Part Two: A Story About Money
In this section of the article, Malan discusses his quest to follow the money. His quest started on the phone with Larry Richmond, the head of the Richmond Organization (TRO), but Malan needed to meet in person to gain the full insight of the story of Solomon Linda, so he flew from Johannesburg to New York City. In his initial meeting Malan gained some information but never got the full story. This lead Malan to investigate on his own.
In the 1930s in Johannesburg, there were no formal music deal between artist and recording companies. The recording companies would bring in artists and paid the artist a price they though that their work was worth. The result of this was famous artists would be paid fairly per recording session, but unknown artist would basically make nothing. After this transaction the music was property of the record company with no royalties to the artist. In the case of Solomon Linda, even though “Mbube” became a local hit all the money went to the record company owner Eric Gallo leaving Solomon to work at his menial job for the rest of his life. With the increasing popularity of “Mbube” and the Weavers’ Hit “Wimoweh”, Gallo traded the right of “Mbube” to Howie …show more content…
During the fifties record companies would claim to be the composers of these “folk song” under alias to ensure copyrights and collect royalties. “Mbube” wasn’t public domain but instead a uncopyrighted song owned by a foreign record company with no protection to Solomon Linda’s rights as the artist, so “Mbube” became the Weavers hit song “Wimoweh” by Paul Campbell, an alias used to claim royalties. As “Wimoweh” became a hit the royalties poured in making everyone rich in the record company and the Weavers but leaving nothing to Solomon Linda. Pete Seeger, a member of the Weavers, attempted to give part of the royalties to Linda, but the money was delayed and not the fair share Linda