Monday, April 03, 2006
The sweet sound of Zulu music and the film 'The Lion's Trail'
Henrita Barber
Monday, April 3rd 2006
Henrita Barber
Solomon Linda has finally gotten his due. Linda, a South African musician, wrote one of the most recognized songs in the history of music, "Mbube" (translated, "The Lion"). Some may be familiar with the retitled, "Wimoweh" (an inaccurate spelling of the song's Zulu refrain "uyembube"), sung by Pete Seeger and the Weavers in 1952, but every one living today, within listening distance of radio or TV, has at one time or another heard the most popular version, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," made famous by the Tokens in 1961. It has been sung by over 160 artists from all corners of the globe in one form or another over the years, and is regularly heard in movies, TV shows and commercials.
Last month, Solomon Linda's heirs, three surviving daughters living in poverty in South Africa, won a six-year battle for royalties from the song their father penned "in a matter of minutes," according to family lore, "in a squalid hostel which housed black migrant workers in Johannesburg in 1939."
Linda, born in the heartland of rural Zululand in 1909, was influenced as a teen-ager by the new syncopated music that had swept across South Africa from the United States since the 1880s. He worked this rhythm of shifting strong and weak beats into the Zulu songs he and his friends sang at weddings and parties. In the 1930s he joined other young African men who left home to find menial work in Johannesburg, which by then was a gold-mining town in search of cheap labor. Linda's musical popularity grew in the big city, and in 1938, his band, the Evening Birds, were spotted by a talent scout who took them to the only sub-Saharan Africa music recording studio, owned by Italian Eric Gallo, to cut a number of songs.
"Mbube" was a major success for Linda and the group in 1939, selling over 100,000 copies in South Africa by 1949. He was motivated to write the song, he said, based on his boyhood experience of chasing lions that stalked the family's cattle. It was sung in true Zulu tradition, a cappella, with Linda's falsetto voice adding an overlay of "eeeeees" to the baritone and bass main line. To this day in South Africa, this improvision is called Mbule.
The style has most recently been popularized by another South African group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which gave a dazzling performance several years ago at the Reichhold Center for the Arts on St. Thomas.
Ignorant of copyright laws at the time, Linda sold the rights to "Mbube" to Gallo records for 10 shillings ($1.70) shortly after the recording. However, under British laws then in effect, those rights should have reverted to Linda's heirs in 1987, some 25 years after his death. (The Imperial Copyright Act of 1911, commonly referred to as the "Charles Dickens provision," states that if someone created something and died, after 25 years the rights should revert back to the heirs who are entitled to renegotiate royalties.)Being poor and black in South Africa, Linda and his heirs remained ignorant of their rights for more than 60 years.
In 2000, a South African journalist wrote a feature article for Rolling Stone magazine, highlighting the musician's story and estimating that "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," had earned $15 million for its use in the Lion King alone! This prompted PBS to film the recent documentary, "The Lion's Trail," in which Linda and the original version of the song was publicized worldwide. In 2004, with the backing of the South African government and Gallo Records, Linda's three surviving daughters, Delphi, Elizabeth and Fildah, brought a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company for the song's use in The Lion King movie (the only non-Elton John song), and musical without paying royalties to them. The settlement was reached with Abilene Music, which had attained worldwide "rights" in 1992 and who had licensed the song to Disney. It gives the daughters 25 percent of all past and future royalties from the song, estimated to be in the millions!
As for Linda, he made little or no money from his song, dying a pauper with less than $25 in his bank account. (Seeger, who had gotten the music from a friend who supposedly "discovered" it in the early '50s, once sent Linda a check for $1,000 - perhaps prompted by a pricked conscience.) He collapsed on stage in 1959 from what would later be diagnosed as renal failure. After a lengthy period in and out of the hospital, he died on October 8, 1962. His widow, Regina, was left so poor that she was unable to purchase a head stone for his grave. One was finally placed there 18 years later.
After 67 years, Mr. Linda's family can now walk tall and reap the benefits, including long overdue recognition, of this very unique, talented individual and his timeless gift to the music industry.
