"
The Lion Sleeps Tonight", also known as "
Wimoweh" and originally as "
Mbube", is a song recorded by
Solomon LindaSolomon Popoli Linda , also known as Solomon Ntsele , was a South African Zulu musician, singer and composer who wrote the song "Mbube" which later became the popular music success "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", and gave its name to the Mbube style of isicathamiya a cappella popularized later by...
and his group The Evening Birds for the South African
Gallo Record CompanyGallo Record Company is the largest record label in Africa. It is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is owned by Avusa Limited . The current Gallo Record Company is a hybrid of two rival South African record labels between the '40s and '80s: the original Gallo Africa and G.R.C...
in 1939. It was covered internationally by many 1950s pop and folk revival artists, including
The WeaversThe Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
,
Jimmy DorseyJames "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...
,
Yma SumacYma Sumac was a noted Peruvian soprano. In the 1950s, she was one of the most famous proponents of exotica music. She became an international success based on her extreme vocal range, which was said to be "well over four octaves" and was sometimes claimed to span even five octaves at her peak.Yma...
,
Miriam MakebaMiriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....
, and
The Kingston TrioThe Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...
. In 1961, it became a number one hit in the U.S. as adapted by the
doo-wopThe name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
group
The TokensThe Tokens are an American male doo-wop-style vocal group from Brooklyn, New York. They are known best for their chart-scoring 1961 single, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" .-Career:...
. It went on to earn at least 15 million US dollars in royalties from covers and film licensing. Then, in the mid-nineties, it became a pop "supernova" (in the words of South African writer Rian Malan) when licensed to Walt Disney for use in the film
The Lion KingThe Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
, its
spin-off TV seriesThe Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa is an American animated television series made by the Walt Disney Company. It centers on Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog from the Disney film franchise The Lion King, without most of the other characters in the franchise...
and
live musicalThe Lion King is a musical based on the 1994 Disney animated film of the same name with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice along with the musical score created by Hans Zimmer with choral arrangements by Lebo M. Directed by Julie Taymor, the musical features actors in animal costumes as well...
, prompting a lawsuit on behalf of the impoverished descendants of Solomon Linda.
History
"Mbube" was written in the 1920s by
Solomon LindaSolomon Popoli Linda , also known as Solomon Ntsele , was a South African Zulu musician, singer and composer who wrote the song "Mbube" which later became the popular music success "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", and gave its name to the Mbube style of isicathamiya a cappella popularized later by...
, South African singer of Zulu origin, who worked for the
Gallo Record CompanyGallo Record Company is the largest record label in Africa. It is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is owned by Avusa Limited . The current Gallo Record Company is a hybrid of two rival South African record labels between the '40s and '80s: the original Gallo Africa and G.R.C...
as a cleaner and record packer, and who performed with a choir, The Evening Birds. According to South African journalist Rian Malan:
"Mbube" wasn't the most remarkable tune, but there was something terribly compelling about the underlying chant, a dense meshing of low male voices above which Solomon yodelled and howled for two exhilarating minutes, occasionally making it up as he went along. The third take was the great one, but it achieved immortality only in its dying seconds, when Solly took a deep breath, opened his mouth and improvised the melody that the world now associates with these words:
-
-
- In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.
Issued by Gallo as a 78 recording in 1939 and marketed to black audiences, "Mbube" became a hit and Linda a star throughout
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. By 1948 the song had sold about 100,000 copies in Africa and among black South African immigrants in Great Britain and had lent its name to
a styleMbube is a form of South African vocal music, made famous by the South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The word mbube means "lion" in Zulu. Traditionally performed a cappella, the members of the group are male although a few groups have a female singer...
of African
a cappellaA cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
music that evolved into
isicathamiyaIsicathamiya is a singing style that originated from the South African Zulus. In European understanding, a cappella is also used to describe this form of singing.-Background:...
