Sometimes called Le Zoulou Blanc, he is an important figure in South African popular music history, with songs that mix Zulu with English lyrics and African with various Western music styles.
Clegg was born in Bacup, Lancashire, to an English father and a Rhodesian mother. Clegg's mother's family were Jewish immigrants from Poland, and Clegg had a secular Jewish upbringing, learning about the Ten Commandments but refusing to have a bar mitzvah or even associate with other Jewish children at school. His parents divorced when he was still an infant, and he moved with his mother to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and then, at the age of 6, to South Africa, also spending less than a year in Israel during childhood.
As an adolescent in Johannesburg's northern suburbs, he encountered the demi-monde of the city's Zulu migrant workers' music and dance. Under the tutelage of Charlie Mzila, a flat cleaner by day and musician by night, Clegg mastered both the Zulu language and the maskandi guitar and isishameni dance styles of the migrants. Clegg's involvement with black musicians often led to arrests for trespassing on government property and for contravening the Group Areas Act. He was first arrested at the age of 15 for violating apartheid-era laws in South Africa banning people of different races from congregating together after curfew hours. At the age of 17, he met Sipho Mchunu, a Zulu migrant worker with whom he began performing music. The partnership, which they named Johnny & Sipho and then Juluka, was profiled in the 1970s television documentary Beats of the Heart: Rhythm of Resistance.
As a young man, Clegg pursued an academic career for four years, lecturing at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Natal, and writing several seminal scholarly papers on Zulu music and dance. In the early stages of his musical career, Clegg combined his music with the study of anthropology at Wits, where he was influenced, among others, by the work of David Webster, a social anthropologist who was later assassinated in 1989. He preceded each song with snippets of Zulu culture, information, commentary, humor and personal anecdotes relevant and unique to that song. An engaged social anthropologist, he not only mastered the theories but delved into the culture and disseminated it.
Juluka was an unusual musical partnership for the time in South Africa, with a white man (Clegg) and a black man (Mchunu) performing together. The band, which grew to a six-member group (with three white musicians and three black musicians) by the time it released its first album Universal Men in 1979, faced harassment and censorship, with Clegg later remarking that it was "impossible" to perform in public in South Africa.[9] The group tested the apartheid-era laws, touring and performing in private venues, including universities, churches, hostels, and even private homes in order to attract an audience, as national broadcasters would not play their music. Just as unusually, the band's music combined Zulu, Celtic, and rock elements, with both English and isiZulu lyrics. Those lyrics often contained coded political messages and references to the battle against apartheid, although Clegg has maintained that Juluka was not originally intended to be a political band. "Politics found us," he told The Baltimore Sun in 1996. In a 1989 interview with the Sunday Times, Clegg denied the label of "political activist." "For me a political activist is someone who has committed himself to a particular ideology. I don’t belong to any political party. I stand for human rights."
Juluka's music was both implicitly and explicitly political; not only was the fact of the success of the band (which openly celebrated African culture in a bi-racial band) a thorn in the flesh of a political system based on racial separation, the band also produced some explicitly political songs. For example, the album Work for All (which includes a song with the same title) picked up on South African trade union slogans in the mid-1980s. As a result of their political messages and racial integration, Clegg and other band members were arrested several times and concerts routinely broken up.
Despite being ignored and often harassed by the South African government at home, Juluka were able to tour internationally, playing in Europe, Canada, and the United States, and had two platinum and five gold albums, becoming an international success. The group was disbanded in 1985, when Mchunu returned to his rural home to care for his family.
Together with the black musician and dancer Dudu Zulu, Clegg went on to form his second inter-racial band, Savuka, in 1986, continuing to blend African music with European influences. The group's first album, Third World Child, broke international sales records in several European countries, including France. The band went on to record several more albums, including Heat, Dust and Dreams, which received a Grammy Award nomination. Johnny Clegg and Savuka played both at home and abroad, even though Clegg's refusal to stop performing in apartheid-era South Africa created tensions with the international anti-apartheid movement and led to his expulsion from the British Musicians' Union. In one instance, the band drew such a large crowd in Lyon that Michael Jackson cancelled a concert there, complaining that Clegg and his group had "stolen all his fans". In 1993, the band dissolved after Dudu Zulu was shot and killed while attempting to mediate a taxi war.
