Wimoweh

(from 2013)

It all started in South Africa with Solomon Linda and his Evening Birds.

Linda was a part-time singer from the townships, who worked as a cleaner and record packer at a local record company office.

He called his song Mbube (the Zulu for “lion”) and had his group repeat the base line Uyimbube (“I am a lion”) over and over, while his falsetto soared above it.

It would have stayed unknown in the townships of South Africa had folk singer Pete Seeger not been looking for new material for his group The Weavers in the late 1940s. He heard Solomon’s song and since his Zulu wasn’t too good, misheard it as Wimoweh. The latter title has stuck.

The Weavers did their version in due course, totally ruined by the commercial sound of the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra and Chorus behind them. It was soon everywhere. There was Yma Sumac, who claimed to be a descendant of an Incan princess and also claimed a singing range of more than four octaves. She did an execrable version (truth be told, rumors abounded that she was a Brooklyn housewife whose name was Amy Camus, now spelled backwards). When Seeger split from the Weavers (objecting to their endorsing a cigarette commercial) he took the song to his solo concerts and got his audiences to fill in the gaps.

Later the pop group the Tokens picked it up, threw in some English words and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” became a standard. They were a one hit wonder – I mean how do you follow THAT? The ultimate accolade was when the song featured in the Disney film “The Lion King.”

None of this was much good for poor old Solomon Linda. He died penniless in 1962.  His family couldn’t even afford a headstone for him. Seeger had heard of their plight and sent them money but it took a lawsuit for associates of the Disney Corporation to finally cough up something decent for his descendants.

So where does Occasional come into all this?

I first heard Seeger and the Weavers perform the song on a long forgotten radio show on Radio Luxembourg – the commercial station for a United Kingdom then denied commercial radio, which beamed its wares from the little European Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Lying in bed with a valve portable radio the size of a large brick clamped to my head, this was a revelation.

The very first folk record I ever bought was to obtain Seeger and audience doing Wimoweh. It was an early vinyl EP (that’s ‘extended play’ to you) and introduced me to folk protest as well – the song Talking Atom Blues – with the parody line “all men shall be cre-mated equal”) This was before the Greenwich Village folk boom led by the likes of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.

I always wanted to sing it – and in the bathroom sometimes did – to the horror of family who would thump on the door and ask me not to frighten the neighbors.

But then in recent years my daughter embraced all things folk and inveigled us into joining her at folk clubs from time to time.

So on a recent vacation – suitable over-wined and over-dined and secure in the knowledge that if it all went pear shaped I would never have to see these people again – I had a go.

Son in law, daughter and Mrs O started the base line – and the audience joined in! Daughter had helped me get the pitch right (there can be nothing worse than starting Wimo-screech with the horror for singer and audience of a further two minutes to come) and away we went.

I was pleased. Daughter has threatened to put it on YouTube as the Yodelling Pensioner Strikes Again...

Strikes Again? Don’t Ask.

But I did it. I am content, glad, actually delighted.

Yes – I can now die happy.

But hopefully not just yet.

Addenda from later this same year

Well, I sang it again. And it didn’t go TOO badly. What probably helped was being at a Folk and Ale Festival. There’s a well known equation for folk festivals – the more the audience drinks the better the singers sound...

There were many familiar faces, but slightly older, portlier, balder, and more hirsute in the facial hair department. The last time we camped we were woken at the crack of dawn by little Megan trilling her way through the entire score of Oliver. Megan has grown up a bit – she is now belting out Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. This time we were woken up at the crack of dawn by a cockerel we could have willingly strangled! A bad case of Cock-a-Doodle-DON’T!

But this isn’t supposed to be a post, just a brief comment before getting back to reality and respectability.

It’s just that I don’t often do brief.

Addenda to the addenda

OK - so I go on a bit about singing in folk clubs, and this particular post has now disappeared off the radar, but I still want to sound forth. Music can have a very healing effect on people.

What has this to do with Wimoweh? Well, daughter and son in law are visiting for the week – painting our house actually (they can come again!) – so yesterday we went to the little folk club we visit monthly. And I yodelled forth... Now located in a new venue, the club attracted some new people, who – gluttons for punishment – just wanted to listen.

But it also attracted the widower of a famous Welsh folk singer! I won’t give his late wife’s name, but she was well known for traditional songs – making a very good living in America and the continent – anywhere other than Wales really - but died tragically young from cancer. He produced her main album – which we regularly play as Mrs O sings Welsh at times – and played assorted unusual instruments on it. This was his first time in a folk club for nearly a decade. He drank rather a lot, and kept having to leave with two companions – who we assume were vaguely family – for yet another cigarette, but he played flute and recorder as I have rarely heard such instruments played. It was very emotional, but hopefully cathartic for him. He really enjoyed himself. He even joined in the chorus of Wimoweh. I hope, for everyone’s sake, that he comes again.

But I doubt I will be singing Wimoweh again without family support.