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Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds · Solomon Linda was a South African singer and composer, born in 1909 near Pomeroy in Natal. He grew up with traditional songs and at a mission school also came to know Western hymns and choir competitions. In 1931, like many young African men, he went to Johannesburg to look for work, and sang there in a choir, the Evening Birds. Later he started a new group under that name, with friends from Pomeroy: Gilbert Madondo, Boy Sibiya, Gideon Mkhize, Samuel Mlangeni and Owen Sikhakhane. They performed at weddings and choir competitions, in striped suits, bowler hats and two-tone shoes.
Music and breakthrough
In 1939 Linda worked at the record company Gallo in Roodepoort. There, during a recording, he improvised the song Mbube. It became a great success, reportedly with more than a hundred thousand copies sold in nine years. Linda earned nothing from it: he sold his rights to Eric Gallo for ten shillings shortly after the recording. The group broke up in 1948. Linda died in 1962, at the age of fifty-three, and his family could not afford a headstone.
Influence
His music became a model for isicathamiya, the South African choral genre. He used more basses per part, a falsetto head voice in the men's singing and an urban flair, while the bass still preserved traditional choral sounds. Pete Seeger heard Mbube and recorded it with the Weavers in 1951 as Wimoweh. In 1961 it became The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens, a number one in the United States. It was later used in The Lion King. Only in 2000 did an essay by Rian Malan in Rolling Stone bring Linda's story to light.
Listening
Mbube · Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds, 1939