Skokiaan


"Skokiaan" is a popular tune originally written by Zimbabwean musician August Musarurwa in the tsaba-tsaba big-band style that succeeded marabi. Skokiaan refers to an illegal self-made alcoholic beverage typically brewed over one day that may contain ingredients such as maize meal, water and yeast, to speed up the fermentation process. The tune has also been recorded as "Sikokiyana," "Skokiana," and "Skokian."
Within a year of its 1954 release in South Africa, at least 19 cover versions of "Skokiaan" appeared. The Rhodesian version reached No 17 in the United States, while a cover version by Ralph Marterie climbed to No. 3. All versions combined propelled the tune to No. 2 on the Cash Box charts that year. Its popularity extended outside of music, with several urban areas in the United States taking its name. Artists who produced their own interpretations include The Four Lads, Louis Armstrong, Bill Haley, Herb Alpert, Brave Combo, Hugh Masekela and Kermit Ruffins. The Wiggles also covered this song on their Furry Tales album. The music itself illustrates the mutual influences between Africa and the wider world.

History

Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)

"Skokiaan" was originally composed and first recorded as a sax and trumpet instrumental by the African Dance Band of the Cold Storage Commission of Southern Rhodesia under leadership of August Musarurwa.
The band comprised two saxophones, two banjos, traps, and a bass. Several tunes played by the Cold Storage Band were recorded by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey in June 1951. On Tracey's recording, Musarurwa also apparently played for the Chaminuka Band. Musarurwa copyrighted "Skokiaan", probably in 1952.
Ethnomusicologist Thomas Turino describes "Skokiaan" as having "a four-bar I-IV-V progression in 4/4 meter...The main melodic strain begins with a long held trill...played by the sax on the dominant pitch...followed by an undulating, descending melody. The A strain is contrasted with sections of riffing that follow the harmonic progression fairly closely...before the main melody returns." Towards the end of the original recording a short trumpet solo "is overlapped by Musarurwa's sax". The melody throughout "is carried by the sax".
Skokiaan's significance is that it shows how Africa influenced American jazz in particular and popular music in general. Musarurwa's 1947 and 1954 recordings illustrate how unique the indigenous forms of jazz were that emerged in Africa in response to global music trends. While African jazz was influenced from abroad, it also contributed to global trends.
"Skokiaan" has been adapted to various musical stylings, from jazz to mento/reggae, and Rock and Roll. The tune has been arranged for strings and steel drums. A merengue version was recorded in the Dominican Republic by Antonio Morel y su Orquesta in the 1950s, with saxophone alto arrangement by Felix del Rosario. A number of reggae versions of the song also exist, and marimba covers are particularly popular.
"Skokiaan" has been recorded many times, initially as part of a wave of world music that swept across the globe in the 1950s, spurred on in Africa by Hugh Tracey and in the United States by Alan Lomax, to name two. "Skokiaan" gained popularity outside Africa at the same time as the indigenous South African export, "Mbube". The sheet music was eventually released in 17 European and African languages. In France in 1955 the orchestra of Alix Combelle recorded a cover of "Skokiaan" on the Philips label. Jacques Hélian also recorded a version. Performers recorded "Skokiaan" in Finland, Germany, and Sweden, among others. In the United Kingdom, vocal versions were recorded by South African singer Eve Boswell and Alma Cogan.
But it was in the United States that "Skokiaan" peaked on the charts, where it was recorded by musicians as varied as The Four Lads and Johnny Hodges. Hodges's version is notable not only because he recorded the tune with Erroll Garner but because his band at the time included John Coltrane in a minor role.

