Lion/Lamb: Mbube/The Lion Sleeps Tonight

[purchase]

On the one hand, trying to write about the history of this song seems to be biting off more than I want to chew, and yet, despite the popularity of the song, and the publicity about its twisted backstory, it may not be known to all of the readers of this blog.

If you are interested in more than this summary, check out this, or this, or this.

The song that we know now as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was originally written by Solomon Linda, an illiterate black man born in the Zulu lands in South Africa in 1909. He led an a capella band, the Evening Birds, and wrote a song for them called “Mbube,” which means lion in Zulu. It was inspired by Linda’s childhood work as a cattle herder, who had to protect the flock from hungry mbube.

The song, and its style, were so popular that its title became the name for the style. Its release in 1939 by Gallo Records was a success and the song became popular in Europe during the 1940s, ultimately selling over 100,000 copies, despite, you know, World War II, making it the first African record to reach that level of sales. The great ethnomusicologist Allan Lomax played a copy of Linda’s record for his buddy Pete Seeger in 1949. Mishearing the lyrics as “Wimoweh” (a not unreasonable position if you listen to it), ultimately Seeger arranged the song for the Weavers (and a full orchestra).

Linda, poor and likely unaware of the burgeoning popularity of his song, sold the rights for pennies to the studio (and also took a job at the company’s packing plant). And Seeger, who apparently believed the song to be a “traditional” song (note that the label of the 78 in the video above doesn’t credit a writer), credited his version of the song to "Traditional", with arrangement by "Paul Campbell,” a pseudonym that the Weavers used to get writing royalties, thus meaning that Linda (or the company he sold the rights to) got nothing.

“Wimoweh” became a big hit for the Weavers, and a part of their standard repertoire, including in a famous performance at Carnegie Hall. It also became a popular song for other folk groups to record, including the Kingston Trio (who credited the song to the fictional Campbell and the real Linda). South African singer Miriam Makeba recorded the song in 1960 as “Mbube,” and credited it to “J. Linda” (and she sang it at JFK’s birthday party, right before Marilyn Monroe’s more famous performance.)

The next year, George David Weiss was hired to arrange a pop version of “Wimoweh,” and he wrote the lyrics for what became known as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which was released by the Tokens, and became a No. 1 hit. The song was credited to “Albert Stanton,” a pseudonym for Al Brackman, who was the partner of Howie Richmond, Pete Seeger’s music publisher. There have been hundreds of covers of the song, in all of its various guises, over the years--even by Brian Eno--and it has been used in movies and plays, most notably the productions and soundtracks of The Lion King.

In a just world, this money would have gone to Solomon Linda, or his descendants. Of course, this is music publishing, so you know that didn’t happen. It appears that Eric Gallo, who bought the rights to the song from Linda, had cut a (bad) deal with Richmond, exchanging the rights to the song for the right to administer it in South Africa and other small markets. Seeger eventually discovered that Linda was the original writer of the song, and wanted his share of the royalties to go to him. He entered into a contract with Linda for this purpose, and directed his publishers to keep sending Linda his share of any royalties. It appears, though, that this didn’t really happen. Seeger later pleaded ignorance, saying, “I didn’t realize what was going on, and I regret it. I have always left money up to other people. I was kind of stupid.” Not only that, but it appears that Linda and his heirs were basically shut out from royalties from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

In 1991, there was an arbitration among some of the rights holders to the songs, at the end of which, the Linda family is awarded 10% of writers’ performance royalties. So very little of the money generated from the song’s huge Lion King popularity made it to them, and they continued to live in poverty.

But, like the popularity of the song, the story wasn’t over. A South African writer, Rian Malan wrote an article in Rolling Stone, which is linked above, explaining in detail the sordid details summarized above. That article spawned an Emmy winning documentary, A Lion’s Trail. Which led to a lawsuit. That lawsuit, however, was not a sure thing—Linda had sold the rights to “Mbube,” and his wife and daughter each did the same. But Disney, the defendant, decided that it didn’t want the bad publicity, and settled the case, confidentially, as is common in such settlements, but which required them to pay certain royalties, both back and going forward, to the Linda family.

So, while justice was not really served, significant injustice was mitigate.