(also called mbube), popularized by
Ladysmith Black MambazoLadysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from South Africa that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They rose to worldwide prominence as a result of singing with Paul Simon on his album, Graceland and have won multiple awards, including three Grammy Awards...
.
In 1949,
Alan LomaxAlan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, then working as folk music director for Decca Records, brought Solomon Linda's 78 recording to the attention of his friend
Pete SeegerPeter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
of the
folkFolk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
group
The WeaversThe Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
. In November 1951, after having performed the song for at least a year in their concerts, The Weavers recorded an adapted version with brass and string orchestra and chorus as a 78 single entitled "Wimoweh", a mishearing of the original song's chorus of "Uyimbube", . Their version, which contained the chanting chorus "Wimoweh" and Linda's line, "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight", reached Billboard's top ten and became a staple of The Weavers' live repertoire. It achieved mass exposure (without orchestra) in their best-selling
The Weavers at Carnegie HallAt Carnegie Hall is the second album by The Weavers. The concert was recorded live at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Christmas Eve 1955. At the time the concert was a come-back for the group following the inclusion of the group on the entertainment industry blacklist...
LP album, recorded in 1955 and issued in 1957, and was covered extensively by other folk revival groups, such as
The Kingston TrioThe Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...
.
In the liner notes to one of his recordings, Seeger explained his interpretation of the song, which he believed to be traditional, as an instance of a "sleeping-king" folk motif about
ShakaShaka kaSenzangakhona , also known as Shaka Zulu , was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom....
, Warrior King of the Zulus, along the lines of the mythical European sleeping
king in the mountainA king in the mountain, king under the mountain or sleeping hero is a prominent motif in folklore and mythology that is found in many folktales and legends...
:
ShakaShaka kaSenzangakhona , also known as Shaka Zulu , was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom....
the Lion, who heroically resisted the armies of the European colonizers, is supposed not to be dead but only sleeping and will one day awaken and return to lead his oppressed people to freedom. University of Texas folklorist, Veit Erlmann, however, argues that the song's meaning is more literal and refers to an incident in Linda's own youth when he actually killed a lion cub.
In 1961 two RCA producers,
Hugo PerettiHugo E. Peretti was an American songwriter and record producer.Born in New York City, Hugo Peretti began his career as a teenager, playing the trumpet in the Borscht Belt in upstate New York...
and
Luigi CreatoreLuigi Creatore is a American songwriter and record producer.From a musical family, Creatore began his career as a writer. After serving with the United States military during World War II, in the 1950s he became a writer then partnered with his cousin Hugo Peretti to form the songwriting team of...
, nick-named "Huge" and "Luge" by some of their clients, engaged Juilliard-trained musician and lyricist
George David WeissGeorge David Weiss was an American songwriter and former President of the Songwriters Guild of America.-Career:...
, to fashion an arrangement for a planned new pop music cover of "Wimoweh", intended as the B-side of a 45-rpm single called "Tina" by the teenage
doo-wopThe name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
group
The TokensThe Tokens are an American male doo-wop-style vocal group from Brooklyn, New York. They are known best for their chart-scoring 1961 single, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" .-Career:...
. Weiss added additional new English lyrics:
Near the elephants, the quiet elephants
The hippo sleeps soundly...
and
Hush, my darling, don't fear, my darling, etc.
He also brought in the soprano voice of opera singer
Anita DarianAnita Darian is an American singer and actress who has had an active career since the 1950s. Aa a soprano, Darian has performed roles with the New York City Opera and been a featured soloist with the New York Philharmonic. She has also performed and recorded several roles from musicals during her...
to vocalize (reprising Yma Sumac) during and after the saxophone solo, her eerie
descantDescant or discant can refer to several different things in music, depending on the period in question; etymologically, the word means a voice above or removed from others....
