Pick of the Week - Juluka (South Africa)

A blast from the past (1984) from the South African band, Juluka.

As I've mentioned here before, there were several albums released starting in the mid-Eighties that caught my ear. There was Aura, by King Sunny Ade, from Nigeria. There was a self-titled Sipho Mabuse album, from South Africa.

There was Scatterlings, by Juluka, also from South Africa. It featured the song "Scatterlings of Africa," perhaps their best known song here in the United States.

Also from South Africa, the compilation Only the Poor Man Feel It. And let's not forget Zimbabwe Frontline, yet another compilation.

There was also Stand Your Ground, from Juluka. The 1984 album featured four new songs and six that were released the previous year on their album, Work for All. I was a very casual listener to African music at the time, but "Scatterlings of Africa" and "Kilimanjaro" stuck with me over the years.

Looking back at some of the opinions regarding Juluka, it's a mixed bag. Trouser Press magazine, which I read back when, called the band, "...a failed experiment in combining rock with Zulu chants and the mbaqanga sound of the South African township. The results, heard on both of the interracial group’s Warner Bros. records, are a mush of sweet, laid-back California style harmonies over a loping backbeat, with mild anti-apartheid sentiments."

In late 1984, the Washington Post was more charitable, saying "If any African band is to break through from cult status and reach the broad masses of American radioland, South Africa's interracial sextet Juluka may be the one. Co-leaders Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu have transformed the Zulu street music of Johannesburg's black migrant workers into an international folk-rock much as Bob Dylan and the Byrds did with Appalachian ballads."

A few years later Rolling Stone published an article called Johnny Clegg’s War on Apartheid. It's worth a look.