No matter where I am, in my car, shopping,or work, whenever I hear the song "THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT" I am taken back to African nights and the haunting grunts of "SHUMBA". I thought AR members might enjoy the real story behind the song.



BACKGROUND: This is the story of an African doo-wop song. Its original title was �Mbube,� (pronounced EEM-boo-beh) which means �Lion,� and it was sung with a haunting Zulu refrain that sounded, to English-speaking people, like �wimoweh.� �Mbube� was a big hit in what is now Swaziland; it sold nearly 100,000 copies in the 1940s by its originator, South African Solomon Linda. Linda recorded the tune in 1939 with his group the Evening Birds, and it was so popular that Zulu choral music became known as �Mbube Music�. Then it passed into the broad field of �folk� music, albeit by an indirect route. The South African recording company sent it along with some other 78s to Decca Records in the U.S. Decca wasn't interested, but folk historian and musicologist Alan Lomax was. He took the records to Pete Seeger, of the American folk group the Weavers. Seeger was enchanted by �Mbube�, especially the refrain which sounded to him like �awimbooee� or �awimoweh� (it was actually �uyimbube� in Zulu). The Weavers (led by Gordon Jenkins' Orchestra) adapted it into a Top 15 hit in 1952, as �Wimoweh�. It was basically an instrumental with the group singing �wimoweh� over and over, with other vocal flourishes. The tune really took off in the Weavers' live version at Carnegie Hall in 1957. Linda was not credited as the writer; that honor went to �Paul Campbell�, a pseudonym for the group. However, when the Kingston Trio released their version in 1959 (on the From the Hungry i LP) the writer credit was listed as �traditional; adapted and arranged by Campbell-Linda.� It would be a long time before Linda or his heirs received any substantial royalties from a song that is perhaps one of the most well-known worldwide hits. The complete story, too long to be included here, was thoroughly documented in an amazing work of scholarship by Rian Malan, in Rolling Stone, May 25, 2000 ("In the Jungle"). Luckily, it can be read online at 3rd Ear Music.
THE STORY: In New York City, there was a doo-wop group called the Tokens. They had originated in a Brooklyn high school with Neil Sedaka as the lead singer, but when Sedaka left to become a solo star, they broke up. Only Hank Medress was left; he put a new quartet together with Jay Siegal and the Margo brothers, Phil and Mitch. Then they went out, got a recording contract with Warwick Records, and turned out a doo-wop hit called �Tonight I Fell In Love� (�Dom-dooby-dom-wo-oh, Dooby dooby�). It hit #15 on the national charts.
A few months later, the Tokens had a chance to move up in the world. They were offered an audition with the top RCA production team of Hugo (Peretti) and Luigi (Creatore). And what song did these doo-woppers pick to audition with? �Wimoweh.� Like the rest of America in 1961, they were caught up in the folk music boom. Jay Siegal explains: �I loved folk music and discovered �Wimoweh� on the album The Weavers at Carnegie Hall. We used to sing it for our own pleasure, and everybody loved it...We thought we were going to be another Kingston Trio or Highwaymen.�
Hugo and Luigi were impressed, but they decided the song needed new lyrics. With George Weiss, they keyed in on the tune�s jungle origins and wrote �The Lion Sleeps Tonight.� � They thought it was fantastic,� Jay says, but �the rest of the group didn�t want it to come out. They were embarrassed by the title; it sounded so ridiculous. We were purists then.� Yet, what Hugo and Luigi created was, by pure chance, more faithful to the old Zulu �Mbube� than �Wimoweh� was. �Wimoweh,� as we've noted, doesn�t mean anything; it was just Seger's mistranslation of Linda's original. On the other hand, when �Mbube� is translated, it turns out to be a song about hunting a sleeping lion. Some of the lyrics: �Lion! Ha! You're a lion?...Hush! Hush! If we will all be quiet, there will be lion meat for dinner.� Linda had written it based on a boyhood experience chasing lions that were stalking the family's cattle.
Despite their objections, the Tokens recorded the romanticized version in May 1961 at RCA Studios on 23rd Street in Manhattan. Classically-trained singer Anita Darian supplied the high soprano during the sax solo and as the counter melody to the lead vocal. Darian has a four-octave vocal range, and has sung everything from opera to television jingles in her long career. The year before the Tokens' session (1960) she had recorded a rare album of Near and Middle Eastern songs called East of the Sun (Kapp KS-3052/KL-1168). Anita still performs today and was featured in a 2003 Cabaret Festival in New York City.
The session also yielded another folk song, this time from Portugal, called �Tina.� RCA promoted that side, and it started to get airplay in New York on deejay Murray the K�s radio show. Jay recalls: �I had gotten married when we had just recorded the record. When I got back I took a job. Two or three weeks later we heard from a manager or lawyer who said, �Quit your job. The record is going to be a smash.� �
But it was the B side that was starting to sell. In the interim, Dick Smith of WORC in Worcester Massachusetts, had flipped the Tokens� record over and began playing �The Lion Sleeps Tonight.� By November it was on the national charts, and reached #1 by Christmas time. �We weren�t embarrassed anymore� says Jay.

Kathi

kathi@wldtravel.com

Thanks Kathi.....that's a great story.

My lion sleeps tonight too.....except he looks a lot more like a chocolate labrador than a lion.

Kathi,

I really appreciate you posting that, it has been a favorite of mine also. Great to hear that it has a realistic origin.

CFA

A very interesting story!

Hi,

You forgot the part where Linda never received any real royalties for the song and that his family is living in poverty in a slum outside of Jo:burg. With the airtime that song has had they should be rolling in dough.

But during apartheid Linda was told that a black cannot receive royalties and he was giben a lump sum out of the studios "petty cash".

Kathi,

Another case of truth being stranger than fiction.

Rich Elliott

Thanks for the story.

I believe that the original version of "Mbube" by Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds is included in the soundtrack of "In The Blood."