Song of Solomon

March 21st –We all know the entertainment world can be a shitty business at times; uplifting, mind-changing, world-influencing, yes…but shitty at times too. You would like to believe that moral exactitude would cause the fair-play nerve to be activated in people, particularly when using someone else’s musical composition to either do a cover version of it or adapt it. At the very least musical camaraderie should demand that you credit the original, even if that original composer is dead. So the story of the African musician, Solomon Linda, not only struck a chord with my musical experiences but also with my sometime view of the industry. 
Briefly, Mr. Linda was a very popular singer in the 30’s/40’s. In 1939 he adapted a native folk song to suit the band she was with and the time she was performing with them. ‘Mbube’ was the result, and it did very well. 

Spin on to 1952 and the American folk group, The Weavers, who were pioneers of the protest/fair play for all/folk roots-right-on movement that had links with many of the Great Depression singers. One of the folk icons, Pete Seeger, took the song, ‘Mbube’ and re-titled it ‘Wimoweh’ and The Weavers did very well out of it. It became a signature piece for them and was the high spot of the Carnegie Hall show they did in 1955.
Spin on to 1959 and the American group, The Kingston Trio, given a hard time by the folk community due to their ambivalence to politics, released their version of ‘Wimoweh’, a cover version of the cover version by The Weavers which was a cover adaptation of Mr. Linda’s recording. 

Spin on to 1961 and a group called The Tokens. They recorded and released a single, ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, Mbube/Wimoweh by any other name, and created a career out of it.

Now, with all these cover versions and adaptations being done of Mr. Linda’s original version you’d think he would be doing nicely out of it. I mean, as most composers of pop tunes agree, cover versions of their original work by other performers really turns the cash, so Mr. Linda should have been quid’s in. Trouble was Mr. Linda made nothing from it. He sold the rights of his song to the recording company for 10 shillings…50p to you post decimalisation folk, and there’s the difference right there, that someone should be in such a parlous position as to agree to sell their creative work for 50p (that’s £44 in today’s prices and it wouldn’t even buy you a Tory breakfast) but Mr. Linda did, and from then on he was written out of the equation.

Spin on to 1962 and Solomon Linda dies: Everybody else connected to the song did very nicely, thank you, but Solomon? Solomon, when he died, was destitute and had nothing to leave to his family. The fact that, according to the British law in place at the time, the song’s rights should have reverted to Mr. Linda’s family until 25 years after his death seems to have been ignored by those who were still reaping the benefit from the song, monetarily and career-wise, and let’s not forget these are the careers and reputations of some very high-profile performers; The Weavers, The Kingston Trio and The Tokens amongst them, had been built using this song as one of the central props to their success.

You can imagine my pleasure then when I read that, on this day in 2006, 40 plus years after Solomon Linda’s death, his three surviving daughters, who were still scrambling in a life in penury, finally won their court battle to have one quarter of the royalties of The Tokens record awarded to them. They had to fight it all the way, there were no gifts, no fellow feeling or understanding, and all the other users of Mr. Linda’s work, those right-on social types never contributed a sou.

A result? I guess, it’s just a pity those connected to this song and who did so well out of didn't see fit to let Mr. Linda benefit from his work in his own lifetime; to at least give him and his family the chance to live at a level of comfort slightly above ‘destitution’, like so many of those they claimed to champion.