SA Music Mavericks, I

by Sheldon Rocha Leal

We as South Africans often have this perception that others can do things better than we can. I don’t know if it is a product of all our years of isolation, as part of the Apartheid regime which therefore inculcated this feeling that we are not part of the global society, or partly because as a colony we have been socialized into believing that others can do things better than we can.

I have always been obsessed with history and the older I get the more obsessed I have become about South African history and legacy. As a amateur Popular music historian I was approached, at the beginning of my career, by the United Nations, to compile an article on how South African music has influenced the World of music. When initially approached to research the show, that eventually emerged out of the research, I was completely perplexed and confounded by the topic. I, as with many South Africans, believed that we could not have possibly contributed anything to the world of music. My research, however, revealed a completely different picture, which has set me off on a 15 year journey of discovery.

The longer I researched the more I discovered that there have been many South Africans who have had a major impact on music and that have irrevocably changed the course of music trends, sounds and the business of music.

I have therefore decided to put some of the research I conducted into writing. In this article I will explore 11 different South Africans/Entities that have changed the world of music. The best thing about these 11 entities is that not all of them are famous, yet they have made such important strides in music that they have changed the course of music. Which reinforces my ethos that you don’t need to be famous or a musician to be successful in the music industry.

Clive Calder

This is one of my favorite stories: Clive Calder was born in Johannesburg, near Orange Grove. As a kid he used to sit and read tax tables for fun. He eventually started a band at school, as most of us do. He eventually went on to start CCP Records (Clive Calder Productions), which he sold to EMI in South Africa, when he left for England. In England he realized he couldn’t compete with the big record companies and decided to do something he was good at and that was publishing. He started Zomba publishing. His friend at the time, Robert “Mutt” Lange, was already writing songs for many superstars, so the publishing company was assured some sort of income. Once he became more confident her started up a record company in the USA, Jive records, which was one of the first companies to tackle Hip-Hop music. He went on to discover acts like: Backstreet Boys, *Nsync, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, R Kelly, Aaliyah, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and the list goes on and on. He eventually sold Zomba/Jive to BMG for $2.7billion in 2002. Clive is currently the second wealthiest music billionaire in Britain.

Ralph Simon

Ralph Simon was a friend of Clive Calder and he helped Clive to start CCP records. Clive and Ralph then moved to London and together started Zomba publishing and then Jive Records. In the 1990's Clive and Ralph went their separate ways, with Clive Calder buying Ralph Simon out of his share in Zomba/Jive. Ralph went on to become the executive Vice President of EMI and Blue Note Records (the company that discovered Norah Jones). In 1997 he started YourMobile/Moviso, the first ringtone company in the USA, UK, Africa, Australia and Europe, garnering the nickname: The Father of The Ringtone.

Ralph Simon has also produced some of the world’s biggest benefit concerts: Live 8 and Live Earth.

Ralph Simon is considered to be one of the pioneers of mobile and therefore holds a place in history as a South African international trailblazer. He has been voted one of the Top50 Executives in Mobile Entertainment various times: 2005–2008, 2010.

Eddie Kramer

Eddie Kramer was born in Cape Town in 1942. He studied music at the University of Cape Town before moving to the UK in 1962, in protest against South Africa’s apartheid policies. In the UK he started his career working in a recording studio, Pye Studios, later moving to New York where he worked at the Record Plant, where he met and worked with legendary acts like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. He became very good friends with Jimi Hendrix and even helped the star, set up his personal recording studio in New York, Electric Lady Studios. He was responsible for recording the performances at the Woodstock Festival, which were later released as an album. He was also responsible for recording and engineering the legendary live album: Frampton Comes Alive by Peter Frampton. Eddie Kramer became the go-to engineer if you wanted to release a live album.

Eddie Kramer has worked with some of the biggest acts of the Rock era: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Carly Simon, Curtis Mayfield, Peter Frampton, Santana, David Bowie and Brian May of Queen. Eddie Kramer owns 2 Grammies for his work in engineering and mixing and the albums on which he has produced or engineered have sold over 100million units internationally.

