Elias And His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes
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Elias And His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes
Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes was a kwela band, formed in the mid-1950s by brothers Elias and Jack Lerole, along with David Ramosa and Zeph Nkabinde. The four young men played on the streets of Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the early days they called themselves the Alex Shamba Boys. Jack Lerole was only in his early teens when he and Elias started playing penny whistle. Ramosa and Nkabinde joined them, and they developed a unique sound: Unlike earlier kwela groups, they incorporated guitar and vocal harmony. The "jive flute" in the name Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes is the penny whistle. In 1956, the four were signed to EMI South Africa by the label's "black music" record producer, Rupert Bopape. One of the tunes they recorded was "Tom Hark". Columbia Records issued the song as a 7-inch single, and it was particularly well-received in the United Kingdom. Worldwide, the single sold an estimated three million copies. The band did not profit from t ...
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Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demographia, the Johannesburg–Pretoria urban area (combined because of strong transport links that make commuting feasible) is the 26th-largest in the world in terms of population, with 14,167,000 inhabitants. It is the provincial capital and largest city of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa. Johannesburg is the seat of the Constitutional Court, the highest court in South Africa. Most of the major South African companies and banks have their head offices in Johannesburg. The city is located in the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills and is the centre of large-scale gold and diamond trade. The city was established in 1886 following the discovery of gold on what had been a farm. Due to the extremely large gold de ...
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Virgin Books
Virgin Books is a British book publisher 90% owned by the publishing group Random House, and 10% owned by Virgin Group, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company. History Virgin established its book publishing arm in the late 1970s; in the latter part of the 1980s Virgin purchased several existing companies, including WH Allen, well known among ''Doctor Who'' fans for their Target Books imprint; Virgin Books was incorporated into WH Allen in 1989, but in 1991 WH Allen was renamed Virgin Publishing Ltd. Virgin Publishing's early success came with the ''Doctor Who'' New Adventures novels, officially licensed full-length novels carrying on the story of the popular science-fiction television series following its cancellation in 1989. Virgin published this series from 1991 to 1997, as well as a range of ''Doctor Who'' reference books from 1992 to 1998 under the Doctor Who Books imprint. In recent times the company is best known for its commercial non- ...
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Spokes Mashiyane
Johannes "Spokes" Mashiyane (born Vlakfontein (Mamelodi), Pretoria 20 January 1933; died at Baragwanath Hospital of cirrhosis of liver 9 February 1972) was regarded as one of the greatest pennywhistle artists who graced the South African kwela music scene from the 1950s to (approximately) the 1970s. Arriving on the pennywhistle band scene as a juvenile domestic servant from the northern Sotho communities in the Transvaal alongside contemporaries of Alexandra boys such as Lemmy Mabaso, Barney Rachabane, Elias and Jack Lerole. He stated that the pennywhistle's simplicity allowed for greater freedom to bend and blend notes. The success of his recordings provided significant revenue for his recording company, Gallo Record Company, to which he had switched in 1958. His success gained international notice by the 1960s - he played with Bud Shank among others during their visit to South Africa - and in July 1965 he was invited to the Newport Folk Festival. This festival gained notoriety for ...
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Documentary Film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called "actuality films", lasted one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length, and to include more categories. Some examples are Educational film, educational, observational and docufiction. Documentaries are very Informational listening, informative, and are often used within schools as a resource to teach various principles. Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social media platfor ...
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Mahlathini
Simon "Mahlathini" Nkabinde (1937 or 1938 – 27 July 1999) was a South African ''mbaqanga'' singer. Known as the "Lion of Soweto", Nkabinde is the acknowledged exponent of the deep-voiced, basso profundo "groaning" style that came to symbolize mbaqanga music in the 1960s. Nkabinde was also a very active live performer in South Africa, recording and performing with the Mahotella Queens and the backing Makgona Tsohle Band from 1964 to 1971, and then again from 1983 to 1999. The Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens act was propelled into international stardom in the wake of Paul Simon's 1986 ''Graceland'' album. Early career and life Nkabinde was born in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal and grew up in Alexandra, Gauteng. As a young boy, he began leading isicathamiya and mbube choirs at traditional Zulu wedding ceremonies. By the time he was a teenager, Nkabinde's voice was much admired. During the early 1950s, however, his voice became strained and was reduced to a growl. Initially, Nka ...
