Even divorced from its fascinating history, it’s a perfect song, a dive into some pop-music dreamworld. But it doesn’t take anything away from the liquid, incandescent weird-pop joy of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which just might be the greatest novelty song ever to reach #1. It’s a sad story, and a sadly predictable one. In 2006, more than 40 years after his death, Linda’s family won a settlement from the publishers of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Seeger once sent him a $1,000 check after realizing that he hadn’t been getting royalties, but that was it. Linda should’ve become a millionaire for writing the song instead, he died broke. Nobody ever thought to pay Solomon Linda songwriting royalties for the song, and most of the people who sang versions of it assumed that it was a public-domain traditional. The story of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is, of course, a story of deep music-business fuckery. Most of the people involved in putting together and selling “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” probably heard it as a weird little novelty - it started out as a B-side before radio DJs championed it - but it ended up resonating on some deeper level, and it’s been rattling around in the pop consciousness ever since. It sounds less like the doo-wop of its moment, more like a broadcast from some much older civilization - which, if you look at the song’s whole history, is basically what it is. Various Street Corner Symphonies 1961 Vol.By the time it reached its final form, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” had gone through a few different layers of translation, and it had been thoroughly Americanized, but it remains a deeply weird song, a cascade of falsetto howls over a pulsating chant and a timpani roll. Siegel and the Margos now front competing Tokens groups. Medress died of lung cancer June 18, 2007. The group continued to record throughout the decade, delving into production (they helmed The Chiffons' '63 chart-topper He's So Fine) and later forming their own label, B.T. Citing non-payment of royalties, they defected to RCA, where their reinvigoration of The Weavers' Wimoweh, retitled The Lion Sleeps Tonight, paced the pop charts and went gold late in the year. Tonight I Fell In Love cracked the pop hit parade for The Tokens in March, sailing to #15. He didn't like their name, Those Guys, so The Tokens were back in business. Craft now ran Warwick Records and he dug the demo enough to issue it in February of '61. The guy put up $300 to pay for a session at Allegro Studios in the fall of 1960 where the new group waxed Medress and the Margos' snappy Tonight I Fell In Love ( I'll Always Love You would be its B-side). Medress met a lady on the subway whose son was a music publisher. Hank and Jay next hooked up with baritone Phil (born April 1, 1942) and first tenor Mitch Margo (born May 25, 1947, he was all of 13). Medress and Siegel rebounded by joining Warren Schwartz and Fred Kalkstein in a new group, Darrell & The Oxfords, making two singles for Roulette (their Siegel-led Picture In My Wallet was a big New York favorite). He signed with RCA Victor as a solo in 1958 and prepared to embrace mainstream stardom. Not too long after that, Neil left The Tokens. Craft produced their Melba debut session in the spring of 1956, their single pairing the Rapkin-led rocker I Love My Baby and a Sedaka-fronted While I Dream, both penned by Neil and Howie Greenfield. Goday may also have renamed them The Tokens. Unlimited free The Tokens music - Click to play Tonight I Fell In Love, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and whatever else you want The Tokens are an American male. That led to an audience with Morty Craft, owner of Melba Records with Ray Maxwell. Zolotin's mother knew song plugger Happy Goday and set them up with an audition. They squeezed rehearsals around Neil's piano practice (he surprisingly usually sang bass). Piano prodigy Neil Sedaka and falsetto specialist Jay Siegel recruited lead tenor Eddie Rapkin, Cynthia Zolotin, and Hank Medress (born November 19, 1938) from choral class to form The Linc-Tones. When they started out in the mid-'50s, The Tokens (not to be confused with the group who made Doom Lang) were ahead of their time as five Jewish teens attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn that liked rock and roll and wanted to make their own.
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