Mon Amie (My Friend) – Bernard Binns

Physiognomy Of The Soul – Bernard Binns

When the Helicopters eventually landed, after having a rather fruitful 80’s with hits such as ‘Mysteries And Jealousies’, ‘Only For You’ and ‘Whisper Your Secret’, lead singer, Bernard Binns, would go on to team up with ex-Ella Mental Guitarist Adrian Levi and produced an album in the dying moments of the 20^th century. The album was ‘Physiognomy Of The Soul’ and it ended up being ranked 10^th on the SA Rockdigest’s 2000 Albums Of The Year list.

‘Mon Amie (My Friend)’ would rank 29^th on the Digest’s Songs Of The Year list and if you hear it without knowing who the artist was, you’re be wondering who was singing. Not because Bernard’s voice sounds different to how it sounded when he was a Helicopter, but because the music surrounding the voice is so different. Gone are the synthesizers and electronic drums that made The Helicopters famous. Gone are the catchy pop riffs that made those hits. Instead, we have a moody piano intro which lasts just over a minute before a stummed guitar comes in alongside Bernard’s plummy vocals. The opening line, ‘Can you see me as I dream alone/angels high above my soul’, puts further distance between this solo material and his earlier work with The Helicopters.

This is a lot more serious stuff. It is gentle and sophisticated, featuring an interlude of French narrative spoken by a sultry female voice, and a soaring chorus. It’s jazzy and poignant. The lyric ‘Mon Amie my fried/in a new world’ has a good ring to it as Binns was certainly in a new musical world with this song.

Where to find it:
Physiognomy of the Soul – Bernard Binns (1999), The Hedonist Suite, HS000199

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Daar Doer In Die Bosveld – Nico Carstens

My Hartlief – Nico Carstens

There are a number of version of this song out there, most have vocals attached to them, however, I have gone back to the original instrumental piece by Nico Carstens. I say the original but am open to correction on that. It appears on Carstens’ album ‘My Hartedief’ but I have not been able to find a year for that, so there may well have been others that went before. The track was written by Anton de Waal and Ernst van Rooyen. De Waal regularly worked with Carstens and his orchestra.

‘Daar Doer In Die Bosveld’ is a simple little piece that has a guitar intro, played in waltz time, which lasts a few seconds before the accordion kicks in and the guitar and accordion then waltz around for about two and a half minutes. It is quite a solemn waltz, one where everyone looks on stony faced and serious as those dancing around the floor stare in front of them. It is neither a sad, not a joyous piece.

Apart from local artist like Charles Jacobie and Jurie Ferreira (the latter teaming up with Carstens for his version) recording vocal version on the track, there were a couple of international artists who also picked up on it. One was Jim Reeves who lends his rich voice and surprisingly good Afrikaans pronunciation to his version. The other was Russ Conway who recorded a piano driven instrumental version for his album ‘South Africa – I Love You’.

Although the track is of a specific genre, that of a boeremusiek waltz, Reeves brings a kind of country tinge to it, while Conway turns it into a music hall piece. And although the title suggests a very rural setting (it translates as ‘way out in the bush’) and one could expect it to be a track that encaptures the deserts of America or the wild African bush, in Carstens’ hands, the piece evokes images of a farming community dance at the local town hall.

Where to find it:
Vinyl: My Hartedief – Nico Carstens (Year unknown) Columbia, 33JSX 11003

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Jim Reeves version:

Chicken Heart – Stone Jug

Chicken Heart – Stone Jug

There is not a lot of information out there about Stone Jug. The band consisted of John, Hugh and Jenny Bush along with Roger Sheppard and Trevor Turner. Presumably John, Hugh and Jenny were siblings or related. They produced a handful of singles between 1972 and 1974 and 1 eponymously titled album. The album appears to have got an Italian release as well as a South African one.

They managed 1 Springbok Top 20 hit single and that was with ‘Chicken Heart’ which spent 5 weeks on the charts and peaked at 15. The song featured Julian Laxton (who also produced the track) on guitars and Cedric Samson helped on drums. The result was a pleasant folk-rock piece featuring a rock-oriented guitar intro, after which the group come in with some pleasant harmonies while the drums play a prominent part, vying with the vocals for centre stage.

