Miriam Makeba 1932 - 2008 The Voice

(photo: 1955 Drum Cover, The Girl with the Smile in Her Voice, Jurgen Schadeberg)

 

I first encountered Miriam Makeba from this picture. It was on a postcard in a great little shop, on Bleeker Street, off West Broadway in New York City, called French Kisses. I was impressed by the stance of her body, poised, tensing for the moment when the song would come from her body - for that is how she sang, as if the song were one with her body.  I then went to Tower Records at 4th and Broadway and bought the only album they had of her at the time, Sangoma.

I put it on my turntable and the music began, the music being her voice and her voice only.  There was never a voice like Miriam Makeba.  Her life was a life of singing and protest.  She denounced Apartheid in her native South Africa and they made her an exile. She sang.  And everywhere she went she sang the song of South Africa.  From 1961 until 1990 she was an exile, almost the same length of time that Nelson Mandela was in jail. Appropriately enough it was Mandela who welcomed her back to South Africa. She was Mama Africa. She was the voice.

Watch how she sings the song Amampondo on this YouTube clip.  Some singers say that their voice is their instrument - Makeba's voice was an orchestra.

Makeba singing Amampondo on YouTube

Miriam Makeba once said that she would die singing.  She did just that on November 9th, collapsing backstage after a concert. Adieu Mama Africa, beautiful voice.