Briefly reunited in the mid-1990s, Clegg and Mchunu reformed Juluka, released a new album, and toured throughout the world in 1996 with King Sunny Ade. Since then, Clegg has recorded several solo albums. His touring schedule was abbreviated in 2017 after undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer, and Clegg performed his last scheduled tour date in Maritius in October of 2018. During one concert in 1999, he was joined onstage by South African President Nelson Mandela, who danced as he sang the protest song Savuka had dedicated to him, "Asimbonanga". Asimbonanga became something of an anthem for the Mass Democratic Movement's umbrella organisation, the United Democratic Front. During Mandela's illness and death in 2013, the video of the concert attracted considerable media attention outside South Africa.
His song "Scatterlings of Africa" gave him his only entries in the UK Singles Chart to date, reaching No. 44 in February 1983 with Juluka and 75 in May 1987 as Johnny Clegg and Savuka. The following year the song was featured on the soundtrack to the 1988 Oscar-winning film Rain Man.
His song "Life is a Magic Thing" was featured in Ferngully.
Savuka's song "Dela" was featured on the soundtrack of the 1997 film George of the Jungle and its 2003 sequel, while "Great Heart" was the title song for the 1986 film Jock of the Bushveld. "Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World" was featured in the 1990 film Opportunity Knocks and 1991 film Career Opportunities. "Great Heart" was also the end credits song for the 2000 Disney movie Whispers: An Elephant's Tale. In 2002 Clegg provided several songs and incidental background music for Jane Goodall's "Wild Chimpanzees" DVD. Included in the extras on the disc are rare scenes of Clegg in the recording studio.
Jimmy Buffett recorded "Great Heart" for his 1988 album, Hot Water.
He co-wrote "Diggah Tunnah" with Lebo M. for Disney's 2004 direct-to-video animated film The Lion King 1½.
Clegg was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (Knight of Arts and Letters) by the French Government in 1991.
In 2004, he was voted 23rd in the SABC3's Great South Africans.
In 2007, Clegg received an honorary doctorate in music from the University of the Witwatersrand.
In 2011, Clegg received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from City University of New York School of Law.
In 2012, Clegg received the Order of Ikhamanga,Silver as part of the National Orders ceremony. This award is the highest honour a citizen can receive in South Africa. It was presented by President Jacob Zuma.
In 2012, Clegg received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
In 2013, Clegg received an honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
In 2015, Clegg was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Clegg's son Jesse Clegg is also a recording artist. Displaying a style markedly different from that of his father, in 2008 he released his debut album When I Wake Up. As a rock musician, the younger Clegg has quickly built up a following, with the album being nominated for two South African Music Awards.
Clegg was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015. Clegg died in his Johannesburg home on 16 July 2019.
Bibliography
Clegg, Jonathan (1981). Phil Bonner (ed.). ""Ukubuyisa Isidumbu", "Bringing back the body": An examination of the ideology of vengeance in the Msinga and Mpofana Rural Locations, 1822–1944". Working Papers in Southern African Studies. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. 2.
Clegg, Jonathan (1981). Andrew Tracey (ed.). "The Music of Zulu Immigrant Workers in Johannesburg: A Focus on Concertina and Guitar". Papers presented at the Symposium on Ethnomusicology. Grahamstown: International Library of African Music.
Clegg, Jonathan (1982). Andrew Tracey (ed.). "Towards an understanding of African Dance: The Zulu Isishameni Style". Papers read at Second Symposium on Ethnomusicology, 24–26 September 1981, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. Grahamstown: Institute of Social and Economic Research.
