My mom and I have had some eerily overlapping musical passions over the years. There's plenty that we would never agree on--she can get into some seriously tacky shit, like Hot Tuna (though I have my own uncool leanings, e.g. my ongoing fondness for 70s crooners like Neil Diamond and Harry Nilsson)--but in general we have more in common than your average mother + son, and I've inherited some entrenched favorites directly from her. One of these is the great South African singer Miriam Makeba, who died in 2008. My mom had a CD of hers that she played frequently for years. I have distinct memories of the 1970 Africa album blasting while I was being made to vacuum the living room carpet, and it says something for the power of the music that this association with childhood chore-doing never precluded my love of it--I ended up stealing the CD from my mom (and losing it).
This is not a tune from my childhood, but one I found just recently on the 'net--arguably Makeba's biggest hit. The song, recorded in 1957, opens with a piano lick that sounds like a ten year-old's music lesson, but it's a trojan horse--out of nowhere leaps this swinging oldies band and up to the microphone steps Miriam Makeba. First, there's the striking super-clarity of her voice, and then there's the wildly acrobatic melody that she makes sound as easy as a playground chant. She sings in her native Xhosa (clicks and all) for a few verses, and then suddenly breaks it down in English: "Pata Pata is a daaaance," she explains, stretching the word out in some approximation of an American accent, "That we do down Johannesburg way / And everybody starts to move as soon as Pata Pata starts to play." Not hard to believe--the song is unquestionably danceable, tapping into a deep well of funkiness that was way ahead of its time; when Makeba growls, "Hit it!," during the tune's closing vamp, she's prefiguring James Brown by a solid decade. In fact, the song got a major second wind in the late 60s, when it saw a much-belated release in the US and climbed to #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 (!).
By then Makeba was a star across the globe. Exiled from South Africa in 1960 for her outspoken opposition to apartheid, she was granted honorary citizenship by ten countries and held passports from nine, allowing her to tour, to wide acclaim, on several continents. Impressive enough for a township girl, but it barely scratches the surface of her startling biography--she spent the first six months of her life in prison; was a huge star in South Africa at the age of 24; had a private audience with President Kennedy in 1962; was married to Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael (as well as famed trumpeter Hugh Masakela); served as a UN delegate for Guinea, earned several major peace prizes and performed at the legendary Rumble in the Jungle fight/summit between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali--she was kind of like Bono, except she wasn't full of shit and her music didn't suck.
When I heard she'd died, a couple of years ago, I was taken aback--I'd spent the previous evening blasting her music. It wasn't the only time I'd seemingly conjured a singer's death--I had a similar experience listening to folk legend Odetta and reading the next morning that she'd just passed away. Maybe I should be listening to Brtiney Spears or something...
Anyway, here's another delightful version of the song, performed live on Brazilian TV in 1968. Dig those wily dance moves--not to mention the dizzying, height-of-Tropicalia set design.
This is not a tune from my childhood, but one I found just recently on the 'net--arguably Makeba's biggest hit. The song, recorded in 1957, opens with a piano lick that sounds like a ten year-old's music lesson, but it's a trojan horse--out of nowhere leaps this swinging oldies band and up to the microphone steps Miriam Makeba. First, there's the striking super-clarity of her voice, and then there's the wildly acrobatic melody that she makes sound as easy as a playground chant. She sings in her native Xhosa (clicks and all) for a few verses, and then suddenly breaks it down in English: "Pata Pata is a daaaance," she explains, stretching the word out in some approximation of an American accent, "That we do down Johannesburg way / And everybody starts to move as soon as Pata Pata starts to play." Not hard to believe--the song is unquestionably danceable, tapping into a deep well of funkiness that was way ahead of its time; when Makeba growls, "Hit it!," during the tune's closing vamp, she's prefiguring James Brown by a solid decade. In fact, the song got a major second wind in the late 60s, when it saw a much-belated release in the US and climbed to #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 (!).
By then Makeba was a star across the globe. Exiled from South Africa in 1960 for her outspoken opposition to apartheid, she was granted honorary citizenship by ten countries and held passports from nine, allowing her to tour, to wide acclaim, on several continents. Impressive enough for a township girl, but it barely scratches the surface of her startling biography--she spent the first six months of her life in prison; was a huge star in South Africa at the age of 24; had a private audience with President Kennedy in 1962; was married to Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael (as well as famed trumpeter Hugh Masakela); served as a UN delegate for Guinea, earned several major peace prizes and performed at the legendary Rumble in the Jungle fight/summit between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali--she was kind of like Bono, except she wasn't full of shit and her music didn't suck.
When I heard she'd died, a couple of years ago, I was taken aback--I'd spent the previous evening blasting her music. It wasn't the only time I'd seemingly conjured a singer's death--I had a similar experience listening to folk legend Odetta and reading the next morning that she'd just passed away. Maybe I should be listening to Brtiney Spears or something...
Anyway, here's another delightful version of the song, performed live on Brazilian TV in 1968. Dig those wily dance moves--not to mention the dizzying, height-of-Tropicalia set design.
©2012 Moniker