Alan Tew - Wimoweh ( The Lion sleeps tonight )

Alan Tew and His Orchestra may not be so well known as Ray Conniff or Bert Kaempfert, but Alan definitely deserves his place on this lounge music channel. Alan Tew's arrangements may not be "stunning" but all of them are, well, kind of "surprising". Here Alan (who composed and arranged the music for several BBC TV series) "tackles" the 70 year old song "Wimoweh" which was released in 1939 by it's composer Solomon Linda of the South African Zulu tribe. Originally the title was "Mbube" (Zulu African for " lion ") and Solomon Linda and his group "The Evening Birds" had a big success with the song during the 1940's. In 1951 the song came to the attention of The Weavers, a folkgroup headed by Pete Seeger. They released the song under the title "Wimoweh" which actually was a mishearing of "uyimbube", the song's refrain which means "you are a lion" in Zulu. Ten years later, new lyrics in English were added ("The lion sleeps tonight") and The Tokens had their first no one hit in the Billboard Hot 100. Since then, many cover versions were released and Bert Kaempfert fans know they can find Bert's version on the millionseller album "A Swingin Safari". In 2004 the Linda family (heirs of the composer) filed a lawsuit against Disney corporation for not paying any royalties to their estate for use of the song in the Disney blockbuster "The Lion King". Meanwhile, a settlement has been arranged and the royalties now go into a trust as proposed by the Linda family. Having said all that.....one would nearly forget that "Wimoweh" is just a happy sounding tune and it sounds even more happy in the swinging version played here by Alan Tew and His Orchestra ! Enjoy !

Category:

Music

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• Alan
• Tew
• Orchestra
• easy
• listening
• orkesten
• instrumental
• orchester
• lounge
• music
• sixties
• seventies
• Africa
• Solomon
• Linda
• The
• Tokens
• safari
• photography
• slideshow

[napoleon12gauge]

Virtually unrecognisable as the original music

[Julsexx]

goooood........

[demoraisbarbosa1]

MUITO BOM!!

[perla51]

Very nice!!!!! Huggies Perla.