When Sipho Hotstix Maabuse followed Afrikaans roots music band,
DIE RADIO KALAHARI ORKES on stage at Oppikoppi last year, he declared that what he'd just heard was the genuine roots music of this country. Quite rightly too, because the period that Radio Kalahari originally drew from (the 30's and 40's) was one prior to the political intervention of the FAK on the Afrikaans Culture in the late 1930's.
Boeremusiek was a wild, untamed genre full of influences from across the entire continent and beyond - includign Jazz, ghoema and marabi. The music came out of the working class and its heroes were miners and railway workers - and none more incendiary then David de Lange, whose career blazed for a brief six years.
In the 1930's de Lange was by far the most famous Afrikaans singer in the country. His first huge hit was "Waar is Moeder?" (1934) and he was the first person to introduce "Suikerbossie" to a wide audience. But when de Lange died in 1947 at the untimely age of 41, not one Afrikaans newspaper reported his death. So what went wrong?
De Lange was a rebel. The so-called decent Afrikaners made De Lange out as an embarrasment, a poor white mineworker who did not fit the profile of what the establishment wanted Afrikaners to become and his records were banned by the SABC.
De Lange became a broken man, never recovering from the hurt the establishment put him through. When De Lange died, something wild and untamable in the Afrikaner died with him, and boeremusiek became sterile. Now De Lange's music is being revived by the popular Radio Kalahari Orkes on DIE NAGLOPER which can be seen as a kindered spirit to Bruce Springsteen's recent hugely popular Seeger Sessions outing.
Earthy and genuine, the music of De Lange is the perfect vehicle for Radio Kalahari Orkes. With their new album DIE NAGLOPER, they give De Lange's songs a fresh treatment, re-tuned for the contemporary ear, whilst embracing the core influences and spirit of De Lange.
With Wynand Dawel on violin,Kaartji Davids on banjo, Michael Canfield on drums and 'kartondoos', and Rian Malan on baritone guitar, fronted by singers Ian Roberts, Elton Landrew and Christine Roberts - the music kicks and swings like a living thing.