Listen: Listen Mr Bilbo

Pete Seeger: Listen Mr Bilbo

[purchase]

In the early part of the twentieth century, the Democratic Party was the one that welcomed racists. One such was Theodore Bilbo, Senator from Mississippi from 1935 to his death in 1947. Bilbo was one of the most important Southern racist senators that Roosevelt courted to win passage of his New Deal programs. Bilbo boasted of his membership in the Ku Klux Klan, and he promoted segregation and Jim Crow laws throughout his career. Listen Mr Bilbo was written by Robert and Adrienne Claiborne in 1946, the year of Bilbo’s last Senate campaign. Robert Claiborne performed with Pete Seeger, so that would be where Seeger learned the song. I have not been able to find a recording of the song by Robert Claiborne, if there even was one. Bilbo had by this time made himself the face of Southern racism, and of bigotry more broadly. Claiborne’s song is a reminder of how important all the people Bilbo hated were in American history.

Peter Paul and Mary: Listen Mr Bilbo

[purchase]

By 1990, when Peter Paul and Mary recorded Listen Mr Bilbo, Theodore Bilbo himself was largely a forgotten figure, but the attitudes he embodied were still very much with us. So they sang the song as Listen Mr Bigot, but they kept the original title. Where Pete Seeger kept the arrangement simple, just him and his banjo, Peter Paul and Mary created a musical setting that reminds us of the cultural contributions made by minorities, especially black musicians. The song has eerie echoes in our situation today, so it may be time for someone to make a new recording of it.

The Accordion: Come Unto Me

[purchase]

As a devoted listener to WFUV, I was certainly aware of The Mavericks, but they were really just on the edge of my musical consciousness. I recognized and liked a few songs, and that was about that. My friend Tom, a fine singer and guitarist in his own right, whose bands often cover The Mavericks, kept telling me how great they were live. As usual in matters musical (not to mention food, TV and soccer, despite his support of Manchester United), Tom did not steer me wrong.

My first exposure to the band’s live show was at the 2014 Clearwater Festival. My wife and I had spent an incredible first day, seeing, among others, an all-star tribute to Pete and Toshi Seeger, Dar Williams, Guy Davis, Dan Bern and Richard Thompson (and you wonder why we were upset when they cancelled this year’s festival). My wife had enough, and decided to leave, but I wasn’t going to miss The Mavericks’ closing set. And it was worth every second. They truly kicked some ass, and had me dancing. And if you know me, you know that’s a big deal, especially because I wasn’t even close to drunk.

What makes them such a good live band? Start with the music—a mix of country, rock, Western swing, and more varieties of Latin music than I know how to name. Singer Raul Malo, whose deep, expressive voice is one of those that you never forget when you hear it, is of Cuban descent from Miami, and there is definitely some of that in there, along with all sorts of Tex-Mex sounds. Then, add the fact that it is just played well, and with incredible enthusiasm. Plus, as we know, horns make everything better. Stir in Malo’s charisma and stage presence, the goofy charm of keyboard player Jerry Dale McFadden and the menacing intensity of guitarist Eddie Perez, and you have something that is not only unique, but incredibly infectious and fun.

For some time, the band has made regular appearances at the Tarrytown Music Hall, in my town, and when they announced their 2014 dates, there was no question that I was going to go. My wife, Tom and I caught the show from the front row of the balcony, and the full set was even better than the shorter festival performance. The crowd was on its feet from the first note, and the show was a nonstop party. The video above was shot by someone on the floor, sort of below where we were sitting. The sound isn’t great, but it gives you a sense of what was going on. Another friend, Bob, who is a volunteer usher at the Music Hall, and thus sees many, many shows, swears that The Mavericks are, by far, the best live band that plays there.

I picked that song, “Come Unto Me,” because it features the button accordion, a common instrument in Mexican folk and popular music. Michael Guerra, who is not a full member of the band, but tours and records with them, does a great job lending a Mexican flavor to the song, not to mention has a long solo. Also, at the end, Malo points at me. Sort of.

At last year’s Clearwater Festival, The Mavericks again closed the show. And again, my wife left early (it really was raining hard when she left, but I really wanted to see The Mavericks again). Unfortunately, due to the rainstorm, which had stopped, but led to delays and equipment issues, they took the stage late and their set was truncated. But what they played was, again, great. We skipped last year’s Tarrytown residency, but I do hope to go back the next time they play there, with or without my wife.

