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Boer maak n’ plan

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What’s your favourite South African song? This just brings a smile to my face and takes me back to balmy nights in Mpumalanga.

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  3. This is one for the oldies. I can actually remember lift girls I’m that old. Not the friendliest of people. Jeremy Taylor also did ‘Ag Pleez Daddy’, a South African classic.

    The Mahotella Queens with I’m In Love With A Rastaman

    And then Solomon Linda with Mbube. The backstory here is fascinating.

  5. The national anthem is indeed magnificent. And to think you could once be imprisoned for singing it (or even having the words to it). Shame on all responsible for those times.

    Bright Blue’s Weeping is another great song. The YouTube blurb says: ‘This is the original uncensored music video for Bright Blue’s seminal South African song `Weeping’. It was filmed by Nic Hofmeyr on the Cape Flats in the late 1980s, during the State of Emergency. Catch the `Nkosi Sikelela’ bridge, snuck onto SABC airwaves despite the anthem’s banning, and look out for the late Basil `Manenberg’ Coetzee on sax, filmed in Manenberg township!’

  10. Sorry, but there are too many great songs to pick just one. There could be Pat Matshikiza’s Tshona, Abdullah Ibrahim’s African Herbs, Freedom’s Children with The Homecoming, or even Graceland’s Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. I feel a Spotify playlist coming on.

    Then there are The Flames, essentially a covers band from Durban. Two of them, Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar, went on to join the Beach Boys and, in the case of Chaplin, the Rolling Stones too.

    Another fine one, from Pops Mohamed.

    The world would be a poorer place without Earthworks. This was from their first compilation.

  14. Talking of Joe Boyd, he produced Very Urgent, the first album by Chris Macgregor’s band of South African musicians in exile better known as the Blue Notes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Notes

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Urgent

    Chris is also known for being the leader of the Brotherhood of Breath, a free Jazz big band.

    The jazzers among you will recognise several of these names:

    Lineup includes Dudu Pukwana, Harry Beckett, Elton Dean, Lol Coxhill, Louis Moholo, Harry Miller Nick Evans, Mark Charig, Radu Malfatti.

    Here they are in Germany with Archie Shepp.

    And here’ s Dudu Pukwana from the Blue Notes, a name several of you will know.

  18. There have been several mentions of Earthworks on this thread. I have several albums on the label but I knew nothing about it. A quick google put that right…

    Earthworks was started by Jumbo Vanrenen started in 1983 and was an independant label distributed by Rough Trade / The Cartel. A number of Earthworks releases were in conjunction with Rough Trade. In 1987 Earthworks became part of Virgin and when that deal ran it’s course,part of Stern’s. Shortly after Virgin was sold to EMI in 1992, Earthworks was sold to Stern’s Africa because of that label’s specialty.

    https://www.discogs.com/label/43239-Earthworks?srsltid=AfmBOoq2Rbqs9aAYbPMQJUmn35Br1geAR9s0RTC0UMBIeR7xEnZORDQk

    That of course led me to the questIon: Who was Donald Jumbo Vanrenen?

    A very remarkable chap. A South African music enthusiast living in exile in London, who, as well as putting SA music on the map, was also responsible for increasing interest in reggae and promoting several major world music artists such as Salif Keita and Angelique Kidjo.

    A couple of tributes to him which tell the story of his fascinating life.

    This Afropop one comes with a playlist of artists he worked with…

    https://afropop.org/articles/in-remembrance-of-jumbo-vanrenen

    In 1983 Vanrenen left Virgin and launched his own record company, Earthworks. Its initial release was a single by Orchestra Jazira, an Anglo-Ghanaian band based in London, but it drew more attention for its first album, Viva! Zimbabwe, a compilation of songs by the Four Brothers, Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, and other artists that few people outside of southeastern Africa had heard before. That same year Earthworks released Zulu Jive, an album compiled by Jumbo’s old friend from Cape Town, Trevor Herman, who followed that up with The Indestructible Beat of Soweto in ’85. These two albums gave a great many Europeans and North Americans their first exposure to Mahlathini, Joshua Sithole and Ladysmith Black Mambazo and initiated the global fascination with South African music that Paul Simon reiterated a year or more later with his Graceland. It was The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, though, that the influential American rock critic Robert Christgau deemed the most important album of the entire decade. And yet it was controversial. Anti-apartheid activists upbraided Vanrenen for contravening an international boycott of South African sports and culture. He countered that allowing the world to hear the power and glory of South African music actually advanced the cause of freedom and equality by undermining racist assumptions about superiority and inferiority. He persisted despite his disappointment at being denounced by natural allies.

