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Today In Music History: A Weem Oh Wey!

Posted at 6:00 AM on July 27, 2010 by Steve Seel (1 Comments)
Filed under: Music History

Birthdays:

Singer Juliana Hatfield is 43.
Singer Pete Yorn is 36.


Today in:

1976 - John Lennon was granted permanent U.S. residency following a lengthy battle with immigration officials.
1979 - A firebomb was thrown through a window of an Indian art store in Scottsdale, Ariz., owned by Alice Cooper. Cooper said maybe a "disco-music freak" was to blame, because he had been making some "anti-disco remarks."
1984 - The movie Purple Rain, featuring Prince, opened in the U.S. and Canada.
1985 - Concertgoer Jon Moreland jumped onstage at a Cure concert in Los Angeles and stabbed himself with a hunting knife. Fans did not know it wasn't part of the show.


History Highlight:

Today in 1961, The Tokens recorded "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" at a studio in New York. The original tune, "Mbube" (Zulu for "lion") was first recorded by its writer, Solomon Linda, and his group, the Evening Birds, in 1939, and it went on to become a hit throughout South Africa and sold about 100,000 copies during the 1940s. After coming to the attention of Pete Seeger, the tune entered the folk music lexicon, and eventually received it's widest Western recognition with this recording. A-weem-oh-wey!

Comments (1)

Check out http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lionstrail/trail.html for the story about how Solomon Linda and his family have been screwed out of what would have been millions of dollars in royalties for the song.

Posted by IndyR | July 27, 2010 9:04 AM

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