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Omaha World-Herald, Concert Preview >>
Ladysmith Black Mambazo was literally born in a dream.
In 1964, an obscure singer named Joseph Shabalala had a series of dreams in which he heard a traditional South African vocal group singing in a completely unprecedented way.
"The singing was so new that it's still hard to define," said Albert Mazibuko, one of Ladysmith's founding members. "What Joseph asked us to do was blend our voices to create totally new sounds. All these years later, I'm still amazed when I hear these sounds."
Ladysmith, which appears at the Holland Performing Arts Center on Friday, amazed the rest of South Africa starting in 1965, when it began appearing in vocal competitions. Mambazo, a Zulu word for a kind of ax, refers to the group's ability to chop down competitors.
The group amazed a global audience 20 years later when it performed on Paul Simon's "Graceland," which swept the Grammys in 1987. It also created an interest in world music that hadn't been seen since the 1960s, when Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar was influencing such diverse figures as George Harrison and Philip Glass.
"Paul Simon's album came at just the right moment, because there was so much violence going on in my homeland at the time," Mazibuko said. "It shined a spotlight on apartheid."
Just how far South Africa and its most famous vocal group have come is apparent on the group's recent — and aptly named — album "Long Walk to Freedom."
The disc is a collection of a dozen songs that span the group's 40-year history.
It opens with "Nomathemba"— the song Shabalala first heard in his dream — which is about hope, a commodity that was hard to find in 1964 South Africa. The title track celebrates the country's newfound political freedoms.
Ladysmith performs most of the songs on the album in its trademark a cappella style. Ladysmith doesn't need traditional instruments because the vocal cords, tongues, teeth and mouths of this octet are instruments themselves.
On Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," featuring vocalist Melissa Etheridge, Ladysmith creates a full percussion section worth of sounds using little more than voices and an uncanny sense of rhythm.
Sophisticated part-singing in songs on "Long Walk to Freedom"— especially "Hello My Baby" and "Rain Rain Beautiful Rain" — likewise creates an illusion of instrumental accompaniment. This is the sound that first cut down the competition in those early vocal contests. And it's the sound that's given Ladysmith a global following.
Since "Graceland" went platinum in 1986, Ladysmith has performed just about everywhere. But members say their most important and memorable concert was in 1993, when Nelson Mandela invited the group to accompany him to the ceremony at which he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
The invitation confirmed Ladysmith's position as South Africa's most important musical symbol. It also confirmed one other thing.
"It was a sign that after all those horrible years of violence, peace was finally going to come to my country," Mazibuko said.
--by John Pitcher 02/07/08 >> go there
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