Trevor Rabin

Trevor Rabin was born in Johannesburg in 1954. In South Africa he started the highly successful rock band, Rabbitt. He moved to England in 1978 and worked as a session guitarist and even went on to form another band called Yes. He went on to release 6 albums with Yes eventually winning a Grammy Award in 1985 for Cinema. As a solo artist he released 7 albums. In 1981 Trevor moved to Los Angeles and changed career focus from guitarist to film scorer. As a film scorer he has composed music for some of the biggest motion pictures of the last 30 years: Glimmer Man (1996), Con Air (1997), Armageddon (1998), Gone In 60 Seconds (2000), The Banger Sisters (2002), Bad Boys II (2003), National Treasure (2004), Coach Carter (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010), I Am Number 4 (2011). All in all he has scored music for over 43 motion pictures and 3 television series. The movies for which he has scored music have generated over $4,5billion. In 2017 he was finally inducted, as the first South African in history, into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of his former band, Yes.

Phil Ramone

Phil Ramone was born in South Africa in 1934 and was brought up in New York. He was a child protege and studied at the prestigious Julliard. His main instrument was Violin, but he landed up becoming famous for the work he did as a producer. George Michael, who is notorious for not allowing anyone to produce songs on his albums once stated that he would only allow Phil Ramone to produce on his albums. Alas one of Phil Ramone’s last projects, before he passed away in 2013, was Symphonica for George Michael.

By the time he turned 25 he had established his first recording studio, a year after becoming a naturalized American. He rose to prominence in 1962, when he recorded and produced Marilyn Monroe’s birthday gift to President JFK, “Happy Birthday, Mr President”. He won his first Grammy Award for work he had done on a Stan Getz album in 1964: “Getz/Gilberto”. He won his first production Grammy in 1975 for the Paul Simon album “Still Crazy After All These Years”. He went on to win 14 Grammy Awards in his lifetime.

He worked extensively with Billy Joel at the height of his career, producing 6 of his most iconic albums: The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, The Nylon Curtain, An Innocent Man and The Bridge. He was also the go-to-guy when people wanted to relaunch their careers: Frank Sinatra’s Duets albums in the 1990s, Ray Charles duets album “Genius Loves Company” (for which Ray won 8 Grammy awards) and “Genius and Friends”, Rod Stewart’s first two albums in the Great American Songbook series in the 2000s and Tony Bennett’s comeback Jazz duets album series: Duets I and II. Albums on which he produced sold over 100million units worldwide.

He also became well known for producing music for motion picture and most famously he produced the music for the Flashdance movie in 1983, for which he won a Grammy Award. He also produced music for movies such as: A Star Is Born, August Rush, Ghostbusters, Midnight Cowboy, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Walkabout. All in all the movies for which he produced music generated over $500million.

By the time Phil Ramone passed away in 2013, he had received three honorary degrees from three different institutions in the USA: Berklee College of Music, Five Towns College and Skidmore College.

JR Rotem

JR Rotem is the youngest kid in this article, he was born in South Africa in 1975. He and his family immigrated to Canada and eventually settled in California. He went on to study composition at the Berklee College of music. One of his first breaks was when he landed a song on the Destiny’s Child album Survivor. He went on to form his own recording studio and company with his brother Tommy Rotem and his lawyer Zach Katz. At the company he went on to discover Sean Kingston and Jason Derulo.

In his career thus far he has had 3 No1 hits on the US charts: SOS by Rihanna (2006); Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston (2006); Whatcha Say by Jason Derulo (2010). He has worked with some of the biggest urban talent in the music business: Rick Ross; Lil’ Kim, Nicki Minaj, TI, Busta Rhymes. He has also worked with some of the pop world’s most popular new stars: Meghan Trainor, Charlie Puth, Ariana Grande and Fifth Harmony. Most recently he produced Gwen Stefani’s album This Is What The Truth Feels Like.

JR Rotem has also worked with some of the biggest names in the industry: Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Britney Spears, Fall Out Boy and Panic!At The Disco.

Most recently JR produced various songs on the highly successful 2nd season of the Empire television series. All-in-all his singles have generated nearly 30million units in sales.

