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 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 had written it based on a boyhood experience chasing lions that were stalking the family's cattle, and recorded the tune in 1939 with his group the Evening Birds. 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.” Meanwhile, Linda died with only $25 in his bank account; his heirs are still pursuing royalties from the 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 much 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 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.” 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.
FOR THE RECORD: After this smashing success, the Tokens’ career took a different course. They began producing records, not singing them ( >"He’s So Fine”, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”, “Knock Three Times”]. Then late in 1971, exactly ten years after the first “Lion” captured the American audience’s ear, he began roaming the airwaves once more, in a note-for-note duplicate by Robert John that reached the Top 10 and sold a million copies again. Although Hank Medress is the only one credited, the Tokens actually produced their own comeback. Both Jay and Mitch sang on the new record, with songwriter Ellie Greenwich, amazingly, singing bass. Jay Siegal: “We did not put our names on as the Tokens because we thought radio people and program directors would not believe it was another person singing if they saw that we produced it (it really was Robert John singing, by the way).”
MORE INFORMATION (courtesy of Bill Brent & Fred Clemens):
Solomon Linda: "Mbube" by Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds was released originally as Singer GB.829 in 1939. It's available on the excellent compilation Mbube Roots - Zulu Choral Music from South Africa, 1930s-1960s (Rounder 5025). The record was a huge hit in South Africa, and stayed in the catalog for at least 15 years, during which time the label's name changed from Singer to Singer-Gallotone, then to Gallotone-Singer, and finally to simply Gallotone. It shows up on all four labels One copy located is from so late in the record's catalog tenure that the original metal parts had been exhausted, and an alternate take was used in its place; there are three takes of "Mbube" on 78. This alternate is of considerable interest, since it proves that the falsetto vocal part near the end of the record (which provided the melody for the verse of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight") was a chance improvisation by Linda, not a part of the song itself. The other alternate take of the tune does not have any similar part, but has instead some other vocal effects that the familiar take lacks. Take three was reissued on Yazoo 7010, SMM Vol. 4 (also accapella; Linda's choice of style). "Mbube" was covered by several other African groups, including the Manhattan Brothers (a minor local hit) and others. Linda's group made many other records, but this one from the beginning of their recording career was by far their biggest seller, and in fact gave name to the singing style in which the song was performed--Mbube. The first appearance of Solomon Linda's original "Mbube" in the United States comes about 1954, when Tony Schwartz used an excerpt of it on N.Y. 19 (Folkways FP 58). Schwartz is an award-winning media guru, who has among his many accomplishments the first use of real children's voices in commercials (instead of actors imitating children).
The Weavers: The original Decca release (27928) has "Gordon Jenkins & His Orchestra" in large print and "The Weavers" in small print.
Miriam Makeba: In 1953, "Lakutshona Ilanga" was the first song ever recorded by Makeba, on an album by the Manhattan Brothers, for whom she had become vocalist the previous year. The song became known (not literally translated) as "Lovely Lies" in English
 in 1955 (London Records) and charted in the Top 100 in America, peaking at #43 in 1956. The record was evidently big in Boston, where according to Cashbox, it reached #7. Apparently, during her time with the Manhattan Brothers, Makeba picked up "Mbube", although she may have known it from the Linda version. The RCA album (LSP-2267) containing her rendition was Miriam Makeba, and she is backed on the song by both the (Harry) Belafonte Folk Singers and the Chad Mitchell Trio.
The Tokens: had a follow-up release to their "Lion..." hit, called "B'wa Nina". That song was also based on an earlier African tune, also previously recorded by Miriam Makeba, "The Click Song" (later referred to as "The Click Song #1", since she later recorded a similar "sounding" tune she entitled "The Click Song #2"). "The Click Song" (#1) had it's origin in the Xhosa language as "Gqongqotwane": Gqongqotwane is the dung-gathering beetle-- the miser of the insect world, known to the Xhosas as the Road Wizard. (Quoted from an early mid-60's LP by the Manhattan Brothers, issued in the US on Joy Records #5004). This is why "The Click Song" was also known in English as "The African Beetle Song".
Wimoweh: Borrowing loosely from Gordon Jenkins' arrangements, the song appeared by Jimmy Dorsey (Columbia) and Yma Sumac (Capitol). Later, it was revived again by Bert Kaempfert (Decca). After the Tokens, the list starts to get silly and long, as with Manu DiBango's twist 45 version. From there the lion goes back to sleep for a while until the '70s (Robert John), then returns in the '80s (r.e.m.) and full circle in the '90s to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and of course, the Broadway production of The Lion King.
 Fred Clemens' Lion Discography
A Lion's Trail: PBS Documentary |
