial release of the single, was a fictitious credit often used by the original American publishers of Wimoweh in the early 50s, especially for songs believed to be out of the public domain. See Rian Malan's article , cited below. For a good summary of this New York group, see Tom Simon's Tokens Page . Three members of The Tokens went on to form Cross Country in the 70s. KARL DENVER Original version with these lyrics Produced, with orchestra and chorus, by Gordon Jenkins for the Vanguard label. 'Paul Campbell' was a name used by the Weavers as a group songwriting credit. The Weavers were Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman. The impassioned vocal line on Wimoweh is performed by Pete Seeger. Seeger, who transcribed the lyrics from the original African recording, rendered the Zulu chant Uyimbube, uyimbube as "Wimoweh, wimoweh".

Wimoweh was a huge success, and was recorded by numerous artists including Yma Sumac (1952), Jimmy Dorsey (1952), The Kingston Trio (1959) and Miriam Makeba (as Mbube, 1960). See the list of versions compiled by Fred Clemens at Bob Shannon's Behind the Hits. SOLOMON LINDA'S ORIGINAL EVENING BIRDS Mbube Original version 78 rpm record on Gallotone label (see label scan at 3rd Ear Music). Not a traditional song, as sometimes supposed, but an original song composed by Solomon Linda (1909-1962) in the Johannesberg studio of Eric Gallo. The story of Mbube-Wimoweh-Lion Sleeps Tonight is long and complicated. The definitive account is by Rian Malan in his article Where Does the Lion Sleep Tonight?, first published in Rolling Stone but reprinted online at 3rd Ear Music along with an extensive follow-up discussion .

Although he was uncredited on earlier versions of his song, Solomon Linda's status as the original composer has been reinstated over the years, and there have been moves to have some of his long due royalties paid to his family. Fred Clemens has compiled a list of dozens of versions of the song, online at Bob Shannon's Behind the Hits. The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh) (Mbube) (Solomon Linda - Hugo Peretti - Luigi Creatore - George Weiss - Albert Stanton - 'Paul Campbell' [The Weavers]) USA 1971 Later version #3 USA #4 Melbourne #17 Brisbane #7 Adelaide #16 NZ Singer from New York (b. 1946), full name Robert John Pedrick Jnr, whose biggest hit was Sad Eyes in 1979 (#1 USA). His first minor hit was in 1958 at the age of 12 under the name of Bobby Pedrick. See his biography at All Music Guide. The title and songwriting credits on Robert John's version cover all bases: they represent a potted history of the song. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Question: What is the title of the UK hit song originally by The Tokens & later by Tight Fit?
Answer: The Lion Sleeps Tonight