Bulawayo Sweet Rhythms Band "Skokiaan" (1954) African music, Zimbabwean musician August Musarurwa

Описание: Bulawayo Sweet Rhythms Band plays "Skokiaan." Skokiaan is translated as Msarurgwa in some language or other.

1954

The ensemble called Bulawayo Sweet Rhythms Band enjoyed a surprise hit with this.

It is not often that music from Zimbabwe enjoyed airplay on the radio throughout the United States, but it happened in 1954.

Then American bands recorded their own version. For example, Ralph Marterie led a big band that recorded “Skokiaan” and enjoyed success with it. Maybe you know Bill Haley's version?

This is not South African music. It is Zimbabwean--a product of Southern Rhodesia at the time of recording.

The record was released by London Records in two formats--45 rpm and 78 rpm--in August 1954.

It was the first record by African musicians recorded in Africa to be a hit in the U.S.

Blowing the saxophone is August Machona Musarurwa.

It was written several years earlier by Zimbabwean musician August Musarurwa in the "Tsaba-tsaba" big band-style that was popular in the 1940s.

What does "Skokiaan" mean?

It is an alcoholic drink. A type of beer? Illegally brewed moonshineI? I never tried it, so I can't say what the drink is like. This is a drinking song.

I think Louis Armstrong covered the song and later (in 1960) met the composer August Msarugwa in Zim, Rhodesia.

I read that the composer was a "shona" who lived in the Ndebele part of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). The song is based upon a shona beverage called Chikokiana Translated to skokiaan in Ndebele.