It was a self-assured track that if one listened to without know anything about the group, could easily have one believing that one was listening to an American group from the late 60’s. There is that kind of hippy-folky feel to the song that gives it this feel. Re-listening to it now, one does wonder why we did not hear more from the band and why this track seems to have been largely forgotten. It was certainly a quality track for its time and deserves a bit more attention.

Where to find it:
Various Artists – The Best of SA Pop Volume 2 (1994) GMP, CDGMPD 40486 (CD)

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Just – Henry Ate

Slap In The Face – Henry Ate

‘Just’ first appeared as a kind of hidden track on Henry Ate’s first album, ‘Slap in The Face’. Usually hidden tracks were a bit of nonsense or jam sessions of the band and most were at best substandard songs or at worst a noise. Strangely, Henry Ate decided to put one of the strongest tracks on the album into this space.

‘Just’ is a beautiful mix of guitar and voice (with a muted tambourine beat) which gives Karma Swanepoel’s the limelight. This gentle love song brings out the innocent side of her voice and there is a vulnerability hiding inside the confidence. And this is accentuated by the overdubbing of her singing in harmony with herself.

The guitar is there to support which it does by almost taking over without ever being intrusive. The mix of voice and guitar blend to form something precious that leaves one feeling good about the world as only things of real beauty can make one. The tambourine gives the song a vague folky feel and in a way, the song, although not a folk song, feels like a natural progression from that genre.

While Henry Ate may have initially felt that the song was a bit of a throwaway one that could be tagged onto their album as a hidden track, the public though otherwise as it became a popular one at live shows and was also included on the compilation album ‘SA Top 40 Hits Of All Time’. One may debate long about whether this is seriously a top 40 SA hit of all time, but it is a great SA track which got some of the recognition it deserved.

Where to find it:
Slap In The Face – Henry Ate (1996), Tic Tic Band, BANGCD024

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Record Companies – Wild Youth

A Leopard Never Changes Her Spots – Wild Youth

Wild Youth hailed from Durban and were one of the very early punk bands to form in South Africa (the first if some sources are to be believed). Unlike some of the other early punk bands (Asylum Kids and Peach) who went for the smarter end of the genre (like The Clash in the UK), Wild Youth embraced the scuzzier side and had all the sneer and energy of the less well known UK punk bands like The Exploited and The Angelic Upstarts.

‘Record Company’ would have fared well on the UK Indie singles charts of the late 70’s, early 80’s as it has all the growl, sneer and gobby vitriol that was crucial to that sound. The track starts off with the simple, but fuzzy guitar chords that made punk what it was and quickly the sore throat vocals are launched in a tirade against record companies and ‘government radio’. There is then the obligatory off key ‘harmonies’ that join in on the chant ‘It’s all the same/it’s all the same’. There is even a change of pace about halfway through the two hand half minutes of the song.

While Peach and Asylum Kids made that crossing into a more commercial sphere (in terms of recognition and sales rather than sound), Wild Youth were too far down the Sex Pistols route for any local record company at the time to touch let alone a radio station. Other than a single (‘Wot About Me’), their recorded output seems to have only really come to the public on the retro labels in the CD and streaming ages. And thank goodness for these medium as without them, Wild Youth’s important contribution to the local music scene would have been completely lost.

‘Record Companies’ is evidence that local bands could have stood shoulder to shoulder with their UK punk counterparts had they had the opportunities. One can only speculate about how well they would have done had they been based in the UK rather than in SA, but what we can do is look back and listen to this (and most of their other material) and marvel at just how good they were.

Where to find it:
A Leopard Never Changes Her Spots – Wild Youth (2012), Fresh Music, FRESHCD184(102)

Hear here:

A Million Drums – Dennis East

A Million Drums – Dennis East

‘A Million Drums’ was the 2^nd of 3 Springbok Top 20 hits that Dennis East managed. It would spend 9 weeks on the charts and peak at 12 in 1977. The song was a cover of a 1964 track by a Welsh singer called Tony Sheveton.

