Friday, June 22, 2007

Hank Medress, 68, Doo-Wop Singer on ‘Lion Sleeps Tonight’, Dies

New York Times:
Hank Medress, a founding member of the 1960s doo-wop group the Tokens, whose biggest hit was “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” died on Monday at his home in Manhattan.

The Tokens’ sole Top 10 hit was a big one, an update in street-corner harmony of a Zulu song from South Africa. The song had become a folk staple in the 1950s after a recording by the Weavers — with Solomon Linda’s original lyric, “mbube” (lion), misheard as “wimoweh” ...


Who knew? Next think, we'll find out that kumba-ya actually means "caveat emptor", and the song is a paean to Chicago-School economics. The culture won't survive...

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