    One from his old school. He described himself as “a philanthropist with no money”.

    https://www.odunion.com/news/passing-of-friends/267/267-Donald-Jumbo-Vanrenen-1967F-1949-

    Tracks from Earthworks frequently got played on John Peel and Andy Kershaw’s shows. The Peel fan website page about Earthworks is an interesting read.

    https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Earthworks

    On 15 February 1983, Peel played a track from the Kanda Bongo Man album ‘Afro Rythmes Présente Kanda-Bongo-Man’ on the Afro-Rythmes label, sent to him by Earthworks co-founder Jumbo Vanrenen as part of efforts to get African records more widely heard in the UK. The DJ had previously played the first release on Earthworks Records, by London-based Orchestre Jazira, on 12 October 1982.

    Writing in the Observer in 1986, the DJ cited Earthworks Records with fellow specialist independent labels such as Stern’s, DiscAfrique and GlobeStyle as “smaller operators [who] knew that there had never been any serious possibility that African music would make the pop charts, and that what was needed was the establishment of a catalogue of releases that would sell steadily over the years as people learned of the potency of the music.”[2]

    With world music a regular part of his shows from the 1980s, Peel would continue to play Earthworks releases over many years, including albums by artists such as Thomas Mapfumo and Mahotella Queens, as well as numerous compilations, taking in five volumes of the ‘Indestructible Beat of Soweto’ series and three “Zimbabwe Frontline’ collections. Records on the label would also feature heavily on the shows of Peel’s colleague and friend Andy Kershaw.[3]

    In 1987, Jumbo Vanrenen turned the business over to Trevor Herman, moving on to head the Mango world music label at Island for over a decade.[4] After earlier tie-ups with Rough Trade and Virgin, Earthworks was sold to Stern’s in 1992.[5]

    In June 2022, 84 Peel show C120 cassettes covering the period 1979-1983 from the collection of Earthworks co-founder Jumbo were sold at auction and subsequently became known as the Omega Tapes.

    • Jumbo was a regular at Salsa gigs in London in the 80s and 90s. These gigs were largely promoted and frequented by London’s Colombian community. Mango released a lot of great Colombian albums. He discovered the hard way that Colombians were quite happy to buy pirated cassettes of his catalogue.

  19. Great entries here (I also had Clout on my list). Thanks too @kaisfatdad for the research! I thought Zulu Jive was the first Earthworks compilation (it was, though, their first compilation of South African black popular music) but what a label. That list of 1001 songs will also take some time to go through.

    I see Zulu Jive has a 1983 copyright but was released in 1984. As I recall, it seemed to be in some way a reaction to the 1983 release of Malcolm McLaren’s album Duck Rock. On that album McLaren pillaged styles from around the world without crediting or paying the local musicians who had been used. There were two tracks from South Africa on Duck Rock and some controversy followed: not so much against McLaren for breaking the cultural boycott, but for his non-payment and non-recognition of the local artists.

    Labels now go to great lengths to pay royalties and acknowledge the artists, thank goodness. Watching that second video now, 40 years later, I can see what the controversy was about. It is historically fascinating but … The only thing missing is McLaren wearing a pith helmet.

    Graceland led to another huge leap in the popularity of contemporary South African black music. Again, there was controversy – this time over Paul Simon breaking the cultural boycott. Yes, Simon was naïve not to liaise with the ANC ahead of his recording, but I could never work out why he should be pilloried for an album that highlighted the amazing music of the very same ‘downtrodden’ people that international sanctions were set up to help. Sporting and economic sanctions – go for it; but deny black musicians the opportunity to show off their unique talents and rhythms – not so sure.

