Lion/Lamb: Mbube/The Lion Sleeps Tonight

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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.

July: Armstrong

Nanci Griffith: Armstrong
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It isn’t a particularly profound or original observation to point out that 1969 was a pivotal year. There were Woodstock and Altamont and tons of amazing albums, Nixon’s inauguration, the Stonewall Riots, the Mets won the World Series, the U.S. secretly bombed Cambodia while the antiwar movement gained strength, the Beatles had their picture taken on Abbey Road and performed for the last time, the Manson family went on a murder spree, Sesame Street debuted, and Ted Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. Just for starters.

But if you had to pick the number one event of 1969, you’d probably pick the small step for man, and giant leap for mankind—Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, which took place in July, 1969. I was 8 when it happened, and I remember being allowed to stay up late to watch history being made. (Most of the other times I was allowed a late bedtime that year related to the Mets). As a kid in those days, there was little more exciting than watching rockets launch—we’d stare at the TV, waiting for the countdown, and what seemed like the slow climb of the rocket into space.  Which may be why MTV's early branding included videos of rockets and moonwalks. The moon landing was something truly amazing, especially when you consider that the watch I’m wearing now probably has more computing power in it than the entire Apollo 11 mission used.

While watching the landing, John Stewart, formerly of the Kingston Trio, wrote a song, “Armstrong,” which is about how despite all of the problems in the world, and our differences, everyone watched, or heard, about Armstrong’s amazing feat. I can honestly say that I never heard the song, but here it is:



(That’s the single version, which is different from the version released a few years later on Stewart’s album, Cannons In The Rain. I never heard that version either.)

The song has been covered a few times over the years, but the one I did hear was by Nanci Griffith, on her album Clock Without Hands. In fact, the album features three Stewart covers, including “Armstrong,” and Stewart plays acoustic guitar on the track. (Pete and Maura Kennedy, who I saw at Clearwater, contribute mandoguitar and vocals). It is a pleasant folk song, and Nancy Griffith’s distinctive vocal style works well. And the lyrics mention July.

The Dexateens, an underappreciated band from Alabama, released a song called “Neil Armstrong” a few years ago on their excellent album Hardwire Healing, which was produced by the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood and David Barbe, who was in Sugar and has produced Truckers albums. Matt Patton, the Dexateens' bass player now fills that slot in the Truckers. Unlike the Stewart song, though, the Dexateens seem to be focusing more on how the moon shot, and his celebrity, affected Armstrong. And the lyrics also mention July.

Apparently, there are some people who believe that it was actually Louis Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon. He wasn’t, of course (although he sang “Moon River”), but he died in July—on the 6th, in 1971, at his home in Corona, Queens, about a mile from Shea Stadium, where the Mets lost 5-1 to the Expos.

History/Again: Kingston Trio

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An article in an old (not so old that it is history yet) NewYorker I recently read an article that indicates that I wasn't off the mark in pegging the Kingston Trio as one of the seminal forces that brought rock to the world ( but that is history). Among the piece's other observations, the article posits that - along with the 45RPM, the 33 1/3RPM and transistors radios, it was record players cheap enough that kids could have their own and be freed from the constraints of listening to music in the presence of -and on the hi-fi stereos of- their parents that helped bring about the rock explosion.


The songs of the The Kingston Trio's 1960 album (Here We Go Again) in which the concerns of the world appeared to be "eating Goober peas", "hauling away" at the oars of a boat on a stormy sea, or yodeling as you climb the Matterhorn, make their world appear rather light and removed from our current state of affairs. Much like Simon and Garfunkel, or Bob Dylan - they were among those that bridged folk and pop and lead to a "beat-ier" kind of music that lead to the Beat-les. Rock music didn't become mainstream until the Kingston trio and Simon & Garfunkel & Bob Dylan (and the Beatles) cut a path from folk music to rock music.

　

The NewYorker article mentions that teens getting their own recordplayers partially liberated them from parental oversight, but - for me - it was my parents who brought home the Kingston Trio's 1959 album "Here We Go Again". We listened again and again and now the Kingston Trio is relegated to ... history. My siblings and I memorized the entire album and can still recite the whole thing word for word more than 50 years later. If my folks had known that it was going to lead to the psychedelic music of the 60s that we soon were enjoying, I wonder if they wouldn't have left the album on the store shelves.

More history from Here We Go Again: (As if the Civil War itself isn't history enough in itself)

Getting There: M.T.A.

The Kingston Trio: M.T.A

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If you are a city-slicker like myself then you rely public transportation to get you to where you need to be. In large cities you really depend on a reliable and affordable subway system. In the large cities where I have lived (Chicago, Toronto, Boston) financing of the subway system is always a highly contentious political issue. It was this very issue that lead to the penning of the song "M.T.A." in 1949.

