Mango Groove

Mango Groove
Origin Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Genres pop music, marabi, kwela, world music
Years active 1984–present
Website mangogroove.co.za
Members
  • Sipho Bhengu
  • Beulah Hashe
  • Claire Johnston
  • George Lewis
  • John Leyden
  • Mduduzi Magwaza
  • Marilyn Nokwe
  • Phumzile Ntuli
  • Gavin Stevens
Past members

Mango Groove is an 11-piece South African Afropop band whose music fuses pop and township music—especially marabi and kwela.

Since their foundation in 1984, the band has released six studio albums and numerous singles. Their most recent album, 2016's Faces to the Sun, was four years in the making.[1]

History

Formation

Mango Groove formed in Johannesburg in 1984.[2] Three of the four founding members—John Leyden, Andy Craggs, and Bertrand Mouton—were bandmates in a "white middle-class punk band" called Pett Frog while they were students at the University of the Witwatersrand. In 1984 they met kwela musician "Big Voice" Jack Lerole at the Gallo Records building in Johannesburg. In the late 1950s, Lerole had led a kwela band called Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes. John Leyden was enamoured with South African jazz of this era. Lerole's reputation preceded him. He and the boys from Pett Frog rehearsed together, and a new band started to take shape.[3] The band's name was invented over dinner: a pun on the phrase "Man, go groove!".[4]

Evolution

In Mango Groove's early days, musicians came and went as the group evolved into a cohesive whole.[5] John Leyden was the only founding member who stayed on, but the full roster swelled to 11 members.[2] Alan Lazar, a composer and arranger who became the band's keyboardist, explains that a big band with diverse musical elements allows for a variety of arrangements.[6] Mango Groove comprises five vocalists, lead and bass guitar, a brass section, keyboards, and the penny whistle. (The penny whistle is the central instrument in kwela music—a Southern African style that has strongly influenced Mango Groove's sound.) Lead singer Claire Johnston's soprano is complemented by backing vocalists Beulah Hashe, Marilyn Nokwe, and Phumzile Ntuli. Johnston joined at age 17.[1] She was receiving voice instruction from Eve Boswell; when Bertrand Moulton called Boswell in 1984 and asked her to refer her best student, she recommended Claire Johnston.[3] Leyden recalls meeting Johnston for the first time in Rosebank, a suburb of Johannesburg. After playing him some tapes of her singing, she went to see the band perform. "I was intrigued because I'd never heard anything like Mango Groove." After a month with no word from the band, Claire received a phone call from Leyden who asked if she could rehearse for a show booked two nights later.[7]

Like Leyden, Craggs, and Moulton before her, Johnston enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree while touring with the band. She and John Leyden married in 1999, and divorced more than a decade later.[8][9][10]

Among the band's former members are drummer Peter Cohen, trumpeter Banza Kgasoane, composer/keyboardist Alan Lazar, penny whistler Kelly Petlane, and trombonist Mickey Vilakazi. Before his stint with Mango Groove, Cohen co-founded the South African pop rock band Bright Blue;[11] he later joined Freshlyground (est. 2003), a six-person fusion ensemble that has been compared with Mango Groove.[12][13]

Alan Lazar joined on as Mango Groove's keyboardist not long after the band's formation. He co-wrote some of their first songs, including the 1985 single "Two Hearts". In the mid-1990s he started producing scores for film and television, and won a scholarship from the United States' Fulbright Foreign Student Program.[14] After earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from the USC School of Cinema-Television in 1997, he settled in the US and continued his career in the Greater Los Angeles Area.[14][15][16]

"Big Mickey" Vilakazi, a World War II veteran, was also an early member of the band. He was 65 when he joined;[3] John Leyden recalled that when Vilakazi died in June 1988, it seemed for a time that the band might break up.[12][17]

Mango's longtime trumpeter, Banza Kgasoane, died 9 December 2015, age 65.[18][19][20] At the funeral service in Alexandra, Claire Johnston, John Leyden, and other musicians joined Kgasoane's son Moshe on-stage to perform a tribute to Banza.[21] Moshe, like his father, took up the trumpet; he performs as Mo-T with the band Mi Casa.[22][23] On 21 December, South Africa's Minister of Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa memorialised Kgasoane in a press statement issued by the Department.[24][25]

Albums

In July 1989, a year after Mickey Vilakazi's death, the band released their first studio album: Mango Groove. Four songs on the album had already been released as singles, but the album's release introduced seven new tracks—three of which were later released as singles: "Hellfire", "Dance Sum More", and "Special Star". The album stayed in in the top 20 of Radio Orion's national album chart for a year, and peaked at number 2. This was the longest that any album had maintained such a rank on Orion's chart. However, when Phil Collins released …But Seriously a few months later—an album that had some anti-apartheid themes—it demonstrated a similar staying power.[26] (Radio Orion itself was a national FM radio station operated by the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It operated only at night, with a format that included "a wide variety of music, phone-in shows and topical discussion.")[27][28]

Mango Groove was followed by Hometalk in 1990, Another Country in 1993, and Eat a Mango in 1995. In South Africa, each of these was released by Tusk Music—or by its One World Entertainment imprint. Although the band released several compilation albums, they did not put out another studio album until Bang the Drum in 2009. "We took a break," Claire Johnston told an interviewer shortly after Bang the Drum's release. "I wanted to do some solo things and get some of those frustrations and aspirations out of my system.… We just put Mango Groove on the back burner.… [W]e all did our own things, while still getting back together for the odd Mango Groove concert."[29] In a 2014 interview, Johnston elaborated: "We experienced a creative lull. It happens to everyone; and I really learned a lot about myself during that time. I joined Mango Groove at such a young age, I needed to go out on my own and explore…".[30]

During this period, Johnston released her first solo album, Fearless (2001), and a cover album called Africa Blue (2004). She also recorded the song "Together as One (Kanye Kanye)" with Jeff Maluleke in 2003; John Leyden was the producer.[31] Johnston and Maluleke later recorded an album together: Starehe: An African Day (2006), and Leyden produced albums for other artists.[29] Sax and penny whistle player Mduduzi "Duzi" Magwaza also released an album, Boerekwela (2005), and accompanied the Soweto String Quartet on their world tour.[10] An impetus for Mango Groove to record together again came after the band launched their website in 2007: Fans kept asking when they would release a new album.[32]

After Bang the Drum came the DVD Mango Groove: Live in Concert (2011), but it was not until 2016 that the band released a new studio album: Faces to the Sun, a double album, was four years in the making.[1] "We don't churn out albums," said Leyden in 2015, when Faces to the Sun was still in production. "Mango is a lot of people and we have different creative projects that we've done over the years.… [We've had] long hiatuses, but Mango has never stopped going."[33]

Between 1989 and 2009, the band sold more than 700,000 albums in South Africa;[10] that number eventually surpassed one million.

Multi-ethnicity

For the band's first seven years, the National Party was in power, and apartheid was an official policy of the government of South Africa. For a band with white and black members, the government's policy of enforced racial segregation made accommodations, booking, and travel more difficult, if not dangerous.[34] Sometimes when they arrived at a club to perform, they were refused entry because they were multi-ethnic.[35] On one occasion, John Leyden was arrested on a charge of loitering after he gave Jack Lerole a ride home.[3]

At the same time, the state was trying to censor and suppress the anti-establishment music scene.[34] In the 1980s and early 1990s, near the end of the apartheid era, Mango Groove and Juluka were the only major South African music groups with both black and white band-members. At this time Mango Groove was managed by Roddy Quin, who was also the manager for Johnny Clegg of Juluka.[36] The two bands became emblematic of the rainbow nation envisioned by Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.[34] When Mandela was released in 1991 after 27 years of imprisonment, the US news program Nightline used "We Are Waiting" as a musical score for the event. This was a song that band members Sipho Bhengu, Alan Lazar, John Leyden, and Mduduzi Magwaza had written in anticipation of Mandela's release. The number of US viewers who watched the broadcast was estimated at 30 million.[26][26] In 1994 the band were invited to play for Mandela's inauguration concert. This was the country's first inauguration of a president elected by both black and white voters.[33][34]

"We weren't overtly political," lead singer Claire Johnston said in 2017. "The only song that was was 'Another Country'. But we changed the hearts and minds of people in a way politicians cannot."[37]

Performances

In South Africa

In a 2015 interview, John Leyden expressed a need to limit the number of live shows Mango Groove per year in order to avoid overexposure in a small country like South Africa. "We have never stopped performing but we are very selective of the shows we do.… The essence of Mango Groove is… the live show."[33]

After releasing Bang the Drum (their fifth studio album) in September 2009, Mango Groove began a national tour of South Africa in 2010, with additional stops planned for Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This was a comeback tour, as Bang the Drum was the first studio album the band had released since 1995's Eat a Mango. The Big World Party Tour, as it was called, was named from the lyrics of "Give It", a song written by John Leyden and Claire Johnston for the album:[38]

They have since performed at the South African music festivals Splashy Fen (2016), Oppikoppi, Innibos, and Park Acoustics.[32][34] On New Year's Day 2012 and 2017, they performed at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden for the garden's Summer Sunset Concert series.[39]

Abroad

When talks following the South African Border War culminated in independence for Namibia in March 1990, the band were invited to perform at the celebration concert. The event took place at Independence Stadium in Windhoek the Saturday after Namibian independence day. Namibian and South African bands alike played to nearly 20,000 people.[26][40][41] In 1994 they played again in celebration of the integration of Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands into Namibia. Namibia's cessation from South Africa did not originally include these territories. South Africa finally ceded them on 1 March 1994.[42][43] The Walvis Bay integration concert was the first time Mango Groove performed "Let Your Heart Speak" to a live audience. They did not play in Namibia again until 1998, when they preceded their South African tour with a show at the Windhoek Country Club.[41]

Mango's first overseas show was an anti-racism concert in Paris, 1990—the latest in an annual series that had begun in 1985. The concerts' organisers (Julian Drey et al. of SOS-Racisme) were inspired by the 1978 concert launched by Rock Against Racism in London, 1978.[44] At the Paris concert, Mango Groove played to an audience of 200,000 people.[45] For their Live in London tour in 1991, the band appeared at the Apollo Theatre and other Greater London venues. On 20 April 1992, they performed, via live satellite uplink from South Africa, for the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in London, to a television audience estimated at one billion people.[46] In July 1992 their show at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland met with such an enthusiastic response, they came back onstage for three encores.[33][47][48] In 1997 they played at the Celebrate Hong Kong Reunification concert that followed the Hong Kong handover ceremony.[49] After their 1998 tour of South Africa, the band planned to tour Germany in August and, later, the US.[41] They have also performed in Australia, Canada, and Zimbabwe.[33][45]

Awards

Over the years the South African Broadcasting Corporation has awarded Mango Groove five OK TV awards.[12]

At the second annual South African Music Awards in 1996, the album Eat a Mango won a SAMA in the category "Best Adult Contemporary Performance: English".[12] In 2017, the band's seventh studio album, Faces to the Sun, was nominated in the "Best Adult Contemporary Album" and "Best Engineered Album" categories (the engineer was Andrew Baird).[50] The award for "Best Adult Contemporary Album" went to Hugh Masekela's No Borders; the award for Best Engineered Album went to Arno Carstens' Aandblom 13.[51] Other nominees in the Adult Contemporary Album category that year were Elvis Blue's Optics, Majozi's Fire, and Msaki's Zaneliza: How the Water Moves.[50]

