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HAPPY THANKSGIVING
INSIDE:
• Interview with Bruce Cappelli
• FILM: Wish You Were Here
• FINANCE: After the Crash
• End of month COUPONS
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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