Lebo M

Lebo M was born in South Africa, Soweto in 1964. He was exiled in 1979 and lived in the USA for 20 years. Whilst there, he worked with various people from the music industry. Lebo M’s major break arrived when he worked on the highly successful animated movie, The Lion King for Disney. The main songwriters for the movie were Sir Elton John, Hans Zimmer and Sir Tim Rice. Lebo M was hired by Hans Zimmer to do the African choral arrangements for the motion picture. They had worked together on a project in 1992, The Power of One. Lebo M went on to perform on the Motion picture and the soundtrack. His arrangements appeared in various spin-off movies, soundtrack and the highly successful musical. For his efforts he received a Grammy Award in 1995 for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s).

The movie went on to earn $968million, the soundtrack for the first movie sold 15million units and the musical is currently the 3rd longest running musical in the history of Broadway and the highest earning musical in history earning over $1billion. That’s a total of $2.1billion generated just from one project.

Lebo M worked on arrangements for other movies: The Power of One, Congo, Outbreak, Made In America, Born To Be Wild, Tears Of the Sun. He has also written and arranged for artists like Diana Ross, Johnny Mathis and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Miriam Stockley

Miriam Stockley was born in Johannesburg in 1962. By the time she was eleven she has a Top 30 hit in South Africa with her sister, a cover of the song “Venus”. Later in her life she moved to London to pursue a music career. She started off her career in the UK as a backing vocalist for the mega production team Stock Aitken and Waterman, recording backing vocals for some of their biggest acts: Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Sonia. As an A list backing vocalist she recorded backing vocals on albums by some of the industry’s biggest names:

• Tom Jones: Reloaded, 1999, 2.1million
• Tina Tuner: 24/7, 1999, 1.5million
• Sarah Brightman: Eden, 1998, 1million
• George Martin: In My Life, 1998
• Katrina and The Waves: Walk on Water, 1997
• Monserrat Caballé: Friends for Life, 1997
• Louise: Woman in Me, 1997, 300000
• Gabrielle: Gabrielle, 1996, 300000
• Tina Tuner: Wildest Dreams, 1996, 2.5million
• Queen: Made in Heaven, 1995, 7.5million
• Brian May: Back Into The Light, 1992
• Kylie Minogue: Enjoy Yourself, 1989, 1.5million
• Kylie Minogue: Rhythm of Love, 1990, 300000
• Kylie Minogue: Let’s Get To It, 1991
• Kylie Minogue: Light Years, 2000, 700000
• Jason Donovan: Between The Lines, 1990, 300000

Besides for being a top backing vocalist, she has also released solo albums and albums as part of a very successful world music act Aomusic, releasing 6 albums as an artist in her own right.

Miriam has also provided vocal services on various soundtracks, such as: Beloved, Great Expectations, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Rob Roy.

Money generated from albums and motion pictures on whose soundtracks she has appeared amount to over $3billion.

Miriam Makeba

Not only was Miriam Makeba a phenomenal vocalist, she was also an amazing ambassador for South African music, at a time when the South African voice was suppressed, and a civil rights leader.

She was born in 1932 in Johannesburg. She started singing at a young age. She started her professional career in the 1950's when she joined the prominent local Jazz band, The Manhattans. She eventually left the band and joined another band, The Skylarks. In 1956 she released a single that made her a household name in South Africa, The Pata Pata. Her key out of South Africa was a cameo she made in an anti-apartheid documentary entitled Come Back, Africa. The director, an American was so impressed with her that he got her a visa to appear at the Venice Film Festival, where the movie received an award. She then got cast in musical entitled King Kong. Whilst in London she met the American singer Harry Belafonte who helped her gain entry into the USA. When she tried to re-enter South Africa in 1960, she realized that she had lost South African citizenship. In the USA she got signed to RCA, the same company as Elvis Presley and performed for JFK, at his birthday party, who insisted on meeting her.

In 1963 Miriam released her first album in the USA and testified against apartheid at the United Nations, giving the struggle an international voice. In 1966 she received a Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording for An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba. In the late 1960s she released two songs that made her an international brand: The Click Song and she re-released Pata Pata.

Her fourth marriage was to a leader of the Black Panther movement and she was exiled to Guinea. She became an ambassador for Guinea at the United Nations and in 1974 she performed at the Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire. In the late 1980s she was introduced to Paul Simon and toured with him in his Graceland World Tour. In 1987 she performed at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday tribute concert in Wembley, which once again gave apartheid an international voice.