United States

In 1954 Gallotone Records released a version of "Skokiaan" by Musarurwa and the Bulawayo Sweet Rhythm Band. After 170,000 copies were sold in South Africa, the president of London Records, E R Lewis, forwarded "a couple of copies" to London's offices in New York. Meanwhile, a pilot had brought the original version from South Africa to the USA, and given it to Bill Randle of the radio station WERE in Cleveland. Although the copy was cracked, Randle was so impressed by what he heard that he asked Walt McQuire of London's New York office to send him a new copy. After Randle played the record four times, interest soared. London Records shipped 6,000 copies to New York from Britain, followed in September 1954 by a further 20,000.
Bulawayo Sweet Rhythm' original version took off and reached No 17 on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart. Whether London Records' was a new recording, or a re-release of the Cold Storage Band's old recording under a new name, is uncertain. The band's original name was changed, no doubt for easier Western consumption, perhaps by the record company or by the band itself.
's 1954 "Skokiaan" recording. In 1954 covers of "Skokiaan" appeared on United States charts alongside Bulawayo Sweet Rhythm Band's original. The hitmakers included Ralph Marterie, who reached No 3 on the Cash Box chart. Marterie's instrumental was featured on ABC Radio's The Martin Block Show as "the best new record of the week". It was the first time an instrumental had been selected for the show., by Cuban-Mexican Perez Prado, and by Louis Armstrong
On the Cash Box best-selling record charts, where all hit versions were combined, "Skokiaan" reached No 2 on 16 October 1954.
English lyrics were added in 1954 by American Tom Glazer for the Canadian group The Four Lads. Glazer is perhaps better known for his On Top of Spaghetti. On 4 August 1954 the Four Lads recorded the only vocal version of "Skokiaan" that reached the United States charts, peaking at No 7 in the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.
In line with the spirit of the times, Glazer's lyrics contain what Time arts columnist Richard Corliss describes as jovial "ethnographic condescension:"
"Oh-far away in Africa / Happy, happy Africa /...You sing a bingo bango bingo / In hokey pokey skokiaan." Ethnomusicologist Thomas Turino points out that Glazer's depiction of the jungle setting is far removed from the topography of Southern Africa. But its one-size fits all "tropical paradise" idea was typical of exotic treatments at the time for songs from Latin America, Asia, and Hawaii.
In August 1954, Louis Armstrong recorded "Skokiaan" in two parts with Sy Oliver's Orchestra in New York. Part 1 is a purely instrumental version, while Part 2 has Armstrong singing the lyrics. On his tour of Africa, Armstrong met Musarurwa in November 1960. Whether the two musicians jammed together, or whether Armstrong just gave Musarurwa a jacket, is unclear. In any case, the difference between the date that Armstrong recorded "Skokiaan" and the date of his meeting with Musarurwa appears to invalidate claims that Armstrong recorded "Skokiaan" after he came face to face with the Zimbabwean.
The Four Lads' version of "Skokiaan" became the theme song at Africa U.S.A. Park, a theme park founded in 1953 at Boca Raton, Florida by John P. Pedersen. The song was played all day long in the parking lot as guests arrived and was sold in the gift shop. The park boasted the largest collection of camels in the United States. After it closed, the site was converted to the Camino Gardens subdivision. Other urban areas in the United States apparently influenced by the name of the song are Franklin, Ohio, which boasts a Skokiaan Drive, and Skokie, Illinois, which has a Skokiana Terrace.
Bill Haley & His Comets recorded an instrumental version in 1959 that reached No 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1960. With the exception of reissues of "Rock Around the Clock", this would be the band's final chart hit in America!
"Skokiaan"'s popularity tracked the transition to electronic music, with an instrumental version recorded by moog pioneers Hot Butter in 1973 on the album More Hot Butter. It was not the first such treatment of "Skokiaan": Spike Jones and the City Slickers recorded a "Japanese Skokiaan" in 1954, sung with a Japanese accent with lyrics about going to Tokyo, written by band member Freddie Morgan, a banjo player and vocalist.
Ringo Starr's 1974 hit "No No Song" was influenced by, and is sometimes listed as a medley with. "Skokiaan".
But true to its origins, "Skokiaan" remained a favourite among brass instrumentalists. In 1978, Herb Alpert and Hugh Masekela recorded the song as a brass duet with a disco flavor for their collaborative album Herb Alpert / Hugh Masekela. The tune put "Alpert on the R&B chart for the first time in his career". One of the most recent brass recordings was by Kermit Ruffins' 2002 on his album Big Easy.

