Friday Music

Popularly-known as The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Wimoweh and Mbube (Zulu for lion) this song was originally written and recorded by Solomon Linda in 1939 under the Mbube title. 

Just about everyone and anyone has covered the tune since as most Americans ignored South African copyrights since South Africa was not a signatory to U.S. copyright law.  Following the Disney movie the Lion King the lawsuits grew in scale. 

Long story short, it was back in 1961 that the English translation of this song became popularized by the doo-wop group The Tokens.  Since I know you’re fond of ear worms I’ll post another version before too long....