The band grooves like there was no tomorrow and the laid back performance forces the listener to ask: How can there be anything so laid back and yet so tight at the same time?Īs a live recording, it is one of our favourites. We choose 'Stimela' because of the extreme dynamics and excellent quality of the recording. This track is also widely used as a demonstration track for hi-fi systems around the world. 1 hit 'Grazin in the Grass' and the 1987 hit single 'Mandela - Bring Him Back Home', 'Stimela' is probably the best-known song on the album.
Also making this song very worthwhile is Masekela's flugelhorn solo, in which he demonstrates his musical skills.Īpart from the American no. The song is compelling and its subtitle is very vividly portrayed. Years later, Hugh Masekela transformed their stories into 'Stimela'. During his childhood, he was raised in a house where the miners would spend their weekends drinking and telling their miserable stories of the underground life in the mines. With the album 'Hope', recorded in 1993, Masekela realized his dream of recording "South African music in its truest contemporary forms." The songs on the album are a selection of the most enduring songs of his career and were recorded live at Washington DC's Blues Alley.īorn in the coal-mining town of Witbank, a hundred miles east of Johannesburg, South Africa, his hometown harboured a large conglomeration of migrant labourers from Angola, Mozambique, Malawi and many other parts of Southern Africa. He toured with the latter on his acclaimed but also controversial Graceland tour. He became known for his contributions to the albums of his friend Harry Belafonte, The Byrds and Paul Simon. Born in South Africa, he was exiled in 1961 and lived in the United States until the early 1990's when he returned to his home country.
High Masekela is a world-renowned trumpeter, flugelhorn and cornet player, as well as an acknowledged musical ambassador. Hugh Masekela - Stimela (The Coal Train) (H.
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