In 1949 Walter O'Brien was running for the mayor of Boston as a Progressive Party candidate. One of O'Brien's major campaign platforms was to lower the cost of the subway fare. He did not have the money to make radio advertisements, so he hired local folk singers to write and sing songs promoting his candidacy. Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes (sister of Alan Lomax) wrote "M.T.A." based on the 1865 Henry Clay folk song "The Ship that Never Returned." (Listen to The Corsairs version of The Ship the Never Returned.)

The song is about a man named Charlie who boards the train at Kendall (in Cambridge near the MIT campus) to go to Jamaica Plain (west Boston). However, he can't get off of the train because he lacks a nickle to pay the exit fare, which has just been added. Thus Charlie is doomed to ride the train in perpetuity. His wife even brings him a sandwich everyday, by handing it through the window, although, for some reason, she can't hand him a nickle. Here's a fascinating article from the Boston Globe that goes more into the details of this politically charged song, including a performance of "Charlie on the M.T.A." using the original lyrics.

Many years later The Kingston Trio heard "M.T.A." being performed by Will Holt in a San Francisco club. They pulled the politics out of the song, and had a cute, catchy pop hit on their hands, which peaked at #15 on the singles charts in 1959.

"M.T.A." is so ingrained in Boston folklore that the transit passes are known as "Charlie Cards" in honor of the man who never returned. I photographed my Charlie Card (above) as an example. At the Park Street station, where Charlie would have transferred from the Red Line from Kendall to the Green Line to get to Jamaica Plain, there is a display on the history of the song. The song is also notable in that it references parts of Boston that no long exist. Scollay Square, where Charlie's wife met him to give him a sandwich, was razed in the mid-60s and renamed Government Center.

Poor old Walter O'Brien did not get elected mayor of Boston in 1949. He only garnered one percent of the vote. In the early 1950s he was run out of Boston, accused of being a communist. He retired to Maine where he became a librarian and ran a bookstore.

Accidental Kidsongs: A Worried Man

Kingston Trio: A Worried Man

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On the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving my mother would usually take the bus to my grandparent's home in southern Wisconsin to help grandma prepare for the next day's feast. My father would pick me and my little brother up after school, and we would drive down to meet them. Our mini two hour road trip would wind south down Wisconsin Highway 26, through rolling hills in the heart of America's Dairyland. Some of the small municipalities would already have their downtown's decorated for Christmas, much to my delight. We would always stop halfway at McDonald's for a kid-approved dinner, and be on our way.

One evening as we pulled out of the Golden Arches and got back on the road, my dad fiddled around with the radio trying to find something to listen to. News? Boring. Early 1980s rock? Awful. So dad put in a cassette: The Best of the Kingston Trio, harkening back to my dad's late teenaged years of hanging out at the rathskeller with his buddies, drinking warm beer and eating cold pizza.

Traditional folk music by it's very nature is easy for kids to pick up. The lyrics are relatively simple, verses and choruses are repeated often, and themes at their most basic level are things that children can relate to. It wasn't long after my dad popped in the tape that we were singing along to "Tom Dooley," "Tijuana Jail," and "M.T.A." My most vivid memory is of my little brother, who was around age six, singing "A Worried Man" at the top of his lungs. "We're worried now, but we won't be worried looooooooooong!" I sang along, and my dad laughed and laughed, as we headed down the highway to our grandparent's house for Thanksgiving.

Trios: The Kingston Trio

The Kingston Trio: Charlie on the MTA

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I call it pop-folk. In the 1950s, a number of groups arise who played and sang traditional songs on acoustic instruments, but were not folk artists, exactly. These groups had carefully developed stage routines, and there performances were scrubbed clean of any roughness. Often they cultivated a clean-cut image by appearing in matching outfits. All of this applied to The Kingston Trio, but they also showed how much could be done within this set of limitations. Charlie on the MTA is a fine example. This is a protest song, but not one that would provoke much controversy. The song concerns a transit fare increase in Boston, and it uses humor to make its point. The Kingston Trio's reputation for using humor in their act actually helps put this one over, and the limitations of the pop-folk form become a strength. By putting over their objections to a fare increase in the most non-threatening manner, The Kingston Trio assured that their protest would reach the widest possible audience.

Civics Lessons: M.T.A.

The Kingston Trio: M.T.A.

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"These are the times that try men's souls. In the course of our nation's history, the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of men have been threatened. Today, a new crisis has arisen. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, better known as the M. T. A., is attempting to levy a burdensome tax on the population in the form of a subway fare increase. Citizens, hear me out! This could happen to you!"

-George O'Brien (looking for your vote)

Boats: Sloop John B

Beach Boys: Sloop John B (vocals only)

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Here's a great song about a boat. Contrary to rumors that Brian Wilson was forced to include it on Pet Sounds, the liner notes suggest he was fully behind its inclusion.

I'm glad because I like it.

If anybody has more to add, please do so in the comments. Thank you.

***Update!***

Courtesy of Divinyl, our newest SMM contributor, here is the original version that inspired the Beach Boys:

The Kingston Trio: Sloop John B [purchase].

And check the comments for a cover version by Barry “Eve Of Destruction” McGuire!