sounding almost like another instrument. The Tokens, who loved The Weavers' version of the song and had used it to audition for Huge and Luge at RCA, were appalled and were initially reluctant to sing the new arrangement. But ultimately they allowed themselves to be persuaded. Issued by RCA in 1961, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" rocketed to number one on the
Billboard Hot 100The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. The publishers of this recording, Abilene Music (owned by Weiss), listed one "Albert Stanton" (a pseudonymn for Al Brackman, the business partner of Pete Seeger's music publisher Howie Richmond), as one of the song's writers (or arrangers), thus permitting TRO/Folkways a share of the author's half of the royalty earnings. A cover of the Weavers' version by Scots singer
Karl DenverKarl Denver was a Scottish singer, who, with his trio had a series of UK hit singles in the early 1960s. Most famous of these was a 1961 version of "Wimoweh", which showed off Denver's falsetto yodelling register...
and his group likewise reached the charts in the United Kingdom in 1962. The song continued to be extremely popular and subsequent
cover versionIn popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
s were more or less continuous.
Copyright issues
For his performance of "Mbube", Solomon Linda was paid a small fee. Gallo Records of South Africa reaped all the royalties of the record sales in South Africa and Great Britain. The Weavers' music publisher was TRO/Folkways Publishing, one of the many subsidiaries and entities (and/or aliases) created by TRO/The Richmond Organization, founded in the late 1940s by former press agent,
Howard S. ("Howie") RichmondHoward S. "Howie" Richmond is an American music publisher and music industry executive. He established The Richmond Organization , one of the largest independent music publishing organizations in the world, and had a hand in commercialising and promoting many pop, folk and rock songs since the...
, later the music publisher for
Pink FloydPink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
,
The Rolling StonesThe Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, and other big names. Sharing in the ownership of World Wide Music (later, Folkways Publishing) were The Weavers' managers Harold Leventhal and Pete Kameron. Authorship of the song on The Weavers' 1951 recording was credited exclusively to the pseudonymous "Paul Campbell", a fictitious entity used by Howie Richmond, Harold Leventhal, and Pete Kameron to claim authorship of songs whose copyright was in question. Copyright law allows for and encourages the copyrighting of distinctive new interpretations of traditional songs as distinct from
public domainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
songs by known authors whose copyright has expired.
After all, what was a folk song? Who owned it? It was just out there, like a wild horse or a tract of virgin land on an unconquered continent. Fortune awaited the man bold enough to fill out the necessary forms and name himself as the composer of a new interpretation of some ancient tune like, say, "Greensleeves." A certain "Jessie Cavanaugh" did exactly that in the early Fifties, only it wasn't really Jessie at all – it was Howie Richmond under an alias. This was a common practice on Tin Pan Alley at the time, and it wasn't illegal or anything. The object was to claim writer's royalties on new versions of old songs that belonged to no one. The aliases may have been a way to avoid potential embarrassment, just in case word got out that Howard S. Richmond was presenting himself as the author of a madrigal from Shakespeare's day.
Much the same happened with "Frankie & Johnny", the hoary old murder ballad, or "Rovin' Kind", a ribald ditty from the clipper-ship era. There's no way [Richmond's partner] Al Brackman could really have written such songs, so when he filed royalty claims with the performing rights society BMI, he attributed the compositions to Albert Stanton, a fictitious tunesmith who often worked closely with the imaginary Mr. Cavanaugh, penning such standards as "John Henry" and "Michael Row the Boat Ashore". Cavanaugh even claimed credit for "Battle Hymn of the Republic", a feat eclipsed only by a certain Harold LeventhalHarold Leventhal was an American music manager. He died in 2005 at the age of 86. His career began as a song plugger for Irving Berlin...
, who copyrighted an obscure whatnot that turned out to be India's national anthem.
Social historian Ronald D. Cohen writes, "Howie Richmond copyrighted many songs originally in the public domain [sic] but now slightly revised to satisfy Decca and also to reap the profits." Canadian writer
Mark SteynMark Steyn is a Canadian-born writer, conservative-leaning political commentator, and cultural critic. He has written five books, including America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller...