    The backstory to Mbube is worth reading about. Rian Malan has been a champion for Solomon Linda for many years. It is a fascinating story (https://3rdearmusic.com/forum/mbube2a). There is also a very good Netflix documentary – Remastered: The Lion’s Share – which features Malan and reveals the dilemmas and distrust that have always plagued South Africa.

    • That was fascinating @Munster. I am all in favour of getting the bigger picture.

      Going off piste for moment, can I recommend Damon Galgut’s Booker Prize winning novel The Promise. A family saga abut an Afrikaner family.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Promise_(Galgut_novel)

      He’s a superb writer and his novel really broadened my understanding of SA life.

      I was lucký enough to see him being interviewed here at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. A very articulate chap.

      Here he is with Colm Toibin.

  21. What a wonderful thread!

    Discovering the various of musics of Africa has been one of my greatest pleasures of recent years. And from this I can see I’m only scratching the surface. Which is very exciting to know.

  22. Glad you are enjoying all this wonderful music @Guiri. Have you made any recent discoveries that we should explore?

    I’ve been googling around and stumbled across this page about African compilation albums.

    https://theshfl.com/guide/African-Music-Compilations

    This one took my fancy

    Here’s what they say about it.

    Originally issued in 1994 by the South African label Gallo as From Marabi to Disco, then retitled and repackaged in 2002 by the British imprint Wrasse as The History of Township Music, this is a 28-track treasure chest covering the thirties to the seventies. It stretches from 1939’s “Mbube” by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds—aka the source material for “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” one of the greatest of all melodies—near the top and the Soul Brothers’ not-ready-for-Saturday Night Fever “Bayeza” (1978) near the end. Hearing how the lighter, swinging pre-sixties material—cf. the brushed drums of Solven Whistlers and Jazz Dazzlers—evolves into the blessed stomp of mbaqanga is the best kind of education.

    Well worth an hour or two of your time.

  23. Has anyone mentioned the Soul Jazzmen yet?
    They were a South African jazz outfit.
    They made a classic album called Inhlupeko (Distress) in 1969, which was reissued by the outstanding Matsuli label in 2015.
    The title track is also on a marvellous South African jazz 2CD compilation called “Next Stop… Soweto vol.3 – Giants, Ministers and Makers: jazz in South Africa 1963-1978”

  24. On Tuesday evening I saw A Great Unknown and enjoyed it a lot.

    One of many fine performances was Edward Norton as Pete Seeger. In on scene, we see him performing Wimoweh to a delighted audience. Norton had clearly watched this clip.

    Here’s an interview with Edward.

  25. I was just chatting with a friend in London who is something of a music nerd and mentioned our AW exploration of SA music. He mentioned, John Kongos, a South African who moved to London in 1966 and did rather well.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kongos

    He had several a few hit singles

    “He’s Gonna Step on You Again” is cited in the Guinness Book of Records as being the first song to ever use a sample.[4] However, according to the sleeve note of the CD reissue of the Kongos album, it is actually a tape loop of African drumming.[4]

    And Sylvie Vartain translated his Ride the Lightning into French and had a big hit in 1976

  26. As the Wikipedia page says, the Happy Mondays tackled ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’. It got to No. 5 in the UK charts and 57 in the US. The original is superior, though.

  27. Manfred Mann – born in South Africa, left when he was 21.
    Co-wrote and sang on this (from Chapter Three)

    (the re-recorded Earth Band version lost the horns – big error Mr Mann!)

  28. The two Chapter Three albums are excellent, full of slightly offbeat jazz-rock and with great vocals by Mike Hugg. A track by the band is included on a new sampler from Cherry Red, called a ‘A New Awakening: Adventures in British Jazz 1966-1971’. It is not the best track from Chapter Three by a long stretch but it’s great to see Mr Mann getting his dues.

    I mentioned Freedom’s Children earlier and now that the thread is drifting into South African rock here’s a track from the brilliant Astra. The whole album is great (IMO).

  29. Dare I go slightly off-piste again and ask….. does anyone have any favourite movies from SA?

    There must be a local film industry.

    All I can think of is …….Zulu.

    I’ll get my coat.

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