Cross-over. It was a buzz term in music marketing, back in the 80s. Like many things from that decade it was applied cynically. Industry executives were worried that Micheal Jackson would not make them quite enough money because, well, he was black, n’ all. So they hired Eddie van Halen, with impeccable redneck street-cred, to […]
Tag: South Africa
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Something wonderful grew
Joseph Shabalala had a dream. He was to create a male voice choir which would sing with heavenly harmony and bring change to his land and to the world. All of which, for a black man in Apartheid South Africa in 1964, was preposterous. But Shabalala did form his choir, and though it took a […]
Marie Warder was a teacher, writer and pianist who grew up in South Africa. Not long after the end of the Second World War, she was walking on a street in Johannesburg. I was about nineteen, newly married and very much in love, when I happened to pass by a music store one day, and […]
Planet Vinyl 