, on the other hand, attributes the invention of the pseudonym "Paul Campbell" to Pete Seeger. At the same time, Steyn also acknowledges, however, that this was a longstanding
Tin Pan AlleyTin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
practice. Rian Malan contends that it was a practice Howie Richmond and his
Tin Pan AlleyTin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
associates, who included partner Al Brackman and Weavers' managers Pete Kameron (to whom Richmond had accorded half of TRO/Folkways' publishing rights) and former song plugger Harold Leventhal, were particularly adept in. Howie Richmond's claim of author's copyright could secure both the songwriter's royalties and his company's publishing share of the song's earnings.
Pete Seeger expressed concerns about the copyright laws associated with the song. He, the other Weavers, and Folkways Records founder Moe Asch frequently voiced the belief that traditional songs could not and should not be copyrighted at all. Seeger has since modified his position about copyrights. Although Linda's name was listed as a performer on the record, The Weavers appear to have assumed that the song was traditional. The Weavers' managers and publisher and their attorneys, however, knew otherwise, because they were contacted by and reached an agreement with Eric Gallo of South Africa. They attempted to maintain, however, that South African copyrights were not valid because South Africa was not a signatory to U.S. copyright law and were hence "fair game." As early as the 1950s, when Linda's authorship was made clear, Seeger sent him a donation of one thousand dollars and instructed TRO/Folkways to henceforth donate his (Seeger's) share of authors' earnings. The folksinger, however, who was not a businessman, trusted his publisher's word of honor and neglected or was unable to see to it that these instructions were carried out. In fact, TRO/Folkways crafted an agreement with Gallo Records giving Gallo distribution rights to the song in South Africa and Rhodesia while TRO reserved the rights to royalties earned elsewhere.
In 2000,
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n journalist
Rian MalanRian Malan is a South African author, journalist, documentarist and songwriter of Afrikaner descent. He first rose to prominence as the author of the memoir My Traitor's Heart, which, like the bulk of his work, deals with South African society in a historical and contemporary perspective and...
wrote a feature article for
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine in which he recounted Linda's story and estimated that the song had earned $15 million for its use in the movie
The Lion KingThe Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
alone. The piece prompted filmmaker
François VersterFrançois Verster is a South African film director and documentary maker.He has a wide background in writing, music, academia and film. After completing an MA degree with distinction under literature Nobel Prize laureate JM Coetzee at the University of Cape Town, he worked with Barenholtz...
to create the
EmmyAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
-winning documentary A Lion's Trail (2002) that told Linda's story while incidentally exposing the workings of the multi-million dollar corporate music publishing industry. Interviewed in the documentary, Pete Seeger publicly expressed regret at not having asked TRO/Folkways (The Richmond Organization) to persuade Linda to sign a contract, explaining: “The big mistake I made was not making sure that my publisher signed a regular songwriters’ contract with Linda. My publisher simply sent Linda some money and copyrighted The Weavers’ arrangement here and sent The Weavers some money.”
In July 2004, as a result of the publicity generated by Malan's Rolling Stone article and the subsequent filmed documentary, the song became the subject of a lawsuit between Solomon Linda's estate and
DisneyThe Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
. Brought by the firm of noted South African copyright lawyer Owen Dean, the suit asserted that under the terms of the Imperial Copyright Act, in force in Britain, South Africa, and the Commonwealth Countries during the life of Solomon Linda, ownership of "Mbube" reverted to Linda's heirs 25 years after his death, thereby revoking all existing deals and requiring anyone using Linda's music in Commonwealth territories to negotiate new agreements with his estate. Dean stated that Linda's heirs had received less than one percent of the royalties due him from Abilene Music Publishers (and before them TRO/Folkways) and that Disney owed $1.6 million in royalties for the use of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the film and musical stage productions of
The Lion KingThe Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
. At the same time, The Richmond Organization began to pay $3,000 annually into Linda's estate. In February 2006, Linda's descendants reached a legal settlement with Abilene Music Publishers, who held the worldwide rights and had licensed the song to Disney, to place the earnings of the song in a trust.