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7-inch
In music, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. One can be released for sale to the public in a variety of formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. In other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album. Despite being referred to as a single, in the era of music downloads, singles can include up to as many as three tracks. The biggest digital music distributor, the iTunes Store, accepts as many as three tracks that are less than ten minutes each as a single. Any more than three tracks on a musical release or thirty minutes in total running time is an extended play (EP) or, if over six tracks long, an album. Historically, when mainstream music was purchased via vinyl records, singles would be released double-sided, i.e. there was an A-side and a B-side, on which two songs would appear, one on each sid ...
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Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the Graphophone#Commercialization, American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Laboratory and Bureau#Commercialization of phonograph patents, Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records International, CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include AC/DC, Adele, Aerosmith, Julie And ...
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Tom Hark
"Tom Hark" is an instrumental South African kwela song from the 1950s, believed to have been composed by Jack Lerole. The song was arranged for penny whistle and first recorded by Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes—a South African band formed by pennywhistlers Jack and his brother Elias Lerole—and released in 1956. It was later released in the UK after it was used as a theme on a TV series, and it reached number 2 on the UK chart in 1958. Recordings artists of various genres have covered the song, and some of them added original lyrics. A version by the Piranhas became a hit in 1980 in the UK, and it has been adapted into football chants. Elias and His Zig-Zag Jive Flutes recording The song was composed by Jack Lerole around 1954, although other people also claimed to have written the song. Jack and Elias Lerole and their band were performing on the street of Johannesburg when EMI South Africa record producer Rupert Bopape (1925–2012) came across them, and offered them a r ...
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Record Producer
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music'' (Cambridge, MA & London, UK: MIT Press, 2005).Richard James Burgess, ''The History of Music Production'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)pp 12–13Allan Watson, ''Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio'' (New York: Routledge, 2015)pp 25–27 The record producer, or simply the producer, is likened to film director and art director. The executive producer, on the other hand, enables the recording project through entrepreneurship, and an audio engineer operates the technology. Varying by project, the producer may or may not choose all of the artists. If employing only synthesized or sampled instrumentation, the producer may be the sole artist. Conversely, some artists ...
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Encyclopedia Of Popular Music
''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music'', which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.''The Times'', ''The Knowledge'', Christmas edition, 22 December 2007- 4 January 2008. It was described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". History of the encyclopedia Larkin believed that rock music and popular music were at least as significant historically as classical music, and as such, should be given definitive treatment and properly documented. ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is the result. In 1989, Larkin sold his half of the publishing company Scorpion Books to finance his ambition to publish an encyclopedia of popular music. Aided by a team of initially 70 contributors, he set about compiling the data in a pre-internet age, "relying instead on information gleaned from music magazines, individual expertise ...
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Kwela
Kwela is a pennywhistle-based street music from southern Africa with jazzy underpinnings and a distinctive, skiffle-like beat. It evolved from the marabi sound and brought South African music to international prominence in the 1950s. The music has its roots in southern Africa but later adaptations of this and many other African folk idioms have permeated Western music (listen to the albums ''A Swingin' Safari'' by the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra (1962) and ''Graceland'' by Paul Simon (1986)), giving modern South African music, particularly jazz, much of its distinctive sound and lilting swagger. The Piranha's 1980 UK Top Ten hit 'Tom Hark' was based on an earlier 1950's Kwela hit song. One reason for the use of the pennywhistle is that it is cheap and portable, but it also lends itself as a solo or an ensemble instrument. The popularity of the pennywhistle may have been based on the fact that flutes of different kinds have long been traditional instruments among the peoples of the ...
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Penny Whistle
The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. A tin whistle player is called a whistler. The tin whistle is closely associated with Irish traditional music and Celtic music. Other names for the instrument are the flageolet, English flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, tin flageolet, or Irish whistle (also ga, feadóg stáin or feadóg). History The tin whistle in its modern form is from a wider family of fipple flutes which have been seen in many forms and cultures throughout the world. In Europe, such instruments have a long and distinguished history and take various forms, of which the most widely known are the recorder, tin whistle, Flabiol, Txistu and tabor pipe. Predecessors Almost all primitive cultures had a type of fipple flute, and it is most likely the first pitched flu ...
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