The spirit of the great heart soars
● There were only two occasions in the past 30 years when Roddy Quin saw Johnny Clegg, his longtime friend, become emotional.
The first time was when he sang with his son Jesse on stage for the first time, and Jesse dedicated a song to him.
The second was in December when Clegg was surprised at an intimate, unplugged show in Cape Town with a video of 50 artists singing The Crossing, which they recorded as a tribute to honour the musical legend.
Clegg’s wife Jenny and children Jesse and Jaron have declined to speak publicly since his death on Tuesday.
However Quin, who knew Clegg since the 1980s and was his manager and friend, said the music icon had always been strong. “With him, what you saw is what you got.
“John was not an emotional person. The time I saw him really emotional was when he saw the video of the 50 artists. He was very moved and that was not normal. For him to actually show emotion, [that] didn’t happen often. He also showed it when he sang for the first time ever with Jesse on stage. Jesse wrote a song for him and he was emotional about that,” Quin said.
Clegg was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015.
The plan was to retire but Clegg wanted to do a final world tour, which kicked off in 2017. Chemotherapy sessions and his overall health interrupted the tour schedule, but Quin said Clegg had remained “strong”.
He and Clegg’s family were aware that they may have been living on borrowed time.
“With pancreatic cancer people normally last a few months. Johnny lasted nearly five years, which is insane. But we all knew it couldn’t be reversed, we all knew at some stage it was going to get to him.”
Quin said that in all the time he had worked with Clegg, he had cancelled only two shows due to poor health. Every other time he took to the stage, even if he had flu or was injured. Even after being diagnosed, Clegg went against his doctor’s recommendation that his tour schedule would be too strenuous. “We’d say ‘John, please don’t dance’ ... he would say, ‘Absolutely, I won’t’. Then the dance would come up and the other dancers would start dancing, there we’d see John dancing. He said, ‘I can’t help it’.”
In 2018 Clegg had taken to birding and gardening and Quin remembers their daily conversations when Clegg would talk about the state of the country, the political climate and what he was feeding the birds.
“He was so strong, at one of his last radio interviews, I remember waiting for him in the car park, he’d been stuck in traffic. He pulled in and jumped out of his car and ran into the building. I thought, wow, John, you look so fit and healthy, and you’d never say anything was wrong with him. I think when people met us they thought there’s nothing
with Johnny, because he looked fine. Johnny was a very healthy person and very strong until the end.”
Clegg's defiance and strength presented itself during the height of apartheid when he denied police access to his shows and then released Asimbonanga at a time when the mere mention of Mandela was banned.
The anti-apartheid song released in 1987 went on to become a kind of a national anthem even though record labels refused to release it and radio stations refused to play it.
Throughout the week, Asimbonanga has been playing to honour Clegg and to remember Nelson Mandela, who would have celebrated his birthday this past Thursday.
“He’d be surprised at the way the country has gone absolutely crazy about him now. He’d be completely surprised, he wouldn’t have expected this. He was very humble, he never assumed he should get awards. He would’ve been absolutely shocked — the day after his passing every radio station was playing Johnny Clegg,” Quin said.
Clegg was buried at Johannesburg’s Westpark cemetery in a private ceremony attended by about 30 close friends and family. Quin said that was his friend’s wish because he was a “humble” person.
“Johnny made it very clear that he didn’t want a big ceremony. He only wanted close family and friends, and that he wanted Sipho [Mchunu] to say a prayer, which he did. It was a very simple ceremony. They said the prayers before and then they bury you. He was a very humble, no-nonsense person. It was as simple as possible, it was less than an hour.”
Clegg died at home after spending some time in hospital. “The last few days were tough but John didn’t give up, he was an incredibly strong human being. He was very peaceful the last few days, he went peacefully at home. He was with his family, at peace with himself,” Quin said.