Both the original and East’s version have a kind of Spanish flamenco feel to them with the guitar capturing that kind of sound. The lyrics tell of a guy going away, but telling others that it is no use them trying to make moves on his girl as ‘she really misses me’ and that even ‘a million drums couldn’t make her dance/and a thousand violins could make her hold your hand’.

The 1964 version by Sheveton has a Beat feel to it and it moves along at pace. East’s version smooths out some of the rough edges that the Beat groups of the 60’s had stretches the two and a half minutes of Sheveton’s version by nearly a minute as the strings are turned up on this version which would had as much pop appeal in 1977 as Sheveton’s version would have had in 1964.

There are plenty of drums in the track, but they don’t steal the show, it is the strong vocals of both Sheveton and East in their respective versions which combine with the girl who is the subject of the song that capture the hearts of the listener.

Where to find it:
Various Artists – The Best of SA Pop Volume 1 (1994) GMP, CDGMPD 40485 (CD)

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Sobriety Friend – Old Mol

Rock The Bedsprings – Old Mol

Around the early 2000’s there were a number of bands who were playing a kind of thrashy cheeky punk music. In South Africa bands such as Tweak, Fuzigish and Scabby Annie were flying the flag for this genre. It never became massive and Tweak were possibly the biggest local band on this front. One of the smart bands who burned quickly and brightly for a short moment were Old Mol. They released just the 1 album called ‘Rock The Bedsprings’ which was ranked as the 5^th best album of 2003 by the SA Rockdigest, beating Tweak’s ‘Dirty Sanchez And The Misfit Kidz’ which only came in at 27 on that list.

‘Sobriety Friend’ would top the SA Rockdigest charts for 3 weeks and it was not too surprising as the track has more bounce than the entire population of Springs. It sounds like a load of young lad hormones had been captured in a bottle and given a good shake. There is enough energy packed into the song to prevent loadshedding for at least a week.

The group named themselves after a nickname for the headmaster they had had at school which was a surprisingly non-punk thing to do, but they had a tongue firmly in their cheek in everything they did and this feeling permeates the track.

The song would get a fair bit of airplay on 5fm and the band attracted attention with their electrifying live shows. However, the genre, like the band, did not last long and they soon dropped into obscurity, leaving ‘Sobriety Friend’ as a lost gem of South African music. One of the band members, Bryan van Niekerk, would become a fairly well-known actor and had appearances in the UK TV series ‘Wild At Heart’ and had a bit part in the film ‘Safe House’ which starred Denzil Washington. He also starred in the film ‘Shotgun Garfunkel’ which was regarded as the fastest feature film ever made.

Where to find it:
Rock The Bedsprings – Old Mol (2003), Legend

Hear here:
https://soundcloud.com/old-mol/sets/rock-the-bedsprings-2002

Hellfire – Mango Groove

Mango Groove – Mango Groove

In 1968 the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown announced the song ‘Fire’ with the devil-ish intro ‘I am the god of hellfire and I bring you…fire’. Twenty years later, the hellfire was burning bright in South Africa as Mango Groove breathed life into the ashes and got it burning again. However, unlike the dense rock of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’, Mango Groove gave us a pop-perfect township jazz/jive hellfire.

For a brief moment when the song starts, you may be forgiven for thinking you had put on a David Kramer track as it starts off with the guitar sound that Kramer uses on his ‘Meisie Sonder Sokkies’ type tracks, but this is only momentarily as after a couple of bars of this, the rich deep voice of Sipho Bhengu invites us to go ‘way back’ to Sophiatown and the marabi sound that came from the townships back in the day. The music is a mix between the 80’s synth pop of the time and the brassy jazzy sounds of a time before.

