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BBC Radio One DJ, Andy Kershaw, said that they were the most natural and effortless catchy pop band ever
H-Metro Reporter
FORTY years ago, the Bhundu Boys released their debut album, ‘Rugare.’
Very few would have predicted that, just three years later, the group would be rocking the British entertainment scene.
And, fewer would also have predicted how that career path would be structured, including their arrival at Gatwick in 1986 without even their instruments to begin an adventure that would catapult them to fame.
Their self-titled album had such songs like Chekudya Chose, Hupenyu Hwangu, Pachedu, Zvichatinetsa, Nhai Mukoma, Kumbirayi, Une Shuwa Here.
It’s 40 years since that album was unveiled but, even after all the storms that have battered the Bhundu Boys and all the tragedies they suffered, their music lives on to his day.
And, so does the way they took on the British entertainment scene and left some magical footprints.
“The Zimbabwean group became stars overnight, world music pioneers who supported Madonna. But their fall was equally dizzying – as tragedy wiped out the band,” noted The Guardian, one of the leading British newspapers.
“The band got positive reviews from people like British world music DJ Andy Kershaw, who said that they were the most natural and effortless catchy pop band ever and they made BBC’s John Peel break down in tears the first time he saw the band perform live.
“The Bhundu Boys did not arrive in Britain as unknown entities.
“They were met at the airport by ‘Champion’ Doug Veitch, a Scotsman whose unique brand of Caledonian Cajun swing had briefly made him an NME favourite in his own right.
“Veitch was a world music pioneer.
“The music entranced Kershaw and John Peel, who championed the band and other Zimbabwean groups such as the Four Brothers, on their Radio 1 shows.”
Theirs remain one of music’s finest Cinderella tales and also one of its most tragic stories.
“In May 1986, Kagona and his young compatriots – singer and guitarist Biggie Tembo, bass player David Mankaba, drummer Kenny Chitsvatsva and keyboard player Shakespeare Kangwena – landed at Gatwick and stepped into the unknown,” noted The Guardian.
“For a short spell, they were welcomed with open arms, the infectious, virile joy of their music seducing all-comers and earning them a support slot for Madonna at Wembley and a record deal with Warner Brothers.
“The Bhundu Boys were by no means the first stars of what we now understand as world music – that accolade could go to anyone from Ravi Shankar to Bob Marley – but they were the first African band to make an appreciable impact upon the archetypal NME-reading, gig-going, Peel-listening Eighties music fan.
“And when it fell apart, it did so in truly tragic fashion – Aids, suicide, prison, poverty.”
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter