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About What's happening. (Eugene, OR) 1982-1993 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 1987)
does not CHECK OUT alter ~==**=*=Na ITtts HAPPY THANKSGIVING INSIDE: • Interview with Bruce Cappelli • FILM: Wish You Were Here • FINANCE: After the Crash • End of month COUPONS 7215500557% f IMAGAZINI PAMPHLET Serving Eugene, Springfield & Lane County Since 1982 Nov. 26-Dec. 2, 1987 The sound that inspired the “most trail-blazing musical adventure of the decade” comes to Eugene. J oseph Shabalala was a teen-ager when he left his parents and eight brothers and sisters in the grasslands of South Africa to find work in the coastal city of Durban. By day he sweated in a factory weaving cotton, at night he sang his blues away. For many years black migrant laborers in the cities . $ 4.4 try had gathered in all male worker hostels to sing in competitions called ingoma ekusuku—“night music.” In 1958, Shabalala brought night music back to his home in Ladusmith. enlisted some brothers and friends, and began singing in his own band. They performed during holidays when the workers would return home, at parties, reunions and festivals. In 1970 they sang on national radio, and two years later they released the first of 25 albums which would go gold—sell 25,000 copies —in South Africa. In 1984, a short Jewish man in New York was given an unlabeled cassette tape, to which he lis tened repeatedly for several months. The infectious music, he would later discover, was something calle mbaqanga, or “township jive,” by a South African group called the Boyoyo Boys. The next year, this man, who was experiencing an uncommon lull In a very successful musical career, set off to hear this music in person, in the land where it is sung. The rest, as they say, is rock-n-roll history. The album Graceland, recorded in Johannes burg and London, brought fame to the a cappella group named after a black axe from Joseph Shabalala’s homeland—Ladysmith Black Mam bazo. It sent the group to Europe, North America, and to Zimbabwe—almost to the border of South Africa—creating what one reviewer called “the most trail-blazing musical adventure of the decade.” It brought controversy to Paul Simon for breaking the letter, if not the spirit, of a IP enHA . I cott of that country. It attracted wild crowds to every city the tour visited, and put Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Satur day Night Live, Johnny Carson, the Grammy awards, and a video with Michael Jackson. Next Tuesday, December 1, it will bring them to the Hult Center. Seven basses, one tenor, one alto and one baritone will deliver Scathamiya, the music of Dur ban, to Eugene. A gospel quartet sound character ized by rapid rhythm changes and intricate call and response techniques, accompanied by Motownesque slick-stepping dance routines, Scathamiya is the music of the South African away from home and i loved ones, toiling hot days to grease the wheels of apartheid, singing long nights to fan the flames of hope. 1 Continued on page 13 oi ocmr Ladysmith Black by Jim Stiak Mambazo
