First, I found out that an album I have wanted for a long time is available on iTunes! "Rhythm of the Pride Lands" was something Lebo M. put out after the success of "The Lion King" but it is no longer in print.
Anyway, I came across this because I started looking into the history of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." This song, which was a hit for The Tokens in 1961, was extensively re-written at that time. It was originally popularized in America by The Weavers who recorded it in 1952.
The original song, as you might imagine, is African, specifically South African. There, it is called "Mbube" which is Zulu for lion. It was written by Solomon Ntsele, known by his clan name as Solomon Linda. He is also primarily responsible for developing and popularizing (in South Africa) the a cappella style of singing that most Americans know from Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The musicologist Alan Lomax (you knew he was in this story) in the 1950s discovered a 1939 recording that Solomon Linda had done of "Mbube" with his group the Evening Birds. Lomax brought the song to the attention of Pete Seeger.
Seeger misinterpreted the Zulu word uyimbube (Zulu, meaning "you're a lion") as "wimoweh" for The Weavers' recording -- which is why the refrain in the English versions of the song is wimoweh and some people even know it by that name.
