The Lion Sleeps Tonight
According to Wikipedia’s Brian Eno discography, the great man has produced 41 studio albums. Although I only have 29 of them, I was nevertheless surprised to find that I don’t have this track:
I found this gem at Florencom’s YouTube channel, which is devoted entirely to different versions of this song. What really surprised me was finding the history of the song. I guess I first heard it performed by Tight Fit, and for years I have assumed it was a fake, the result of someone wanting to write a pop hit with an african feel. The truth, as ever, is much more complex. The song that we know as The Lion Sleeps Tonight was written for The Tokens, became a big hit for them in 1961, and has been covered by many other artists since then. But it was really just an adaptation of Wimoweh by Pete Seeger and The Weavers, which was released by them ten years earlier in 1951. But Pete Seeger had in turn adapted the song Mbube by South African artist Solomon Linda, which was originally released in 1939.
Here is the original version, by Linda’s group The Evening Birds:
Wikipedia has the full story of the song, a partial list of cover versions, and the shameful details of how Soloman Linda never got the royalties due to him.
Filed under: This Guitar Says Sorry | Closed
