JOHNNY CLEGG & SAVUKA: "Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World"

Original released on LP EMI EMC 3569

(UK, 1989)

When South Africa was still suffering under the apartheid system in the 1980s, Johnny Clegg & Savuka was the last thing apartheid supporters wanted in a pop group. Their lyrics were often vehemently anti-apartheid, and apartheid supporters hated the fact that a half-black, half-white outfit out of South Africa was integrated and proud of it. Released at the end of the 1980s, "Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World" is among the many rewarding albums the band has recorded. Sting and the Police are a definite influence on Clegg & Savuka, who have absorbed everything from various African pop styles to Western pop, funk, rock, and reggae. The lyrics are consistently substantial and frequently sociopolitical - "Bombs Away" addresses the violence of the apartheid regime, while "Warsaw 1943" reflects on the horrors Eastern Europe experienced at the hands of both communists and fascists during World War II. Clegg and company enjoyed a passionate following at the time, and this fine album proves that it was well deserved. (Alex Henderson in AllMusic)

JOHNNY CLEGG & SAVUKA Debut Album

Original released on LP EMI Bovema 1A 064-24 0733 1

(NETHERLANDS, July 1987)

This is a fantastic debut album, from Johnny Clegg & Savuka, a band formed in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1985 (they have recorded only 4 albums and disbanded in 1994). Someone  recommended me this album many years ago, after I had finished listening to "Graceland" by Paul Simon. I was not disappointed. "Scatterlings of Africa", "Ring on Her Finger" and "Asimbonanga (Mandela)" are trememdous, three of my favourite songs. If you like African rhythms, if you loved "Graceland" and "The Rhythm of the Saints", this album is for you. Sadly Johnny Clegg has passed away last July 16, after a four years battle to cancer. He was a guy of my age, just 66 years old.