Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

The lion finally wakes up

There's an interesting article in the Guardian about new developments in the long, sad story of Solomon Linda, the Zulu who wrote one of the most famous songs in the world.

If you've never heard of him, that's not surprising - it's only been in the last few years that the wider world has started making moves toward giving him the credit he deserves as original creator of Mbube, better known as The Lion Sleeps Tonight or Wimoweh. With his band, The Original Evening Birds, Linda walked into a Johannesburg recording studio in the late 1930s and recorded Mbube, improvising the tune that would go around the world in the song's last half minute. Linda promptly signed away the rights to the song, as was then the usual practice. Mbube went on to become an enormous hit in Africa, selling 100,000 copies, and a copy found its way to Pete Seeger in the States. Seeger's band covered it as Wimoweh, and the Lion was on his way to global stardom.

To cut a very long story short, since then the various derivatives of Mbube have been recorded hundreds of times (most notably to British listeners of my age as Tight Fit's remarkably appalling The Lion Sleeps Tonight) and is currently most prominent as a song in Disney's The Lion King, which is making millions as a sell-out stage show. Linda himself ended up with nothing, dying penniless in 1962 to be buried in a pauper's grave. His children live in poverty in Soweto. While he hadn't been unaware of his song becoming a global hit, he hadn't known that by rights he should have been getting paid for it. While Pete Seeger, to his credit, did his best to get money to Linda and claims to have given instructions for the song's royalties to be sent to Soweto, other players in the story were less honourable.

Various people have claimed authorship of the song in order to claim songwriting royalties. Some of them have even sued each other over it. Many people have recorded it. REM used it as the backbone of The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, and a quick glance at the sleeve notes of Automatic For The People indicates that they had permission from "Abilene Music, Inc." to do so. Another disc on my shelf contains The Guitar by They Might be Giants, credited to TMBG/Weiss/Creatore/Peretti. Weiss/Creatore/Peretti would, in a just world, get no credit for the song other than as arrangers. With the convenient lack of proper US copyright protection of Mbube at the time of their producing a recording of the song by the Tokens, however, they put the song out as their own and claimed songwriting credits and mechanical royalties. In summary, a lot of people have made a whole bucket of money out of Linda's tune, and Rolling Stone estimates derivatives of Mbube have clocked up three centuries of radio airplay. Which is a lot. In money terms, it is estimated that Linda and his descendents are owed at least $15 million. Which is also a lot.

Now, finally, after decades of abortive attempts to get Linda the financial and moral recognition he deserves, the lawsuits have finally started with the discovery of a piece of British colonial-era legislation, still in force in South Africa, under which the rights to a composition revert to the author after 25 years. The first target is Disney. If the Mouse has any morals at all, Disney will simply do the right thing and pay up without needing to be taken to court. Even a few percent of $15 million would improve the lives of Linda's family beyond recognition, and given the revenues the song has helped generate for Eisner's corporation it would be small change for them to do the right thing and pay the full amount.

It's one of the longest, most fascinating and saddest stories in the history of modern music, and it would be nice to see Linda's heirs finally getting the payment they deserve after so many other people and companies have made so much out of his thirty-second improvisation all those years ago in a hot Johannesburg studio.

(Sources: Guardian story, 3rdearmusic.com, The Rough Guide To World Music, Volume 1. The original version of Mbube is available on the rather excellent Rough Guide To The Music Of South Africa, RGNET1020CD, which appears to be deleted in the UK but may still be available from some outlets.)

Posted by mpk at July 4, 2004 12:04 AM | TrackBack