Lemmy ‘Special’ Mabaso, pennywhistle legend of kwela music 1946-2018
He was in ‘King Kong’ at the age of 14, and went on to play sax for the Soul Brothers
He was sharp, and his tone was perfect Moses Ngwenya
● “Another Soul Brother has died!” This was the social media buzz that followed the death of Lemmy “Special” Mabaso this month.
Mabaso’s death after a short illness leaves Moses Ngwenya as the only surviving member of the iconic group. But his contribution to music goes far beyond his time with the Soul Brothers.
Long before joining the group in 1979, Mabaso had carved out a reputation as master of the pennywhistle. Record covers and photographs of the time capture his childlike glee as he blew note after note into the musical firmament.
He was one of the mainstays of kwela, the much-loved genre of improvised urban black music. Preceded by tsaba-tsaba and marabi, kwela was one of the strands that was woven into what became a uniquely South African jazz idiom.
The pennywhistle was rivalled only by the guitar in its symbolic force as a cultural weapon of itinerant working-class heroes and migrant workers.
Easing the pain
Like the guitar, the pennywhistle could be carried anywhere. Players like Mabaso carried it on trains, to hostels, anywhere and everywhere that people needed a tune to ease the bruises of high apartheid’s brutality. Mabaso was a musical pioneer who became one the first black musicians to release an album with Gallo Records. This was with his first group, the Alexandra Junior Bright Boys band, who styled themselves on the Alexandra Bright Boys, an earlier band whose brilliance had inspired Mabaso to try his hand at music. He had seen them rehearsing in 1956 and right there and then he knew he had found his calling.
His father bought him and his two brothers pennywhistles. This set them on a lifelong path, a path that saw Mabaso become the youngest member of the cast of the historic King Kong musical that toured London in 1961.
He was just 14 years, having left school at 11 to pursue his commitment to music. Mabaso’s pioneering record, Lemmy Hit Parade No 1 was released on Gallo’s New Sound label in 1958.
The label was an initiative by Gallo to separate its more popular jive and kwela releases from its more “traditional” releases. Gallo was birthing a new focus on urban black music.
This flew in the face of apartheid policy which demanded that black musicians and broadcasters focus on music that reflected their tribal traditions. In this formulation, musicians with, say, Tsonga roots would have had to play only the music of their own ethnic group.
The new music made by Mabaso and other jazz, jive and kwela artists of the late 1950s and early ’60s — including Spokes Mashiyane, Miriam Makeba and the Skylarks and Reggie Msomi — resisted this straitjacket to reflect a complex urban identity.
The creative struggle of these musicians found its headline moment with the inaugural 1962 Cold Castle National Jazz Festival, where leading jazz bands competed in a football stadium in MorokaJabavu.
Hello jazz, goodbye kwela
This increasing popularity of jazz spelt the end for kwela music. Mabaso took up the saxophone and joined Msomi’s Hollywood Jazz Band in 1963. He later formed his own group, the Down-Beats.
Mabaso, however, did not stay long with jazz. This is not to say he had no chops. “He was sharp, and his tone was perfect,” Ngwenya recalled in an interview.
Mabaso spent much of the ’70s working as a session musician. He played saxophone on many albums, notably with Ntemi Piliso on his classic 1975 sessions.
He joined the Soul Brothers in 1979 following the death of two members, Tuza Mthethwa and Mpompi Sosibo, in car crashes. In 1984, bassist and founder member Zakes Mchunu also died.
The band’s sixth album, Born to Jive, featuring the track Kulukhuni, was the first with Mabaso as a member. They toured internationally and played in Oslo when Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk received their shared Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
Their brand of isicathamiya-derived soul music turned them into an iconic South African band rivalled only by Ladysmith Black Mambazo in stature.
But death kept visiting. In 2015 the group’s frontman, David Masondo, died. Now only Ngwenya is left to keep the flame alight.
Mabaso is survived by a son and a daughter. His wife, Yvonne, died in 2010.