Mbube
- 1939 Solomon Linda
Solomon Popoli Linda , also known as Solomon Ntsele , was a South African Zulu musician, singer and composer who wrote the song "Mbube" which later became the popular music success "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", and gave its name to the Mbube style of isicathamiya a cappella popularized later by...
and The Evening Birds
- 1960 Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....
, on Miriam Makeba
- 1988 Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from South Africa that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They rose to worldwide prominence as a result of singing with Paul Simon on his album, Graceland and have won multiple awards, including three Grammy Awards...
, as "Mbube", during opening sequence of movie Coming to America (but not on soundtrack)
- 1994 Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from South Africa that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They rose to worldwide prominence as a result of singing with Paul Simon on his album, Graceland and have won multiple awards, including three Grammy Awards...
, as "Mbube (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", on Gift of the Tortoise
Wimoweh
- 1952: The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
: US #6
- 1952: Jimmy Dorsey
James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...
- 1952: Yma Sumac
Yma Sumac was a noted Peruvian soprano. In the 1950s, she was one of the most famous proponents of exotica music. She became an international success based on her extreme vocal range, which was said to be "well over four octaves" and was sometimes claimed to span even five octaves at her peak.Yma...
- 1957: The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
, live.
- 1959: The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...
- 1961: Karl Denver
Karl Denver was a Scottish singer, who, with his trio had a series of UK hit singles in the early 1960s. Most famous of these was a 1961 version of "Wimoweh", which showed off Denver's falsetto yodelling register...
Trio: UK #4
- 1962: Bert Kaempfert
Bert Kaempfert was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records, and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as "Strangers in the Night" and "Spanish Eyes".-Biography:He was born in Hamburg, Germany - where he received his lifelong...
on That Happy Feeling
- 1993: Nanci Griffith
Nanci Griffith, is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas.-Biography:...
with OdettaOdetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
, on Other Voices, Other Rooms
- 1994: Roger Whittaker
Roger Whittaker is an Anglo-Kenyan singer-songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of over 55 million. His music can be described as easy listening. He is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability...
, on Roger Whittaker Live!
- 1999: Desmond Dekker
Desmond Dekker was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer-songwriter and musician. Together with his backing group, The Aces , he had one of the first international Jamaican hits with "Israelites". Other hits include "007 " and "It Miek"...
, on Halfway To Paradise
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
- 1961: The Tokens
The Tokens are an American male doo-wop-style vocal group from Brooklyn, New York. They are known best for their chart-scoring 1961 single, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" .-Career:...
: US #1, UK #11
- 1962: Henri Salvador
Henri Salvador was a French Caribbean singer.-Biography:Salvador was born in Cayenne, French Guiana. His father, Clovis, and his mother, Antonine Paterne, daughter of a native Indian from the Caribbean, were both from Guadeloupe, French West Indies...
(French languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: "Le lion est mort ce soir") FR #1
- 1965: The New Christy Minstrels
- 1971: Eric Donaldson
Eric Donaldson is a Jamaican reggae singer-songwriter.-Biography:Donaldson has won the Jamaican Festival Song Competition six times, in 1971, 1977, 1978, 1984, 1993 and 1997. His winning 1971 entry, "Cherry Oh Baby", launched him into the limelight, although he had been composing and recording...
- 1972: Robert John
Robert John is an American singer-songwriter.- Biography :He is best remembered for the 1979 hit, "Sad Eyes". This song, which features John's falsetto vocals, reached Number One on the Billboard Hot 100. Earlier, in 1963 he recorded as the lead singer with Bobby & the Consoles...
