552 The Tokens “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” 1961, The Weavers “Wimoweh” 1952, Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds “Mbube” 1939

Solomon Linda (1909-1962) “and his boys were given a one-off chance to record a song on the only recording equipment in all of Sub-Saharan Africa in 1939…Linda was paid ten shillings, and the song became a hit in Africa, though it was beyond unlikely that it would someday become known in every corner of the world.” Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax shared the record with Pete Seeger, whose mistranslated “Wimoweh” was recorded by the Weavers in 1952. Because of Seeger’s leftist politics, “the song disappeared from the airwaves, as did Seeger for years to come. A decade later, four Jewish teenagers from Brooklyn calling themselves the Tokens discovered a dusty copy of the Weavers’ near-hit record in the collection of a group member’s older brother” (Robert Zieger, OAH Magazine of History, April 2010). 

The Tokens “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”

The Weavers and Gordon Jenkins & his Orchestra “Wimoweh”

Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds “Mbube”