The track was written by Mickey Vilikazi who was the band’s trombonist and this shows through in the way the brass instruments carry the tune of this highly dance-able track. It is no wonder that the African Jazz Pioneers would perform a version of it when they played at the Montreux Jazz Festival as the tune itself was made for the likes of them. What sets Mango Groove’s version apart from the African Jazz Pioneers version are the lyrics which are delivered perfectly as usual by Claire Johnston. They speak of love across the colour bar, but in a sufficiently oblique way so as not to upset the censors of the time too much.

There was about 20 years between Arthur Brown hellfire and Mango Groove’s and there has since been almost 40 years since Mango Groove lit up the dance floor with theirs, but the song still burns brightly.

Where to find it:
Mango Groove – Mango Groove (1989), Tusk Music, TUCD3

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Hard Ride – Rabbitt

Hard Ride – Rabbitt

This one’s for those guitar-heads out there who love nothing better than an electric guitar having a good old work out. I have no doubt that Trevor Rabin would make most lists of Greatest South African guitarists. One only needs to listen to the mastery on ‘Hard Ride’ to realise this. The song is guitar heavy and shows off his talents with an axe.

If one wishes to make international comparisons (although hardly necessary with Rabin as he did go on to international success as a member of Yes and as a composer of Hollywood film scores), one could liken him to Mike Oldfield as not only was he extremely good with a guitar, ‘Hard Ride’ also shows off his skills with a keyboard as there are piano-esque bits that dance around the howling guitars.

When listening to this track, it is easy to see why those guys in Yes took Rabin into their fold as it has a prog feel to it while still being pop rock. It thunders along at pace, carried by the guitar, but there are also orchestral swirls that boil in this cauldron of sound, lifting the song from being just another guitar track and making it a track of substance.

If you were a young teenage girl fantasising about taking Trevor Rabin (or any of the other Rabbitt boys) home to meet the parents, it would probably have been best to play them something like ‘Charlie’ as an introduction rather than ‘Hard Ride’ as ‘Hard Ride’ rocks and rocks hard. It’s a juggernaut of a track that doesn’t stop for breath.

Where to find it:
Boys Will Be Boys – Rabbitt (1976), Fresh Music, FRESHCD153

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Love Minus Zero – Dream Merchants

Love Minus Zero – Dream Merchants

The 1960’s saw 5 cover versions of Bob Dylan songs make the Springbok top 20. Of these 3 were by Manfred Mann (‘If You Gotta Go, Go Now’, ‘Just Like A Woman’ and ‘Mighty Quinn’), 1 was by The Byrds (‘Mr Tambourine Man’) and 1 was by Billy Forrest and Billy Andrews who went under the name The Dream merchants. Their cover of Dylan’s ‘Love Minus Zero’ would reach number 8 on our charts and would be their biggest hit.

Dylan himself would never make the Springbok charts and the only version of ‘Love Minus Zero’ that was released as a single was a 1978 Australian single of the live version from his ’Bob Dylan At Budokan’ album. The original version appeared on his 1965 album ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ album and sounds like a carefree, country-tinged song which has Dylan sounding almost disinterested. And perhaps that’s why he never released it as a single.
But the track has been widely covered with artist like Rod Stewart, Joan Baez and The Turtles (in a ‘jingle jangle’ kind of way) taking it on. But The Dream Merchants’ version seems to most closely resemble the one that The Walker Brothers included on their debut album, ‘Take It Easy With The Walker Brothers’. Here both The Dream Merchants and The Walker Brothers bring a fuller sound to Dylan’s raw interpretation, adding strings to soar against the beautiful harmonies of the singers. This seems to tease out the romance of the song to a greater degree than Dylan ever could.
There is no doubting Dylan’s genius when it comes to lyrics, but sometimes his songs needed the vocal talents of others to colour in the beauty of his words and, with ‘Love Minus Zero’, I think that is very true. Both The Walker Brothers and The Dream Merchants bring what is needed to the song, turning it into a (pardon the pun) dreamy version of the track and, despite the ‘minus’ in the song title, listening to it can be a very positive experience.

Where to find it:
Various Artists – The Best of SA Pop Volume 2 (1994) GMP, CDGMPD 40486 (CD)

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