Speaking of my wife, as I may have mentioned, she, and my daughter, are proud alumnae of Smith College, as is this feminist maverick:

Say hi to the legendary accordion player, Gloria Steinem.

Top 10 Posts of 2015

We briefly interrupt our annual In Memoriam theme to start a new tradition—highlighting the 10 most viewed posts of 2015.

The variety of music discussed on this site is broad, and our international roster of writers brings different perspectives to their pieces. One of the great things about Star Maker Machine is that it gives our writers a forum to write about anything they want, as long as they can relate it, in some way, to our bi-weekly theme. In our top 10, there are personal memories, political and social discussions, remembrances of those who have passed, brushes with celebrity, and even just posts about songs, music and musicians. This list includes discussions of folk, rock, old-time pop, klezmer, and spoken word.

So, in case you missed them, here are the most viewed posts from the last calendar year. But they are only a small sampling of what you will find in our archives, which we invite you to explore.

1. Where I Live—Tarrytown
2. Self-Reflection—Wilco (The Song) 
3. Light→Darkness—From Light to Darkness with Richard & Linda Thompson
4. Songs South—The Southern Thing/The Three Great Alabama Icons 
5. The Future—Somewhere Down The Road 
6. Brush With Celebrity—Jean Shepherd
7. Self-Reflection—You Turn Me On I’m A Radio 
8. Light—Harbor Lights
9. Non-Christmas Holiday Songs—Happy Joyous Hanukkah
10. Water/Wet—California, The Beach Boys

And there is more to come in 2016.

Where I Live: Tarrytown

[purchase]

I live in Tarrytown, New York, a village in the Town of Greenburgh, in Westchester County. We are located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River by the Tappan Zee Bridge.

I grew up on the other side of the Hudson, in New City, which is in Rockland County. At the time my parents moved there it was the less developed side. Commuting to New York from Rockland was difficult—if you didn’t drive, you either took the bus and dealt with the tight spaces and traffic, or took the train, which had a sporadic schedule and left you in Hoboken, New Jersey, where you then transferred to the PATH train into the city. When it came time for my wife, young son and I to leave Manhattan, I strongly preferred Westchester, where Metro-North trains run regularly and pretty consistently, directly to Grand Central Station. I suggested to my wife that I would be willing to move as far north as Tarrytown, which was the first express stop north of Yonkers.

And that’s where we ended up, and boy, did that turn out to be a lucky break.

Although far from perfect, Tarrytown was at the time, and continues to be, a great little village. It has the river, a nice business district and excellent schools (don’t be fooled by the statistics—for many reasons, they really don’t tell the true story). Most of all, it has great people. Our village has a great mix, including people like me, who moved here to commute to New York, lots of people who were born and grew up here, and a large population of recent immigrants, many from Central and South America, making it a remarkably diverse and interesting town. Sure, we have our moments of conflict, but for the most part, people get along. And while some might disagree, things have even improved over the years—young families who previously might have moved to Brooklyn, or other nearby villages such as Hastings, are discovering the charms of Tarrytown, including a number of excellent restaurants and shops, a great coffee shop, and a relatively new riverwalk. Not to mention, one of the great live music venues around, the Tarrytown Music Hall.

Forbes recently ranked Tarrytown as one of the 10 prettiest towns in America (which is a big country, with lots of pretty towns), and the real estate blog Movato ranked it as the second best place to live in New York State (which is a big state, with lots of good places to live). Now that I work here, I’ve come to appreciate it even more.

We also have some pretty interesting history. Tarrytown is where British spy John André was captured, exposing Benedict Arnold’s plot (yes, I have worked him into this blog again). It was also the home of Washington Irving, whose Legend of Sleepy Hollow takes place in the village just to our north (with which we share a school district and many other things, including a superb AYSO program) has turned our area into the home office for Halloween, and the fictional locale of an entertainingly insane television show (which, while shot in North Carolina, occasionally shows an establishing shot of the real thing).  Abraham Lincoln's funeral train stopped here, and FDR's passed through on its way to Hyde Park.

Until the completion of the Tappan Zee Bridge in 1955, though, the area was pretty quiet (other than the occasional protest and attempted bombings at the nearby homes of John D. Rockefeller and other Standard Oil executives in the early part of the 20th century), and since then has developed like many other New York suburbs, without losing its charm. We are getting a new bridge, which is currently under construction, and the project was used as a backdrop last year by President Obama and Governor Cuomo for speeches about investment in infrastructure. I got to volunteer at the event and shake the President’s hand—although my wife’s picture made it to the front page of the local newspaper (I'm the bald guy in the back reaching out my hand).

