Video Find(s) of the Day
Some songs can cross one border and fall flat. Other songs are fantastic no matter where they go and who sings them. Wimoweh, or Mbube, or the Lion Sleeps Tonight, is one of the latter. It is now generally accepted that it started as Mbube, by Solomon Linda, who was South African Zulu. Here's a video posted by jhed13 of a 30 second excerpt of that.
Solomon Linda, 30 seconds of the original Mbube.
Wimoweh was popularized by a number of American and European singers. Pete Seeger came up with the name Wimoweh from mishearing the lyrics from a tape of the original. When Miriam Makeba performed it, she credited Solomon Linda.
Miriam Makeba -- Mbube
The Tokens did one of the most popular versions.
My favorite of the American versions has always been this one by the Kingston Trio,
although this beatbox version by kaleb simmonds is pretty cool:
The song gets so far away from South Africa, we have Karl Denver, a Scotsman, doing a Scots yodeling version, which is just as great as any other.
It's nice to be able to come back to South Africa with Lebo M's version. Lebo M (Lebo Morake) arranged and performed The Lion Sleeps Tonight for Disney's "Lion King."
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