So I've finally made my way to the end of all the music-related documentaries Netflix made in 2018 under the banner "Remastered" and I personally found most of them to be interesting and informative.
This episode was by far the longest but it did have a rather tortuous story to tell. We all know the song "Wimoweh" a.k.a. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", indeed it's twice been a number one hit in the U. K. by Karl Denver in the early 60's and Tight Fit in the early 80's and also a chart-topper in America by the Tokens in the early 60's and before that in the early 50's it made the top 10 by the Weavers, after the song was first picked up and publicised there by the U. S. folk artist Pete Seeger.
I must admit it's not a tune I've ever much cared for but with its later inclusion in Disney's blockbuster movie (twice!) and stage musical "The Lion King", obviously there should have been considerable publishing royalties due to the original writer of the song.
Now if you had asked me who wrote the song I would have guessed it was an old traditional attributable to the very prolific Mr or Mrs Anonymous, but no, the fascinating story is told of the song being actually written by a South African singer called Solomon Linda in 1939 when it was called "Mbube", with the lyric in fact referring to the struggle of the black majority against apartheid.
Later in the early 60's, an American lyricist called George Weiss wrote some Anglicised lyrics to the song, laying claim to the sole songwriting credit in the process and footage is shown of this particularly smug and smarmy individual actually stating he wrote the tune too.
However, it was only in the 90s when South African writer Rian Malan, working for the US Rolling Stone music magazine, penned an article investigating the origins of the song, that he uncovered the story of Solomon Linda and started the dispute on behalf of Linda's heirs for years and years of backdated royalties they had barely received.
Eventually, after he has co-opted the assistance of a prominent South African lawyer and most importantly a copyright specialist, a legal case against Disney on behalf of the family was finally successful in 2005 and saw Linda's three surviving daughters (a fourth died while the case dragged on), who as we have seen, still live in close to abject poverty in South Africa, receive a settlement, although under the terms of the agreement, no figures were to be divulged of the actual amount paid out.
And there you go, as someone says, an almost Disney-like happy ending you would have thought, but no, the three sisters now claim they received only a comparatively small amount with the bulk of the award being taken by lawyers and experts.
Underpinning the whole story of course is the exploitation past and present of native black South Africa by the white man although here it's clearly not quite as simple as that.
It's only natural to feel sympathy for the three surviving sisters, especially when they seem to be still living in the same impoverished state today as before, and this presumably after they've received their payment. But then counterclaims are made that they squandered their inheritance which is when things get really muddy. In a subtitle at the end, a figure of $250,000 is mentioned as having been paid to each sister, which I personally wouldn't have thought was chump change.
In this film, the story is told from the viewpoint of Malan who despite his undoubted good intentions does come across as a rather sanctimonious individual, keen to play the martyr and expiate the sins of apartheid in exchange for doing this good deed.
I'm not really sure in the end if anyone comes out of this programme very well apart from the original Mr Linda, but this sure was an interesting combined detective story and morality tale. My only complaint would be the centring of the story on the journalist and also that it perhaps took a little long in the telling, but this otherwise was an unknown story the background to which I'm now happily aware.
Unfortunately for me the bitter aftermath is that I can't get the damned tune out of my head now!
This episode was by far the longest but it did have a rather tortuous story to tell. We all know the song "Wimoweh" a.k.a. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", indeed it's twice been a number one hit in the U. K. by Karl Denver in the early 60's and Tight Fit in the early 80's and also a chart-topper in America by the Tokens in the early 60's and before that in the early 50's it made the top 10 by the Weavers, after the song was first picked up and publicised there by the U. S. folk artist Pete Seeger.
I must admit it's not a tune I've ever much cared for but with its later inclusion in Disney's blockbuster movie (twice!) and stage musical "The Lion King", obviously there should have been considerable publishing royalties due to the original writer of the song.
Now if you had asked me who wrote the song I would have guessed it was an old traditional attributable to the very prolific Mr or Mrs Anonymous, but no, the fascinating story is told of the song being actually written by a South African singer called Solomon Linda in 1939 when it was called "Mbube", with the lyric in fact referring to the struggle of the black majority against apartheid.
Later in the early 60's, an American lyricist called George Weiss wrote some Anglicised lyrics to the song, laying claim to the sole songwriting credit in the process and footage is shown of this particularly smug and smarmy individual actually stating he wrote the tune too.
However, it was only in the 90s when South African writer Rian Malan, working for the US Rolling Stone music magazine, penned an article investigating the origins of the song, that he uncovered the story of Solomon Linda and started the dispute on behalf of Linda's heirs for years and years of backdated royalties they had barely received.
Eventually, after he has co-opted the assistance of a prominent South African lawyer and most importantly a copyright specialist, a legal case against Disney on behalf of the family was finally successful in 2005 and saw Linda's three surviving daughters (a fourth died while the case dragged on), who as we have seen, still live in close to abject poverty in South Africa, receive a settlement, although under the terms of the agreement, no figures were to be divulged of the actual amount paid out.
And there you go, as someone says, an almost Disney-like happy ending you would have thought, but no, the three sisters now claim they received only a comparatively small amount with the bulk of the award being taken by lawyers and experts.
Underpinning the whole story of course is the exploitation past and present of native black South Africa by the white man although here it's clearly not quite as simple as that.
It's only natural to feel sympathy for the three surviving sisters, especially when they seem to be still living in the same impoverished state today as before, and this presumably after they've received their payment. But then counterclaims are made that they squandered their inheritance which is when things get really muddy. In a subtitle at the end, a figure of $250,000 is mentioned as having been paid to each sister, which I personally wouldn't have thought was chump change.
In this film, the story is told from the viewpoint of Malan who despite his undoubted good intentions does come across as a rather sanctimonious individual, keen to play the martyr and expiate the sins of apartheid in exchange for doing this good deed.
I'm not really sure in the end if anyone comes out of this programme very well apart from the original Mr Linda, but this sure was an interesting combined detective story and morality tale. My only complaint would be the centring of the story on the journalist and also that it perhaps took a little long in the telling, but this otherwise was an unknown story the background to which I'm now happily aware.
Unfortunately for me the bitter aftermath is that I can't get the damned tune out of my head now!