Misconceptions

Despite its Southern Rhodesian origins, record companies frequently added "South African Song" in brackets to the song's title, as was the case with recordings by Louis Armstrong, the Four Lads, Bill Haley, and Bert Kaempfert. This may have been due to misunderstandings about the difference between what was then Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, two countries in the Southern Africa region. As described in the introduction, "Skokiaan" was composed by a Southern Rhodesian, who was recorded by a South African record company. The lyrics were later added by an American, Tom Glazer. Misled by Glazer's lyrics, some take "Skokiaan" to mean "Happy happy", leading to "Happy Africa" as an alternative title for the music. Again, as stated earlier, the term actually refers to a type of illicitly brewed alcoholic beverage.
The composer. August Musarurwa, was an ex-policeman, and said that the tune was one played in an illegal shebeen when a police raid was imminent. At the time it was illegal for Africans in Zimbabwe to drink anything but the traditional, low-alcohol beer, and certainly not skokiaan, which was usually laced with methylated spirits - illicit distillation was almost unknown in central Africa at the time.
Why the tune was associated with "a Zulu drinking song", as it was in a 1954 Down Beat article, is unclear. The Zulu is an ethnic grouping found in South Africa; composer August Musarurwa was a Shona from Southern Rhodesia. The term skokiaan does occur in both Zulu and Shona and in the Zulu-based lingua franca, Chilolo. These are part of the Bantu language grouping and so share similar roots. An early identification of skokiaan as a Zulu word which circulated in Johannesburg's slums is found in a scholarly article by Ellen Hellman, dated 1934. Musarurwa himself did not call his tune "a Zulu drinking song". The scanty fragments of his life history do not reveal that he spent time in South Africa, either. In South Africa there is no popular association of "Skokiaan" with a Zulu song. However Southern Rhodesian migrant labourers moved back and forth between their home country and the mines of South Africa, located mostly around Johannesburg, making it unlikely, but not impossible, that Musarurwa's tune got influenced by a putative Zulu song. Such journeys, often by train, led to the emergence of the song Shosholoza. While Shosholoza has become very popular among South Africans, who often sing it to encourage their sports teams, its origins, like that of "Skokiaan", are Southern Rhodesian.

Other usages of the name

Outside the music world, the name "Skokiaan" has been applied to various artifacts other than songs; the relation between these appellations and Musarurwa's music is unclear:
Cash Box Best Selling Singles Peak
position
Ralph Marterie & Orchestra–Mercury 704322
Four Lads–Columbia 40306
Bulawayo Sweet Rhythm Band–London 1491
U.S. Billboard Best Sellers in Stores Peak
position
Ralph Marterie & Orchestra–Mercury 704323
Four Lads–Columbia 403067
Bulawayo Sweet Rhythm Band–London 149117
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Peak
position
Ralph Marterie & Orchestra–Mercury 7043222
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Peak
position
Bill Haley & His Comets70