Jericho
Johnny Clegg Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Dream if you will but remember there are iron laws
However much you seek to solve this mystery
No one ignores the iron vice of history
All those gone before dreamed to escape
They tried to fly over the palisades
Standing at the gates
And the walls reach up to the stars
And outside we were singing psalms
Such a strange, strange place
We are the prisoners
Of the prisoners we have taken
Sing me the songs of a world that I once knew
Recall the legends once so proud and true
My people used to live here not so long ago
But they fled into the night and I was left alone
I guard these walls for you and me
Dream on, sail on my memory
Standing at the gates
Oh this is Jericho
And the walls reaching up to the stars
And outside we were singing psalms
Such a strange, strange place
We are the prisoners
Of the prisoners we have taken
We are the prisoners, of Jericho ( Prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners )
Standing at the gates
Oh this is Jericho
And the walls reach up to the stars
And outside we were singing psalms
Such a strange place
We were the prisoners
Of the prisoners we have taken
Dreams of the prophets now forsaken
The song "Jericho" by Johnny Clegg is a reflection of the human condition and the perpetual cycle of history. The first verse addresses the loneliness of being a dreamer and encourages people to dream despite the restrictions of history. However, the iron laws of history, as the lyrics describe, cannot be ignored or escaped. The line "All those gone before dreamed to escape" shows how humanity has always dreamed of escaping the current state, but have always been hindered by history, which acts as an iron vice. The song alludes to the Biblical story of Jericho, where the city walls collapsed after the Israelites marched around them for seven days. The song compares Jericho to the impenetrable walls of human history, describing it as a place where people are prisoners of the prisoners they have taken.
The second verse of the song speaks of a mythical world that the singer longs for, where people were once proud and true. The singer acknowledges that his people used to live there not too long ago but had to flee into the night, leaving him behind to guard the walls. The confusion and strangeness of Jericho are reflected in the line, "Such a strange, strange place." The chorus repeats the description of Jericho, emphasizing the surreal and almost fantastical nature of the city: walls that reach up to the stars, prisoners guarding prisoners.
Line by Line Meaning
You are a dreamer of dreams walking a lonely shore
You are an individual with hopes and desires, wandering alone by the sea, lost in your thoughts.
Dream if you will but remember there are iron laws
You may fantasize about anything you desire, but remember that there are set rules and boundaries that cannot be broken.
However much you seek to solve this mystery
No matter how hard you try to understand the puzzle at hand,
No one ignores the iron vice of history
everyone must acknowledge and abide by past events that have shaped the present day.
All those gone before dreamed to escape
All those who came before you had dreams of fleeing their situation,
They tried to fly over the palisades
They attempted to flee by climbing over the walls that confined them.
Standing at the gates
Positioned outside the gates of Jericho,
Oh this is Jericho
This is the ancient city of Jericho – a symbol of oppression and captivity.
And the walls reach up to the stars
The towering walls of Jericho seem to ascend endlessly into the sky.
And outside we were singing psalms
Outside those walls, people sang sacred songs and offered prayers in hope of liberation.
Such a strange, strange place
Jericho is an eerie and eerie place – full of paradox and contradiction.
We are the prisoners
We are the oppressed individuals trapped within Jericho,
Of the prisoners we have taken
And yet we have also become captors of those we have conquered within these walls.
Sing me the songs of a world that I once knew
Please remind me of the melodies and tales of my ancestral homeland,
Recall the legends once so proud and true
Let me recall the stories of glory and truth that once propelled my people forward.
My people used to live here not so long ago
It wasn't all that long ago that my ancestors roamed and lived freely in this space.
But they fled into the night and I was left alone
But in the night they ran away, leaving me alone to confront this struggle.
I guard these walls for you and me
I was tasked with the duty of keeping these walls safe for us both,
Dream on, sail on my memory
Persist in your imagination, and let your mind wander to a happier, imaginary existence.
We are the prisoners, of Jericho ( Prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners, prisoners )
Once again, we are trapped inside the walls of this historical prisoner's city.
Dreams of the prophets now forsaken
Even the hopes of the sages have been neglected and disregarded.
Standing at the gates
Once again, we remain outside the gates of Jericho,
Oh this is Jericho
This place remains Jericho, the epitome of human suffering and suppression.
And the walls reach up to the stars
The walls of Jericho continue to tower up to meet the heavens.
And outside we were singing psalms
And outside those walls we continue to sing ancient tunes, a plea for liberty.
Such a strange place
Jericho remains a perplexing, irrational, and inexplicable space.
We were the prisoners
We are still captives trapped within these historic walls,
Of the prisoners we have taken
And we have also enslaved the people we have since captured.
Lyrics © Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing, RESERVOIR MEDIA MANAGEMENT INC
Written by: Joni Mitchell
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Ashley
on Day In The Life
Johnny Clegg has, is and will be one of South Africa's greatest artist