Love Machine - The Lion Sleeps Tonight (1968)

The Tokens - The Lion Sleeps Tonight (1961)

(George Weiss - Hugo Peretti - Luigi Creatore - Albert Stanton)
 USA
Original version with these lyrics
#1 USA #11 UK #1 Sydney #14 Melbourne #1 Brisbane #3 Adelaide #2 Perth

Single on RCA October 1961.

The lyrics are by George Weiss, who reworked Wimoweh and added the “lion sleeps tonight” lyrics after the Tokens decided to record their version of the Weavers’ 1951 record.

Peretti and Creatore were a top producing team at RCA known as Hugo & Luigi, or ‘Huge & Luge’ as the Tokens called them.

The name of Albert Stanton, added after the initial release of the single, was a fictitious credit often used by the original American publishers of Wimoweh in the early 50s, especially for songs believed to be out of the public domain. See Rian Malan’s article, cited below.

Further reading: For a good summary of this New York group, see Tom Simon’s Tokens Page. Three members of The Tokens went on to form Cross Country in the 70s: see In The Midnight Hour.

The Weavers - Wimoweh (1951)

('Paul Campbell' [The Weavers])
 USA
Original version with these lyrics

Produced, with orchestra and chorus, by Gordon Jenkins for the Vanguard label.

‘Paul Campbell’ was a name used by the Weavers as a group songwriting credit. The Weavers were Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman. The impassioned vocal line on Wimoweh is performed by Pete Seeger.

Seeger, who transcribed the lyrics from the original African recording, rendered the Zulu chant Uyimbube, uyimbube as “Wimoweh, wimoweh”.

Wimoweh was a huge success, and was recorded by numerous artists including Yma Sumac (1952), Jimmy Dorsey (1952), The Kingston Trio (1959) and Miriam Makeba (as Mbube, 1960).

More versions: See the list of versions compiled by Fred Clemens at Bob Shannon’s Behind the Hits [archived page]. This site has links to audio of many versions at YouTube.

Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds - Mbube (1939)

(Solomon Linda)
 South Africa
Original version

78 rpm record on Gallotone label (see label scan at 3rd Ear Music).

Not a traditional song, as sometimes supposed, but an original song composed by Solomon Linda (1909-1962) in the Johannesberg studio of Eric Gallo.

The story of Mbube–Wimoweh–Lion Sleeps Tonight is long and complicated. The definitive account is by Rian Malan in his article Where Does the Lion Sleep Tonight?, first published in Rolling Stone but reprinted online at 3rd Ear Music along with an extensive follow-up discussion.

Although he was uncredited on earlier versions of his song, Solomon Linda’s status as the original composer has been reinstated over the years, and there have been moves to have some of his long due royalties paid to his family.