The band in Hong Kong

Sophiatown, oh Sophiatown - the band's first big video shoot.

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Below: 1987 - pic that appeared in the Eastern Province Herald - Claire and the late Mickey Vilakazi in Port Elizabeth before a gig (Mickey was 65 and Claire 19).

Mango Groove has enjoyed over 12 Number 1 hits and received every conceivable SA music and video award, as well as a number of global ones.

They have set new precedents for all SA artists, being the only SA group to sell out the Sun City Superbowl and the Standard Bank Arena 6 times each.

This multi-platinum- selling band was the first to re-define live staging and production standards for SA acts; the first to command a million Rand sponsorship deal, and were the first and only group to remain at the top of the SA national sales charts for over a year.

Internationally, Mango Groove’s unique and magical blend of South African marabi, kwela and pop influences, together with the voice and presence of Claire Johnston and the evocative penny whistle melodies of Mduduzi Magwaza, has captivated audiences around the world.

Highlights of their career include the direct satellite link- up to the Freddie Mercury tribute in London (to an estimated audience of a billion people); their performance in front of 200 000 people at the Paris “SOS Racism” concert; and their performance at the renowned Montreux Jazz festival where the band received 3 encores. From London to Hong Kong to Toronto to Sydney, the band has played to sell- out crowds…

Mango Groove was given the honour of being the only South African (indeed African) act to be invited to perform at the “Celebrate Hong Kong ‘97” Reunification Concert.  This historic event, part of the official celebrations commemorating the hand over of Hong Kong to China, was televised world wide and immortalised on a commemorative CD.
Mango Groove was also especially proud to have been associated with the ABC world- wide broadcast of Nelson Mandela’s release where their music was used as the main theme. A few years later they headlined at his inauguration.

Mango Groove has long been aware of music’s unique power to change people’s hearts and minds, and through the years the band has raised hundreds of thousands of Rands for issues such as literacy, terminally ill children and conservation.

The Mango Sound

Many people have tried to define the Mango Groove sound, and have resorted to a host of adjectives and phrases to do this: Kwela/Marabi Pop, SA Pop, Big Band Swing Pop, Eclecto-Pop, and so on. Certainly, the Mango Sound is a pop sound, aiming at simple and accessible songs, grooves and melodies and certainly it is eclectic. This eclecticism is primarily reflected in the extent to which Mango Groove has drawn on the rich legacy of South African urban music forms from the ‘40’s and 50’s:

• Kwela Music: the pennywhistle-based sound from the ‘50’s made famous by such legends as Spokes Mashiane and Lemmy Special.
• Marabi/African Jazz: The rich, bittersweet, horn-based sound best exemplified by the Big Bands of the Sophiatown era.
• Swing: The Glenn-Miller influenced swing rhythms of the South African townships of the ‘40’s
• Mbube: The male acapella/gospel best represented in the early styles of Ladysmith Black Mambazo
• The urban ‘girl-group’ sound of ‘50’s South Africa, exemplified in the sound Miriam Makeba and the Skylarks.
• The Gum Boot rhythms originating in the harsh conditions of Johannesburg gold mines in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s

Listen to the various Mango Groove albums, and the above influences certainly shine through: the exquisite dexterity of Mduduzi Magwaza’s pennywhistle, the big brass arrangements, the lashings of doo-wop harmonies and the thundering swing and gumboot rhythms. Feed into this a modern pop sensibility, however, and front it with the inimitable and soaring voice of Claire, and the end result is a sound that is utterly distinctive and utterly unique. Putting it simply, nothing sounds quite like Mango Groove.