So, yeah, we like it here.

Our song is, appropriately, entitled “Tarrytown,” although it is also called “Wild Goose Grasses.” It is based on old English (or Irish) ballads, particularly “The Butcher Boy,” which itself is based on older ballads. You gotta love folk music. It is a song about the tragic results of unrequited love, sometimes sung from the male perspective and sometimes from the female. This song is credited to John Allison, a collector of such ballads, who either wrote the words and music, or just one or the other, or neither, depending on what you read. You gotta love folk music. This version is by the Weavers, and there are others out there, including by Harry Belafonte, the Brothers Four and one from the 1970s by Pete Seeger and Ed Renehan, from an album of songs relating to the Hudson River.

Farming: Turn! Turn! Turn!

The Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn!
[purchase]

They say that writers should stick to what they know, but I’m going to chuck that advice away and write about two things that I know and care little about—farming and the Bible.

We start with farming, the autumn harvest inspired theme for the next two weeks. I was born in Queens, New York, the son of two apartment dwellers from Brooklyn. And although I grew up in the New York suburbs, I had very little connection to the land. My father kept the windows closed, to keep the heat in during the winter and the air conditioning in during the summer. We lived on a steep hill, and as long as I could remember, my parents paid for people to come and mow our lawn, rather than have to deal with the risk of having a lawnmower fall on my father, or presumably me, as eldest child, when that responsibility would have become mine. We had some shrubs and trees on our half acre, but again, the garden guys pretty much dealt with them.

For some reason, the first time I met my future in-laws, who live on a large property in north central Connecticut, these generally considerate people (who loved and maintained their land despite the fact that in real life they were an architect and architecture professor and a children’s librarian, not farmers) thought it would be amusing to give me a scythe and send me out into a pasture. I sucked it up, cut the long grass, nursed the calluses on my hands and have a story that I still tell decades later. And, I think, got their respect.

I’m such a “city boy” that my first night in Westchester after living in Manhattan, and sleeping through car alarms, ambulances and all sorts of street noise, I woke up at first light, angry that my sleep was disturbed by unfamiliar sounds, only to be informed by my amused wife that the offending sound was “birds.” She, the daughter of the scythe owners, wanted to garden on our tenth of an acre lot, so, with my less than rudimentary carpentry skills, I built my first raised bed. Then a second, and last summer, a third. My wife enjoys gardening. She enjoys planting. She enjoys pruning, and she even tolerates weeding. I enjoy eating the herbs and vegetables that we grow, and when I “garden” it usually means picking tomatoes or peppers, and occasionally staking something up that has fallen, so that I can pick more veggies. Also, I will, on occasion, carry out specific tasks directed by my wife, like schlepping wheelbarrows of soil or mulch to places of her choosing.

"Turn! Turn! Turn!," which includes the line “A time to plant, a time to reap” was written by Pete Seeger, who based the lyrics on a passage from the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes. As an atheist, I have to admit that I’m not as up on the Bible as some of my more religious friends, but like the rest of the Bible, there are disputes about Ecclesiastes’ writing, author and meaning. But it is pretty clear that its message of wisdom and enjoyment of the simple pleasures of life has been influential, and certainly would resonate with Seeger, who added the era-appropriate last line, calling for peace.

The song was first released, as "To Everything There Is a Season" by The Limeliters, a folk trio, in 1962, a few months before Seeger’s version was released. In 1963, Marlene Dietrich released a German version backed by Burt Bacharach conducting a full studio orchestra, which sounds exactly like you would think. One of the backing singers on The Limeliters’ version was a young musician named Jim McGuinn, who subsequently rearranged the song for release, as "Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season),” by Judy Collins, also in 1963. McGuinn, who changed his name to Roger on the advice of Bapak, the founder of the Subud spiritual association that McGuinn was exploring, and his band, The Byrds, released the version that became a huge hit in 1965. Its message of simple pleasures, and peace, and the jangling folk-rock and great harmonies, struck a chord, and The Byrds’ version hit number 1 on the Billboard charts.