Another sound engineer who was recognised for his work with Mango Groove was Chris Birkett. His work on Hometalk won an Ampex Golden Reel Award.[26][52][53]

In 2015, Buzz South Africa included "Special Star" on their list of the "100 Greatest South African Songs of All Time".[54]

Personnel

  • Sipho Bhengu – tenor sax, vocals
  • Beulah Hashe – vocals
  • Claire Johnston – lead vocals
  • Alan Ari Lazar – keyboards, piano
  • George Lewis – guitar
  • John Leyden – bass guitar
  • Marilyn Nokwe – vocals
  • Mduduzi Magwaza – alto sax, pennywhistle
  • Phumzile Ntuli – vocals
  • Gavin Stevens – drums, percussion

Discography

Studio albums

  1. Mango Groove (1989)
  2. Hometalk (1990)
  3. Another Country (1993)
  4. Eat a Mango (1995)
  5. Bang the Drum (2009)
  6. Faces to the Sun (2016)

Compilation albums

  1. Dance Sum More… All the Hits So Far (1997)
  2. The Best of Mango Groove (2000)
  3. The Ultimate Collection (2002)
  4. Moments Away: Love Songs and Lullabies, 1990–2006 (2006)
  5. The Essential (2008)
  6. Shhhhh…! Have You Heard? The Ultimate Collection, 1989-2011 (2011)
  7. Great South African Performers: Mango Groove (2011)
  8. Colours of Africa: Mango Groove (2013)
  9. Greatest Moments: Mango Groove (2015)
  10. Grand Masters: Mango Groove (2015)

Video releases

  1. The Essential (2008)
  2. Mango Groove: Live in Concert (2011)
  3. Shhhhh…! Have You Heard? The Ultimate Collection, 1989–2011 (2011)

Singles

  1. "Two Hearts" (1986)
  2. "Love is the Hardest Part" (1986)
  3. "We Are Party" (1986)
  4. "Do You Dream of Me?" (1987)
  5. "Move Up" (1987)
  6. "Mau Mau Eyes" (1988)
  7. "Dance Sum More" (1989)
  8. "Hellfire" (1989)
  9. "Special Star" (1989)
  10. "Too Many Tears" (1989)
  11. "Pennywhistle" (1990)
  12. "Hometalk" (1991)
  13. "Island Boy" (1991)
  14. "Moments Away" (1991)
  15. "Nice to See You" (1993)
  16. "Keep On Dancing" (1993)
  17. "Another Country" (1993)
  18. "Tropical Rain" (1993)
  19. "Eat a Mango" (1995)
  20. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (1995)
  21. "New World (Beneath Our Feet)" (1995)
  22. "Tom Hark" (1996)
  23. "Let Your Heart Speak" (1996)
  24. "Southern Sky" (2007)
  25. "This Is Not a Party" (2010)
  26. "Hey!" [feat. Yvette Sangalo] (2011)
  27. "Faces to the Sun" (2015)
  28. "From the Get Go" (2016)
  29. "Kind" (2017)