Mango Heritage:

In the course of its long career, Mango Groove has been privileged to work with a host of great SA artists who were either stars at the time, or who have gone on to achieve great things in their own right. They have included the following:  

• Alan Lazar, the pivotal keyboard player, co-writer and co-producer of the first 3 albums, and who is now a highly successful composer and film director in the US. View his site at www.alanlazar.com
• Don Laka, platinum-selling solo artist and SA Uber-producer (Mafikizolo, Bongo Maffin and others). In addition to being Mango’s keyboard player for a couple of years, Don co-produced the band’s ‘Eat a Mango’ album.
• Ringo Madlingozi, the iconic and multi-platinum selling SA artist, who sang on ‘Mango Groove’ and ‘Hometalk’
• The late, great Mahlatini, who toured with Mango and performed a duet with Claire on ‘Gone Too Soon’
• The late Sipho Gumede, who went on to a string of successful and ground-breaking solo albums
• Ed Jordan, the hugely successful SA solo artist and TV and radio personality, who toured extensively with the band.
• Kevin Botha, the seminal SA songwriter and a major contributor to the Mango Groove song catalogue.
• The late ‘Big Voice Jack’ Lerole, an early member of Mango Groove and featured (as performer and co-writer) on ‘Dance Some More’ and ‘2 Hearts’
• The iconic SA female artist Tu Nokwe, a singer on all the Mango Albums
• Peter Cohen, a stalwart member of Mango through the ‘90’s, and now drumming for SA Supergroup Freshly Ground.
• Mauritz Lotz, iconic South African guitarist
• Nico Carstens, SA’s legendary accordion player and song-writer
• The late, great ‘Big Micky’ Vilikazi, a founding member, and writer of the SA classic ‘Hellfire’. His brother was the equally legendary ‘Strike’ Vilikazi, composer of ‘Meadowlands'
• SA Horn Legends Barney Rachabane, McCoy Murubata, Duke Makasi, Stompie Manana and Kaya Mahlangu: iconic artists in their own right and special guests on the 1993 ‘SA Mega Horn Sessions’ for the Another Country album.

10 Bizarre Mango Groove Anecdotes:

• As with ‘Spinal Tap’, Mango Groove once got genuinely lost in the bowels of a theatre while trying to get on stage
• The first Mango Groove national tour in 1990 featured amongst other things 6 consecutive sold-out shows at the Standard Bank Arena: a show had to be added because it was discovered that a lot of the tickets had been pirated.
• At the ‘SOS Racism’ concert in Paris in 1992, Mango performed to over 200 000 people, most of them carrying umbrellas. During ‘Dance Some More’, the entire sea of umbrellas bobbed in time to the music.
• A pair of underpants once landed on Claire’s face in the middle of her singing ‘Special Star’ at a concert in Port Elizabeth.
• Mango Groove once appeared on a Japanese music show called ‘Funky Tomato’
• Mango Groove performed in Hong Kong on a stage designed like an ocean liner, and MC’d by the captain of the ‘70’s hit TV show ‘The Love Boat’
• Mango performed in a fruity double bill with Bananarama at the Phillipines National Day in Kowloon Park in Hong Kong.
• Mango Groove received 3 encores and made the MC cry at, of all things the 1992 French Communist Party fete in Paris.
• During a tour of Australia, Mango covered several time zones and performed 15 shows in as many nights. This culminated in a tired and confused John Leyden telling a Melbourne crowd he was happy to be in Sydney.
• At their show in the National Stadium in the Seychelles, Mango once did a 20-minute (and less than sober) version of ‘Nice to See You’.

5 More Fascinating Facts About Mango Groove
•  Believe it or not, 4 generations of Nokwe women have ‘performed’ with Mango Groove throughout the years: Marilyn Nokwe (a long running member of the group), Marilyn’s sister Tu, Marilyn and Tu’s mother Patty (who performed on the ‘Hometalk’ album) and Ayanda, who is Marilyn’s daughter. The fourth generation? Well, at a show in Cape Town last year, Ayanda sang on stage with Mango while pregnant with her beautiful daughter!
• While in Mozambique to shoot the ‘Island Boy’ video, Mango performed at the Pollana Hotel in Maputo: it was so hot that the entire audience stood in the pool and Peter drummed wearing nothing but a Speedo
• While staying in George for a (soon to be rained out) show at the local cricket stadium, Duzi swore that his hotel room was ‘haunted’, and changed rooms at 2 o’clock in the morning.
• As a little girl, Claire used to like dressing up as an old lady and scaring people.
• John has a Master’s degree in Philosophy from Wits University, Johannesburg. The title of his thesis? ‘Irrational Beliefs’.