Who recorded it first
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Not a Tokens original — a 1939 Gallo 78 by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds
The Tokens’ 1961 RCA Victor single is the version almost everyone means by “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and it is routinely treated as the song’s point of origin. It is not: the record was cut in 1939 at Gallo’s Johannesburg studio by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds, under the Zulu title “Mbube,” and issued on 78 by the Gallo Record Company. Linda improvised the melody in the studio and is the composer; George David Weiss later wrote the English adaptation, with Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore and Albert Stanton also credited on the hit. Linda sold his rights to Gallo for ten shillings, died in 1962 with roughly forty dollars’ worth of savings, and only received formal co-composer credit after his family’s heirs settled with Abilene Music in 2006.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Issued in 1939 on a 78 rpm disc by the Gallo Record Company under the Zulu title “Mbube,” recorded at Gallo’s Johannesburg studio — reportedly in three takes with no rehearsal.
Charted No chart placing — South Africa had no pop chart of the kind in 1939. The record instead sold more than 100,000 copies across Africa over the following nine years, an extraordinary figure for the market and era.
Hear “Mbube” by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds — the 1939 Gallo master. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated upload on the “Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds - Topic” channel, marked “Provided to YouTube by Virgin Music Group” with a Gallo Record Company phonogram line on the label’s Grand Masters Collection reissue. Its 2:44 running time matches the catalogued 1939 recording, confirming it is the original master and not a later re-cut.The paper trail
Wikipedia’s account of the song ↗ places the first recording at Gallo Recording Studios in 1939 by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds, and dates The Tokens’ RCA Victor single to October 1961.
Linda’s own biography ↗ records that he was working as a packer at Gallo when he improvised the song, sold his rights for ten shillings, and died in 1962 leaving an estate his family could not stretch to a headstone.
MusicBrainz’s work entry ↗ lists Solomon Linda as both composer and lyricist of “Mbube,” in Zulu.
Wikidata ↗ describes the song as written and composed by Solomon Linda and originally recorded in 1939.
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” on Wikipedia — the full versions-and-covers lineageKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Right song, wrong origin
The Tokens’ 1961 single is so dominant that it is usually assumed to be where the song began. The record it descends from was made in South Africa more than two decades earlier.
The Tokens
Their RCA Victor single, issued in October 1961 as the B-side of “Tina,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 and became the definitive version worldwide. It is a cover, not the origin.
Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds
Recorded as “Mbube” at Gallo’s Johannesburg studio in 1939 and released on 78 by the Gallo Record Company. It sold over 100,000 copies in Africa in the nine years that followed.
The Weavers
Their December 1951 “Wimoweh” — Pete Seeger’s misheard transcription of the Zulu chorus — reached No. 6 in America and is the route by which the melody reached The Tokens.
Solomon Linda, with George David Weiss
Linda composed the melody in the studio; Weiss wrote the English adaptation, with Peretti, Creatore and Stanton also credited on the 1961 hit. Linda’s co-composer credit came only with the 2006 settlement.
First recorded in 1939 by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds for the Gallo Record Company — twenty-two years before The Tokens.
Context
How a Johannesburg 78 became an American No. 1
The path is unusually well documented for a song this old. “Mbube” was a hit inside South Africa on Gallo’s label, and a copy of the 78 reached New York, where Pete Seeger transcribed the Zulu chorus by ear — misheard it, in fact, which is how The Weavers’ 1951 record came to be called “Wimoweh.” That version reached No. 6 on the American charts and put the melody into the folk repertoire. The Tokens were working from that lineage, not from Linda’s record.
What let the cover eclipse the original was not the music but the paperwork. Linda had already sold his rights for ten shillings, so when the tune became one of the most lucrative in pop, the money flowed to publishers and adapters in New York rather than to the man who invented it. By the time the family reached a settlement in 2006, Linda had been dead for decades and the song had earned an estimated fifteen million dollars, of which his heirs had seen a few thousand.
The chronology, step by step
- 1939 — Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds record “Mbube” at Gallo’s studio in Johannesburg, reportedly in three takes with no rehearsal. It is issued on 78 by the Gallo Record Company.
- Linda sells his rights in the song to Eric Gallo for ten shillings shortly after the session.
- Over the following nine years the record sells more than 100,000 copies in Africa, and “mbube” becomes the name of a whole style of Zulu vocal music.
- December 1951 — The Weavers release “Wimoweh,” Pete Seeger’s phonetic rendering of the Zulu chorus. It reaches No. 6 on the American charts.
- October 1961 — The Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” with George David Weiss’s English adaptation, is issued by RCA Victor as the B-side of “Tina” and goes to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- 1962 — Linda dies in Johannesburg of kidney failure. His bank balance is worth roughly forty dollars in today’s money.
- 2004 — Linda’s family sues over the song’s use in Disney’s The Lion King.
- February 2006 — Abilene Music settles ahead of trial: back royalties from 1987, a share of future income, a trust for the heirs, and formal co-composer credit for Solomon Linda.
The record everyone knows is a cover of a cover.