: US #3
- 1972: Dave Newman
David Louis Newman is an American composer and conductor known particularly for his film scores. In a career spanning nearly forty years, he has composed music for nearly 100 feature films.-Life and career:...
: UK #34
- 1974: Ras Michael
Ras Michael is a Jamaican reggae singer and Nyabinghi specialist. He also performs under the name of Dadawah.-Biography:...
and the Sons of Negus, as "Rise Jah Jah Children (The Lion Sleeps)"
- 1975: Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
- 1979: The Stylistics
The Stylistics are a soul music vocal group, and were one of the best-known Philadelphia soul groups of the 1970s. They formed in 1968, and were composed of lead Russell Thompkins, Jr., Herbie Murrell, Airrion Love, James Smith, and James Dunn. All of their US hits were ballads, graced by the...
- 1982: Tight Fit
Tight Fit are a British pop group who had a number of hits in the early 1980s, including a UK No.1 with their cover version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in 1982...
: UK #1, NL #1
- 1982: The Nylons
The Nylons are an a cappella group founded in 1978 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Best known for their covers of The Turtles' "Happy Together", Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye", and The Tokens' version of the traditional "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"....
- 1989: Sandra Bernhard
Sandra Bernhard is an American comedian, singer, actress and author. She first gained attention in the late 1970s with her stand-up comedy in which she often bitterly critiques celebrity culture and political figures. Bernhard is number 97 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of...
- 1992: They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...
with Laura CantrellLaura Cantrell is a country singer-songwriter and DJ from Nashville, Tennessee. She used to present a weekly country and old-time music radio show on WFMU in New Jersey called The Radio Thrift Shop...
, interpolated into "The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)The Guitar is a song and EP by They Might Be Giants. The title song also appears on Apollo 18 , released by Elektra Records.-Track listing:# "The Guitar" - 4:13...
"
- 1993: Pow woW
Pow woW is French musical group. Their biggest hit was "Le Chat" in 1992. Their next single was the French version of song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", titled "Le lion est mort ce soir".- Albums :* Regagner les plaines...
: FR #1, cover of Salvador's version.
- 1993: R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
: B-side of "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite"The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" is a song by the American alternative rock band R.E.M. It was influenced by the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", both in the title of the song and through the song's opening refrain...
"
- 1994: Dennis Marcellino
Dennis Marcellino is an American musician, speaker and author of psychology, philosophy, theology and political books. He has been a member of some famous music groups: The Tokens , Sly & The Family Stone , The Elvin Bishop Group and Rubicon Dennis Marcellino (born January 17, 1948) is an American...
- 1994: Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a male choral group from South Africa that sings in the vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They rose to worldwide prominence as a result of singing with Paul Simon on his album, Graceland and have won multiple awards, including three Grammy Awards...
, as "Mbube (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", on Gift of the Tortoise
- 1994: Tonic Sol-Fa
Tonic Sol-fa is an all-male a cappella quartet from the Minneapolis-St. Paul region. With a largely pop-music-oriented repertoire, their CDs have sold over 1,000,000 copies, and the group has toured throughout the US and abroad.-History:...
, The muppets do lion sleeps tonight
- 1997: 'N Sync
N Sync was an American boy band formed in Orlando, Florida, in 1995 and launched in Germany by BMG Ariola Munich, *NSYNC consisted of JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick...
: B-side of "For the Girl Who Has Everything"
- 1990's: The Streetnix
- 2001: Rockapella
Rockapella is an American a cappella musical group formed in 1986 in New York City. Their name is derived from the words "rock" and "a cappella". They sing original vocal music and a cappella covers of pop and rock songs; over time, their sound has evolved from high-energy pop and world music...
- 2001: Straight no chaser
Straight No Chaser may refer to:*Straight, no chaser, a way of requesting and/or serving a drink, similar to Straight upIn music:* Straight No Chaser , US a cappella group...
- 2003: Cooldown Cafe & Gebroeders Co (Gerard Joling)
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