Chronological list of all versions

"Skokiaan" has been recorded by these artists, and others:
YearArtistLabelArtist's country of origin
1950The African Dance Band of the Cold Storage Commission of Southern RhodesiaGALLO-Gallotone JIVE GB.1152Zimbabwe
1953Jacques Hélian and his orchestraFrance
1954The ShytansBruce RecordsUSA
Bulawayo Sweet Rhythm BandLondon Records 1491/ Decca F10350Zimbabwe
Alma CoganHMV 7M 269UK
Bud IsaacsRCA 47-5844USA
Enoch Light Brigade OrchestraWaldorf Music Hall 3304USA
The Four Lads with Neal Hefti OrchestraColumbia Records 40306Canada
Jimmy Carroll and OrchestraBell Records 1060 306USA
Preston Sandiford's OrchestraBig 4 Hits Records #103-8504USA
Johnny Hodges and His OrchestraNorgran 124USA
Lily BerglundKarusell K 99.S.1954Sweden
Louis ArmstrongDecca 29256USA
Olavi VirtaHelmi 450162Finland
Jerry Mengo et son orchestreDucretet-Thomson 460V041, 500V057France
Perez PradoRCA Victor 47-5839Cuba/ Mexico
Ralph MarterieMercury Records 70432Italy/ USA
Ray AnthonyCapitol F-2896USA
Reino HelismaaFinland
Ted HeathDecca F10368, Dutton Laboratories/ Vocalion CDLK 4251UK
1955Alix Combelle and his orchestraPhilips 432025NE; N 76.046 RFrance
Chris Barber's Jazz BandPolyGramUK
KipparikvartettiTriola trlp 101Finland
1956Johnny Gomez & OrchestraCook Records/Smithsonian COOK01180Trinidad
1957Southern All StarsCook Records/ Smitsonian Folkways Recordings
Trinidad
1958Alix Combelle et son orchestrePhilips 432.232 BEFrance
Ivo RobićJugoton, Zagreb SY 1025Yugoslavia
1959Bill Haley & His CometsDecca 9-31030 and ED 2671USA
Nico Carstens and his Orchestra and ChorusColumbia 33JSX 11015South Africa
1961The FayrosRCA E 3.50; RCA Victor 47-7914USA
1962Bert KaempfertPolydor 825 494-2Germany
Oliver NelsonRCA 62VK701USA
1963Bill Black's ComboHi-3USA
Paul AnkaRCA2614-STEREOCanada
1964H. B. BarnumImperial Records 66046USA
Johnny BaldiniCombo Record 404Italia
1965Bob MooreHickory Records # 1357USA
Carl StevensMercury Records PPS 6030
James LastPolydor 249 043Germany
The ShangaansEMI Records TWO 109; Columbia Mono 33JSX 76; Columbia Stereo Studio Two 109JSouth Africa
1967Desmond Dekker Pyramid PYR6020Jamaica
Zlatni DečaciJugoton EPY 3745Yugoslavia
1968Blind HogVulcan V-106
1969Sound Dimension Studio OneJamaica
1970Nico CarstensColumbia SCXJ 11188South Africa
1972Sugar Belly and the CanefieldsPort-O-Jam RecordsJamaica
1973Hot ButterMusicor MS-3254USA
James, Jill and JacksonImperial 5C 006-24845Netherlands and Belgium
The Pasadena Roof OrchestraUK
1974Josh GravesEpic KE-33168USA
Matti KuuslaRondo rolp 10 LPFinland
1978Herb Alpert and Hugh MasekelaA&M/Horizon Records 0819USA/ South Africa
Kai HyttinenGold disc gdl 2001 LPFinland
SnowmenGold disc gds 202 45Finland
1984Brave ComboFour Dots FD1010USA
1986Vesa-Matti LoiriFlamingo fgl 4004Finland
1992Boka MarimbaDandemutande 9USA
1994Chaia MarimbaDandemutande 87-CUSA
1995LiberaciónDisa 2016Mexico
1996African Jazz PioneersIntuition CD INT 3099-2South Africa
Sauli LehtonenMtv mtvcd 101Finland
Boka MarimbaDandemutande 143-CUSA
1997Kushinga Marimba EnsembleDandemutande 249-TZimbabwe
1998ZimbiraDandemutande CDAustralia
1999Joe GoldmarkHMG3009USA
SkokiaanUK
Zambezi Marimba BandDandemutande 254-CUSA
2000BoereqangaNebula Bos RecordsSouth Africa
Proteus 7Dorian xCD-90266USA
2002The African Jazz PioneersGalloSouth Africa
Fessor's Big City BandStoryville STC1014247Denmark
Kermit RuffinsBasin Street RecordsUSA
Kutsinhira Cultural Arts CenterDandemutande 389-CUSA
2003Boka MarimbaDandemutande 483-CUSA
Soweto String QuartetBMG Africa CDCLL 7052South Africa
2005Jimmy SmithEmpire Musicwerks/Hot JWP MusicUSA
Kuzanga MarimbaDandemutande 609-CUSA
Masanga Marimba EnsembleDandemutande 600-CUSA
St.-Petersburg Ska-Jazz ReviewШнурОКRussian Federation
2006Binnsmead MarimbaUSA
Zinindika MirimbaDandemutande 638-CUSA
2013The WigglesFurry Tales Australia

Versions whose release dates are not known
ArtistLabelArtist's country of origin
Roland AlphonsoJah LifeJamaica
Barsextett Ralph DokinCBS
Chikoro MarimbaCanada
Gayle Larson and the ToppersTops-EP-242
Lonnie DoneganXtra 26533
The Mertens BrothersBelgium
The Pasadena Roof OrchestraTransatlantic RecordsUSA
Ray ColignonPhilips P 10404Belgium
The RevelairsUSA
The Titans
The VikingsRCA Victor 71.300
Antonio Morel Y Su Orquesta

Audio