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Wagner, Leonie (16 October 2016). "Back in the Groove…". The Sunday Times.
  2. 1 2 Viljoen, Stella (2002). "En Route to the Rainbow Nation: South African Voices of Resistance". In Young, Richard A. Music, Popular Culture, Identities. Amsterdam: Rodopi. p. 326. ISBN 978-90-420-1249-3. OCLC 51296962. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "The Space In-Between." The Essential Mango Groove. (2008)
  4. ↑ Shaw, p. 86
  5. ↑ Shaw (1991)
  6. ↑ Shaw (1991)
  7. ↑ 702 Unplugged with Mango Groove
  8. ↑ "Claire Johnston: The Mango Groove star on success, being 17 and having underpants thrown at her". Media Mentors. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  9. ↑ 702 Unplugged with Mango Groove}}
  10. 1 2 3 Moses, p. 137
  11. ↑ "Bright Blue Are Back: The Full Story". The South African Rock Music Digest. No. 131. 19 November 2001. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Mojapelo, p. 127
  13. ↑ Motlogelwa, Tshireletso (11 July 2008). "That hidden Mango Groove in your Freshly Ground". Mmegi Online. Retrieved 2017-07-29.
  14. 1 2 "About Alan". AlanLazar.com. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  15. ↑ "Alumni & Friends Hot Sheet June 2010". cinema.usc.edu. USC School of Cinematic Arts. Section "Films and TV Shows". Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  16. ↑ "Alan Lazar: Film and TV composer, production music company CEO, author". LinkedIn. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  17. ↑ Shaw, p. 1
  18. ↑ "Tributes pour in for legendary musician Bra Banza". Sunday World. 9 December 2015. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  19. ↑ Koza, Neo (9 December 2015). "'Bra Banza was an unsung hero'". EWN. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  20. ↑ African News Agency (21 December 2015). "Bra Banza lays down his trumpet for good". IOL. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  21. ↑ Nontobeko, Sibisi (19 December 2015). Farewell to unsung SA music veteran, Banza Kgasoane (video). Alexandra: eNCA. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  22. ↑ "Biography: Mi Casa". koraawards.com. KORA All-Africa Music Awards. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  23. ↑ "Mi Casa". fluidmedia.co.za. FM Entertainment. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  24. ↑ "Minister Nathi Mthethwa pays tribute to the late Lehlara Banza Samson Kgasoane" (Press release). Department of Arts and Culture. 21 December 2015. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  25. ↑ "Mthethwa pays tribute to music legend Banza Kgasoane" (Press release). Department of Arts and Culture. Gov.za. 21 December 2015. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  26. 1 2 3 4 5 "Reflecting the Past and the Future". Mayibuye: The Journal of the African National Congress: 43. April 1991 – via Google Books.
  27. ↑ De Beer, Arrie S., ed. (1993). Mass Media for the Nineties: The South African Handbook of Mass Communication. J. L. van Schaik. pp. 130–31. ISBN 0-627-01837-8. OCLC 246925703 – via Google Books.
  28. ↑ South Africa: Official Yearbook of the Republic of South Africa. South African Department of Information. 1989. p. 673 – via Google Books.
  29. 1 2 Muston, Leon (17 October 2009). "Modern, fresh Mango Groove has new album". The Herald. Port Elizabeth.
  30. ↑ Vieira, Genevieve (1 April 2014). "A lifetime in the music industry and still learning". The Citizen. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  31. ↑ "Together as One (Kanye Kanye)" was the official song of the South African Rugby Union in 2003.
  32. 1 2 Moses, p. 136
  33. 1 2 3 4 5
  34. 1 2 3 4 5 Roxburgh, Craig (20 June 2016). "Interview: Mango Groove". SA Music Scene. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  35. ↑ Johnston, Claire (March 2010). "Interview with Mango Groove's Claire Johnston" (Interview). Interview with Galen Schultz. Durban: The Witness. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  36. ↑ Mojapelo, pp. 123, 127
  37. ↑
  38. ↑
  39. ↑
  40. ↑
  41. 1 2 3
  42. ↑
  43. ↑
  44. ↑
  45. 1 2
  46. ↑
  47. ↑
  48. ↑
  49. ↑
  50. 1 2 "The 23rd South African Music Awards: The Nominees".
  51. ↑ "SAMA 23: Good Night for Gospel". samusicawards.co.za. South African Music Awards. 26 May 2017. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  52. ↑ "Chris Birkett: Singer-songwriter / Record producer". vkartproman.com. VK Artist Promotion & Management. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  53. ↑ "Collaborations et réalisations". chrisbirkett.free.fr (in French). Chris Birkett. 2009. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
  54. ↑ Nwadigwe, Linda (26 March 2015). "Ancient And Modern: 100 Greatest South African Songs of All Time". Buzz South Africa. Retrieved 2017-07-30.

References


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