Mythology and Folklore: Casey Jones

Grateful Dead: Casey Jones
Pete Seeger: Casey Jones
[purchase Grateful Dead version]
[purchase Pete Seeger version]

Earlier this week J.David posted about the railroad, and here is yet another perspective on what was once a great American institution.

I’ve been reading a lot of “Westerns” recently on my Palm Tungsten. Yes, I reject the iPad/Kindle because of the in-built DRM and prefer to  download my DRM-free books from manybooks.net. Whatever. My latest read has been “The Taming of Red Butte Western” by Francis Lynde, but I am now on yet another of his works. IMDB says that Lynde was also the writer behind the film “Across the Burning Trestle” (which I know little about, but the title clearly fits the subject).

The Francis Lynde books I mention revolve around characters involved with the train companies in the US ca 1900. This is the material of legends such as Casey Jones.

Legends, Myths, Folklore: the lines that separate them are somewhat blurred: all are stories about things that may or may not have been. The popularity of the TV show “Myth Busters” certainly doesn’t help to clarify the distinction: the show seems to get us thinking that a myth is likely incorrect.

While there truly appears to have been a railroad engineer named Casey Jones, the details we are left with are a mix of Folklore, Myth and Legend. This Wikipedia link provides the basics, but it is the music that should concern us most here. Briefly: Casey Jones was the engineer of a fateful train-wreck in which he died while saving the lives of his passengers.

Mississippi John Hurt, Pete Seeger and The Grateful Dead are our main musical references for this song. The first two follow the traditional path: that of the folk song. The Grateful Dead veer away from the classical folk version to create their own song which has begat its own tradition (linking Jones’ penchant for driving fast with the “speed” of the late 60s and 70s). Pete Seeger’s version has the facts all mixed up, but it sticks to the popular version. He’s got Jones way out West in Reno whereas he worked the tracks back East and died in Tennessee.

 

 

 

Getting There: The Thresher

Pete Seeger: The Thresher

[purchase]

Even though our theme is called Getting There, the USS Thresher never did. She was a nuclear submarine that sank off the coast of Massachusetts in 1963. It was the height of the Cold War, and the fear of anything nuclear was very real. I grew up with it, and we felt that any large war that broke out had the potential to be the last one mankind would ever see. I was three years old when the Thresher sank, so I can’t say I remember it. But I imagine that the first thing people worried about would have been the radiation. This context adds resonance to Pete Seeger’s song The Thresher. To Seeger, the sinking is a morality tale that demonstrates the folly of war in general, and nuclear weapons in particular. He makes his case quite eloquently.

I should note that, in the sinking of the Thresher, we got lucky. The ship’s nuclear rods were eventually recovered intact, and no leaked radiation was ever discovered.

Advice: Beans In Your Ears

Pete Seeger: Beans In Your Ears

[purchase]

True story: when my brother was a kid, he put a dried piece of corn in his ear, and it got stuck. We had to go to the emergency room to get it out. This, of course, led to one of those inevitable conversations adults are always having with kids, where the adult asks "what were you thinking", and the kid just looks at him like this is the dumbest question ever, which it is. You'd think we'd stop asking such stupid questions of our own children, but alas, such is the life of a parent.

The premise of this song is much the same. On the surface, the advice here is that which Seeger's narrator gets from his mother: don't put beans in your ears. Underneath that, however, is an interesting story about how children get their ideas, as Seeger only puts the beans in his ears because his mother's advice gets him wondering why this might be a tempting idea in the first place. We might suggest that Seeger has some advice for us, too -- about being careful with your own suggestions, lest you give ideas to impressionable young minds curious enough to try just about anything.

I am reminded, in fact, that my mother used to sing this song to us when we were very little. These days, like many a childhood folksong, it gets stuck in my head from time to time, but I daren't let it out. After all, hospital visits are expensive.


Note: The original of this song is actually by Len Chandler, an obscure folk singer who was a contemporary of Seeger; if anyone has a recording of an original, I'd love to hear it. Seeger being Seeger, of course, he cannot help but make the song an anti-Vietnam soapbox, adding a final, political verse about "Mrs. Jay's son, Albie", who must have beans in his ears, too, else he would presumably respond to the protests about his war policies.

But then, to Seeger, all songs were protest songs; the liner notes to his 1966 album Dangerous Songs?! include the thought that, to kids, lullabies are propaganda songs, too. The album also includes one other straightforward advice song, a traditional folk ballad called "Never Marry an Old Man".