In the 1990s she returned to South Africa, toured with Nina Simone and Dizzie Gillespie, appeared on the Cosby Show and featured in the movie, Sarafina (1992). In 2000 she was nominated for her 2nd Grammy Award for her album Homeland. In 2001 she received the prestigious Polar Prize from Sweden. In 2008 she passed away after doing a concert. All in all Mama Africa released 24 studio albums and appeared in various movies, documentaries and television shows.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

The band was started in Kwazulu Natal in 1964, by Joseph Shabalala, after a series of dreams. The band rose to prominence through a series of appearances in Isicathamiya (a sub-genre of urban traditional South African music sung acapella) competitions. They released their first album in 1973, but only rose to international fame in 1986 after meeting Paul Simon, who asked them to appear on his Graceland album, which went on to sell 16million units internationally. The band appeared on three of the biggest songs on the album: Homeless, Diamonds on the soles of her feet and You Can Call Me Al. They toured internationally with Paul Simon and appeared with him on Saturday Night Live. In 1987 Paul Simon returned the favor and produced the band’s first US album, Shaka Zulu, for which they received a Grammy in 1987 for Best Traditional Folk Recording. In 1988 the band appeared in Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker movie, in the same year they also appeared in Coming To America, the Eddie Murphy movie, in which they sang Mbube. They also appeared on Sesame Street in that year.

In 1990 their album Two Worlds One Heart featured George Clinton and The Winans. In 1993 the band sang at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony when Nelson Mandela received his prize. In 1996 the band collaborated with the Queen Of Country, Dolly Parton on two songs: Peace Train and Knocking on Heaven’s Door.

In 1997 the band appeared in a series of commercials for Heinz soup in the UK. In 2003 the band received their 2nd Grammy for their album Wenyuleka. In 2006 the band collaborated with Josh Groban on an album entitled Awake. The album went on to sell over 2.5million units becoming one of the biggest selling classical albums on the 21st century. In 2008 the band received their 3rd Grammy for the album Ilembe in the World Music category. In 2013 the band won their 4th Grammy off 14 nominations for their album Live: Singing for Peace Around The World. In 2014 the band collaborated with the French producer David Guetta. The band has recorded 50 albums of which many have been certified Gold or Platinum.

Hugh Masakela

Hugh Masakela was born in Witbank in 1939. He was given his first trumpet by his school’s chaplain, the anti-apartheid activist, Trevor Huddleston who also helped Hugh get his first trumpet lessons. He performed in Huddleston’s Jazz band, South Africa’s first youth orchestra. In 1958 Hugh landed up playing in an orchestra for the musical King Kong. The musical later moved to the West End in London after a one year sold out run in South Africa.

In 1959 Hugh along with Abdullah Ibrahim, Makhaya Ntshoko, Johnny Gertze and Kippie Moketsi formed the Jazz Epistles. The band played to sold out audiences in Cape Town and Johannesburg until 1960. Hugh left South Africa after the Sharpeville shootings: The anti-gathering laws instituted in South Africa prevented him from earning a living. He moved to the UK and on a visit to the USA he met Harry Belafonte. He studied trumpet at the Manhattan School of Music for four years. His first hits in the USA, Up, Up and Away and Grazing in the Grass (No1 USA) sold over 4million units in the USA alone in 1967–8.

In the 1980s he met Paul Simon and toured with him on his Graceland tour. He also worked on the development of the highly successful musical Sarafina, which was later turned into a movie in the 1990s staring Whoopi Goldberg. The musical was nominated for a Tony Award for best score.

Hugh Masakela has been nominated 7 times for various Grammy Awards, and has won twice. He has recorded 47 albums and recorded with some of the most successful artists in history. He also has two honorary doctorates, one from Rhodes University and one from the University of York.

The above stories go to show that no matter how small you may think you are, and no matter what country you come from, anyone can make a major change if they set their hearts to it. The above people did not allow circumstance or persecution to stand in their path to greatness. The 11 individuals above changed the world of music and have in the process won world acclaim and have generated billions of dollars in the process, cementing the South African legacy. Anyone can be great…you must just want it, enough.