Henrita Barber, a Daily News contributing columnist, lives on St. Thomas. ¶ 4/03/2006 08:10:00 PM
Henrita Barber
Monday, April 3rd 2006
Henrita Barber
Solomon Linda has finally gotten his due. Linda, a South African musician, wrote one of the most recognized songs in the history of music, "Mbube" (translated, "The Lion"). Some may be familiar with the retitled, "Wimoweh" (an inaccurate spelling of the song's Zulu refrain "uyembube"), sung by Pete Seeger and the Weavers in 1952, but every one living today, within listening distance of radio or TV, has at one time or another heard the most popular version, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," made famous by the Tokens in 1961. It has been sung by over 160 artists from all corners of the globe in one form or another over the years, and is regularly heard in movies, TV shows and commercials.
Last month, Solomon Linda's heirs, three surviving daughters living in poverty in South Africa, won a six-year battle for royalties from the song their father penned "in a matter of minutes," according to family lore, "in a squalid hostel which housed black migrant workers in Johannesburg in 1939."
Linda, born in the heartland of rural Zululand in 1909, was influenced as a teen-ager by the new syncopated music that had swept across South Africa from the United States since the 1880s. He worked this rhythm of shifting strong and weak beats into the Zulu songs he and his friends sang at weddings and parties. In the 1930s he joined other young African men who left home to find menial work in Johannesburg, which by then was a gold-mining town in search of cheap labor. Linda's musical popularity grew in the big city, and in 1938, his band, the Evening Birds, were spotted by a talent scout who took them to the only sub-Saharan Africa music recording studio, owned by Italian Eric Gallo, to cut a number of songs.
"Mbube" was a major success for Linda and the group in 1939, selling over 100,000 copies in South Africa by 1949. He was motivated to write the song, he said, based on his boyhood experience of chasing lions that stalked the family's cattle. It was sung in true Zulu tradition, a cappella, with Linda's falsetto voice adding an overlay of "eeeeees" to the baritone and bass main line. To this day in South Africa, this improvision is called Mbule.
The style has most recently been popularized by another South African group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which gave a dazzling performance several years ago at the Reichhold Center for the Arts on St. Thomas.
Ignorant of copyright laws at the time, Linda sold the rights to "Mbube" to Gallo records for 10 shillings ($1.70) shortly after the recording. However, under British laws then in effect, those rights should have reverted to Linda's heirs in 1987, some 25 years after his death. (The Imperial Copyright Act of 1911, commonly referred to as the "Charles Dickens provision," states that if someone created something and died, after 25 years the rights should revert back to the heirs who are entitled to renegotiate royalties.)Being poor and black in South Africa, Linda and his heirs remained ignorant of their rights for more than 60 years.
In 2000, a South African journalist wrote a feature article for Rolling Stone magazine, highlighting the musician's story and estimating that "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," had earned $15 million for its use in the Lion King alone! This prompted PBS to film the recent documentary, "The Lion's Trail," in which Linda and the original version of the song was publicized worldwide. In 2004, with the backing of the South African government and Gallo Records, Linda's three surviving daughters, Delphi, Elizabeth and Fildah, brought a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company for the song's use in The Lion King movie (the only non-Elton John song), and musical without paying royalties to them. The settlement was reached with Abilene Music, which had attained worldwide "rights" in 1992 and who had licensed the song to Disney. It gives the daughters 25 percent of all past and future royalties from the song, estimated to be in the millions!
As for Linda, he made little or no money from his song, dying a pauper with less than $25 in his bank account. (Seeger, who had gotten the music from a friend who supposedly "discovered" it in the early '50s, once sent Linda a check for $1,000 - perhaps prompted by a pricked conscience.) He collapsed on stage in 1959 from what would later be diagnosed as renal failure. After a lengthy period in and out of the hospital, he died on October 8, 1962. His widow, Regina, was left so poor that she was unable to purchase a head stone for his grave. One was finally placed there 18 years later.
After 67 years, Mr. Linda's family can now walk tall and reap the benefits, including long overdue recognition, of this very unique, talented individual and his timeless gift to the music industry.
Henrita Barber, a Daily News contributing columnist, lives on St. Thomas. ¶ 4/03/2006 08:10:00 PM
