Re: A Mighty Wind: It's great, and the soundtrack CD equally hilarious!

Re: Mbube, Pete Seeger did not intentionally change the words; he had no idea what the words were. He was brought a 78 of Solomon Linda (not Jonathan Linder) singing the original, which was essentially improvised in the studio. He couldn't make out the words, which are in Zulu and essentially mean "Hey Lion, you are a lion," and therefore sang "a wimoweh" instead. The original was not a field recording, but a very early South African pop recording (which is, of course, a minor distinction), but the song was definitley composed by Linda. Actually, the Weavers' version has very few words, and is mostly swooping wordless vocals of the "OOOHHH-AAAHHH" sort. The familiar "Lion Sleeps Tonight" words were added later.

Pete instructed his publisher to send his half of the royalties to Linda, but didn't really verify that the latter had done so; he did not, therefore, "make sure" that the royalties reached Linda. Moreover, because the rights to the original had been bought by the publisher and not by Pete, Pete was only entitled to royalties from the Weavers' version; the publisher, under the assumed name "Paul Campbell" took the rest, and may have swiped most of Pete's share, too, though the legal proof of this is damnably hard to establish (Linda's South African lawyer may have feathered his nest too). The bottom line was that Linda and his children got a few thousand bucks, and they all died relatively poor--though Linda made decent prize money singing competitively until shortly before his death.

Sorry to be a downer, but the story is pretty sordid. None of it, though, was Pete's fault; it was the unjust roll of the dice that most Black South Africans were given.