From whence we came

In the Jungle, the Unjust Jungle, a Small Victory:

Sharon LaFranier in the Times: As Solomon Linda first recorded it in 1939, it was a tender melody, almost childish in its simplicity — three chords, a couple of words and some baritones chanting in the background.

Elizabeth Nsele said her father's song about the sleeping lion had roots in a hard childhood protecting cattle.

But the saga of the song now known worldwide as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is anything but a lullaby. It is fraught with racism and exploitation and, in the end, 40-plus years after his death, brings a measure of justice. Were he still alive, Solomon Linda might turn it into one heck of a ballad. ...

From there, it took flight worldwide. In the early 50's, Pete Seeger recorded it with his group, the Weavers. His version differed from the original mainly in his misinterpretation of the word "mbube" (pronounced "EEM-boo-beh"). Mr. Seeger sang it as "wimoweh," and turned it into a folk music staple.

There followed a jazz version, a nightclub version, another folk version by the Kingston Trio, a pop version and finally, in 1961, a reworking of the song by an American songwriter, George Weiss. Mr. Weiss took the last 20 improvised seconds of Mr. Linda's recording and transformed it into the melody. He added lyrics beginning "In the jungle, the mighty jungle." A teen group called the Tokens sang it with a doo-wop beat — and it topped charts worldwide.

Some 150 artists eventually recorded the song. It was translated into languages from Dutch to Japanese. It had a role in more than 13 movies. By all rights, Mr. Linda should have been a rich man.

Instead, he lived in Soweto with barely a stick of furniture, sleeping on a dirt floor carpeted with cow dung. ...

Indeed, few people knew until Rian Malan, the South African author and songwriter, documented the inequity in 2000 in Rolling Stone magazine. In a telephone interview this month, Mr. Malan said he was stunned "by the degree to which everyone was relying on the Lindas never asking the question" of why they were paid so little.

Mr. Malan's article embarrassed several major players in the American music industry and brought both Mr. Friedrich and Mr. Dean to the family's defense.

The Lindas filed suit in 2004, demanding $1.5 million in damages, but their case was no slam-dunk. Not only had Mr. Linda signed away his copyright to Gallo in 1952, Mr. Dean said, but his wife, who was also illiterate, signed them away again in 1982, followed by his daughters several years later.

Ms. Nsele contends the family was hoodwinked by a South African lawyer, now deceased. Mr. Friedrich said the lawyer appeared to have worn two hats, simultaneously representing the family and the song's copyright holders. In their lawsuit, the Lindas invoked an obscure 1911 law under which the song's copyright reverted to Mr. Linda's estate 25 years after his death. On a separate front, they criticized the Walt Disney Company, whose 1994 hit movie "The Lion King" featured a meerkat and warthog singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

Disney argued that it had paid Abilene Music for permission to use the song, without knowing its origins.

But for a company built on its founder's benevolent image, the case "had all the makings of a nightmare," Mr. Dean said — a David and Goliath story in which Disney raked in profits from the song while Mr. Linda's children toiled as maids and factory workers, lived without indoor plumbing and sometimes had to borrow from their lawyer for food.

In February, Abilene agreed to pay Mr. Linda's family royalties from 1987 onward, ending the suit. No amount has been disclosed, but the family's lawyers say their clients should be quite comfortable.

A representative for Disney would not discuss the circumstances behind the lawsuit, but the company said in a statement that Walt Disney Pictures had licensed " 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' in good faith" and was pleased that the litigation had been resolved "to everyone's satisfaction."

Some injustices cannot be redressed: in 2001, Mr. Linda's daughter Adelaide died of AIDS at age 38, unable to afford life-saving antiretroviral treatment.

"I was angry before," said Ms. Nsele, who, as a government nurse, is one of the few of Mr. Linda's descendants who is employed. "They didn't ask permission. They just decided to do anything they wanted with my father's song."

"But now it seems we must forgive, because they have come to their senses and realized they have made a mistake," Ms. Nsele said. "The Bible says you must try to forgive."

"Not 'try,' " her 17-year-old daughter Zandile corrected. "It says 'forgive.' "

The Tokens' version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight is one of my favorite songs; so melodic and yet interesting, smooth and soaring, with great lyrics. The Times has five versions of 'the song' on their website--I mean, it's definitely some of the same notes and the concept comes down pretty much the same, but the original version is so raw as to almost be another song. But it's close enough that there's obviously been a wrong comitted here.

But not sure how much of a role racism plays in this story, as the piece's intro claims. Think it's more the classic tale of the ignorant being taken advantage of, either by people with no conscience or people/corporations who choose to see/hear/speak no evil. Which is just as much of a sin as racism, in this case it's a passive aggressive version of it.

Interesting how the defense is always we didn't know--does that defense work when Disney goes after people for illegally downloading music? It's your duty, especially if you're a multimillion-dollar company with the resources to aggressively try to push punitive intellectual propery laws, to know the provenance of what you exploit to make money.

Bad enough Disney has been and will try to continue living off one man's mouse indefinitely, as it keeps pushing through legislation to extend copyright for totally unreasonable periods.

At least pay the piper when it's someone else's lion you're milking.

1941 photo of Solomon Linda, left, the composer of Africa's first megahit, with the Original Evening Birds, via the Times (and ironically uncredited).