DESCRIPTION:
From '' The Lion Sleeps Tonight ''
Label: Island Records -- WIP 26233
Format: Vinyl, 7", Single
Country: Italy
Released: 1975

Tracklist
A The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)
B I'll Come Running (To Tie Your Shoes)

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"The Lion Sleeps Tonight", also known as "Wimoweh" and originally as "Mbube" is a song recorded by Solomon Linda and his group The Evening Birds for the South African Gallo Record Company in 1939.
It was covered internationally by many 1950s pop and folk revival artists, including The Weavers, Jimmy Dorsey, Yma Sumac, Miriam Makeba, and The Kingston Trio.
In 1961, it became a number one hit in the U.S. as adapted by the doo-wop group The Tokens.
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 King, its spin-off TV series and live musical, prompting a lawsuit on behalf of the impoverished descendants of Solomon Linda.

History

"Mbube" (Zulu: lion) was written in the 1920s by Solomon Linda, South African singer of Zulu origin, who worked for the Gallo Record Company as a cleaner and record packer, and who performed with a choir, The Evening Birds.

Issued by Gallo as a 78 recording in 1939 and marketed to black audiences, "Mbube" became a hit and Linda a star throughout South Africa.
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 style of African a cappella music that evolved into isicathamiya (also called mbube), popularized by Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

In 1949, Alan Lomax, then working as folk music director for Decca Records, brought Solomon Linda's 78 recording to the attention of his friend Pete Seeger of the folk group The Weavers.
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", Zulu: You are a lion.
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 Hall LP album, recorded in 1955 and issued in 1957, and was covered extensively by other folk revival groups, such as The Kingston Trio.

In 1961 two RCA producers, Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, nick-named "Huge" and "Luge" by some of their clients, engaged Juilliard-trained musician and lyricist George David Weiss, 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-wop group The Tokens. Weiss added additional new English lyrics:

He also brought in the soprano voice of opera singer Anita Darian to vocalize (reprising Yma Sumac) during and after the saxophone solo, her eerie descant sounding almost like another instrument.
The Tokens loved The Weavers' version of the song and had used it to audition for Huge and Luge at RCA. It was issued by RCA in 1961, rocketed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Selected list of recorded versions

Mbube

1939 Solomon Linda and The Evening Birds
1960 Miriam Makeba, on Miriam Makeba
1988 Ladysmith Black Mambazo, as "Mbube", during opening sequence of movie Coming to America (but not on soundtrack)
1994 Ladysmith Black Mambazo, as "Mbube (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", on Gift of the Tortoise.

Wimoweh

1952: The Weavers: US #6
1952: Jimmy Dorsey
1952: Yma Sumac
1957: The Weavers, live.
1959: The Kingston Trio
1961: Karl Denver Trio: UK #4
1962: Bert Kaempfert on That Happy Feeling
1993: Nanci Griffith with Odetta, on Other Voices, Other Rooms
1994: Roger Whittaker, on Roger Whittaker Live!
1999: Desmond Dekker, on Halfway To Paradise

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

1961: The Tokens: US #1, UK #11
1962: Henri Salvador (French language: "Le lion est mort ce soir") FR #1
1965: The New Christy Minstrels
1971: Eric Donaldson
1972: Robert John: US #3
1972: Dave Newman: UK #34
1974: Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, as "Rise Jah Jah Children (The Lion Sleeps)"
1975: Brian Eno
1982: Tight Fit: UK #1, NL #1[24]
1982: The Nylons
1989: Sandra Bernhard
1992: They Might Be Giants with Laura Cantrell, interpolated into "The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)"
1993: Pow woW: FR #1, cover of Salvador's version.
1993: R.E.M.: B-side of "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite"
1994: Dennis Marcellino
1994: Ladysmith Black Mambazo, as "Mbube (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", on Gift of the Tortoise
1997: 'N Sync: B-side of "For the Girl Who Has Everything"