Miriam Makeba [1932-2008]

Artist: Miriam Makeba

LP: Miriam Makeba
Song: "Nomeva"
[ listen ]

Legendary South African singer Miriam Makeba collapsed and died after performing in Italy this past weekend. My friend Julie broke the news to me yesterday and sent me the link to this wonderful clip of Makeba performing one of her songs:

Miriam Makeba on YouTube:
[ "Oxgam" ]

From Miriam Makeba's first LP, recorded in 1960, the beautiful track "Nomeva" is described as "A Xosa love song." You can read about Makeba's life and career [here] and you can find a moving New York Times obituary for her [here]. A friend and early colleague of Makeba's, Harry Belafonte wrote these notes for the back of her debut LP:

The critics and public have already expressed themselves about
the talent of Miriam Makeba with phrases like "a new high-voltage
electric charge" (New York World Telegram)..."the appearance of
a new star" (Look)..."sings like no one else" (Time). National notices
and feature articles in Time, Look, The New York Times, Newsweek
and many others sprang from only three engagements—her
first after arriving from South Africa.

Now is the moment for another debut—her first record album. I was
present during these recording sessions, and it was a remarkable
experience. The sparks were there in Miss Makeba's artistry and
her strangely powerful songs—in themselves a startling blend of
the highly sophisticated and the primitive. The combination of Makeba,
the music and the musicians erupted into a kind of musical spon-
taneous combustion rarely encountered in a studio. This album
which resulted presents a "Makeba-in-depth" which may never be
fully realized in quite the same way on TV or the nightclub stage.

There is little I can add to the acclaim already written by others
about this great artist. Knowing her and working with her count
as one of my greatest artistic privileges. Like you, I shall be playing
and replaying these exciting performances by one of today's strongest
musical personalities. --Harry Belafonte

And here are some (embarrassingly dated) liner notes from the back of the LP that were taken from a TIME magazine article:

TIME, The Weekly News Magazine, Feb. 1, 1960:
Singer Miriam Makeba, a Xosa tribeswoman (full name: Zensi Miriam
Makeba Ogwashu ogu vama yi keti le nenxgoma sitlu xa saku aga ba
ukutsha sithathe izitsha sizi khalu sivuke ngomso sizi chole ezo zinge
knayo zinga bikho nfalo singamalamu singa mangamla nagithi), is probably
too shy to realize it, but her return to Africa would leave a noticeable gap
in the U.S. entertainment world, which she entered a mere six weeks ago.

At Manhattan's Blue Angel, a smoky, low-ceilinged saloon-for-
sophisticates, she is delighting the customers with the songs and styles
she learned as a child. In her high, sweet, reedy voice, the knowing
can hear many echoes—of Ella Fitzgerald, whose records she bought
as a child, of Harry Belafonte, who helped her get started in the
U.S.—but she sings like no one else.

CLICK OF CORKS. The close-cropped, wooly head and the sleek
white Fifth Avenue gown come from different worlds, but the combination
has charm and grace of its own. In a ballad, she maintains the clean,
classic phrasing of a church singer, she can be roguish in a West
Indian ditty about a naughty flea, and she can make a...lament of
A Warrior's Retreat Song. ...When Makeba sings or talks in her
native Xosa dialect, its expressive staccato clicks sound like the
popping of champagne corks. Though she tries many styles, she never
sings the Afrikaaner songs of white South Africa. ("When Afrikaaners
sing in my language," she says, "then I will sing in theirs.") But whatever
mood she assumes, Miriam Makeba maintains a simple and promitive
stoicism that sets her sharply apart from the emotional, often
artificial style of American Negro singers.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON. As remarkable as anything about Makeba
is the fact that, however arresting her talent, she managed to sing
her way out of the anonymity of South African Negro life. Helping her
mother in various servants' jobs around Johannesburg, Miriam sang
in school, at weddings and funerals. If she could get close to a radio,
she tuned in the native songs played on Johannesburg radio stations.
"Anyone who sings, makes music," says she, "as long as it's
good to my ear."

At 17, she began singing at benefits—some nights for Negroes, some
nights for whites. Soon she joined a traveling group called The Black
Manhattan Brothers (eleven men and Miriam), and for three years she
barnstormed all over Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo and South Africa.
"The bus often broke down," Miriam remembers,"and after the first
five months I was crying all the time. But they kept telling me the
show must go on. We always managed to get there on time."

Miriam finally left the group to join a touring musical variety show, then
got the female lead in a Negro jazz opera called King Kong (based on
a true story of a prizefighter who killed his mistress). In 1958 restless
singer Makeba applied for a passport, and after a year's wait she was
on her way to London. From there she moved on to Manhattan's
downtown Village Vanguard, then up town to the Angel.

Miriam Makeba
[March 4, 1932 - November 10, 2008]
We will miss you, Miriam.