Ladysmith Black Mambazo

4:46:44 PM EST
Happy New Year to all our friends and fans.  2006 was a very busy and special year for us and 2007 looks to be more of the same.  We begin the new year with a tour of the USA from January 18 until March 25.  We have two Grammy Award nominations for our recent CD with the winners being announced on February 11th.  We can also be heard singing on the latest CD from Josh Groban as well as the upcoming new CD from Mavis Staples.

Also, there will be a children's TV show, in the USA, called "Land Before Time" and you will find us singing the theme song.  Later this year we will return to Europe for a tour from April 25 thru May 20.  Dates will be posted shortly but we will re-visit Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Spain, Holland, as well as first time trips to Poland and Croatia. 

Later this year we will return to North America (September) and the UK (October-November).  There will be other events and projects occuring and we look forward to sharing them with you when possible. 

In the meantime, we are leaving our homes in South Africa tomorrow, January 15 and look forward to our return to the United States.  We hope to see you all!!


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1:25:48 PM EDT
We hope most of you know who Mavis Staples is but if you don't you need to check her out. Mavis is one of the leading American Gospel singers around and comes from a well known family of singers, The Staples Singers, as well as a very famous father, Pops Staples.

Our manager received a call from Ry Cooder a few weeks ago.  Ry is a famous blues player who also produced the famous CD from The Buena Vista Social Club, which went on to win many Grammy Awards and other accolades.  He also produced the Ali Farke Toure CD "Talking Timbuktu", which is a favorite within our group and also won Grammy Awards.  If you do not know that CD we implore you to get it.

Ry is producing a new CD from Mavis Staples and asked if we would join Mavis on several songs.  So last week, while in Los Angeles, we all congregated to record.  It was truly amazing.  The songs are beautiful and it was a real thrill to record our voices with Mavis.  She is so powerful.  Also to watch Ry Cooder work and join in on guitar was great.  We also met a well known drummer, named Jim Keltner, who was playing on the songs too.  Such a wonderful way to spend our "off day" in Los Angeles.

When we know when the Mavis Staples CD will be released we will pass on that information to you.  You can see pictures from the day in our photo gallery section.


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1:45:47 PM EDT
As many of you know, or have read in prior blogs, the well known USA tv show "Saturday Night Live" showed a cartoon parody last February called "Ladysmith Black Mambazo in Outer Space."  It was quite an honor to have such a famous tv show do such a cartoon featuring our group.  They said it was so well received they ran the cartoon several more times over the last few months.

Recently, our manager received a phone call from Saturday Night Live and they said they were creating a DVD of their most popular cartoons and would include "Ladysmith Black Mambazo in Outer Space" in it.  They asked if we would sit down with them, watch the cartoon and add some commentary for the "bonus" section of the DVD, like many movies have.

So, while we were recently in Los Angeles we did this.  It was quite fun.  In fact, they had done a cartoon about Mr. T, the famous American actor from the "Rocky" movie and the tv show "The A-Team."  Mr. T came in to do commentary too and we all sat down together.  It was so much fun.  See our Photo Gallery section for photos of us with Mr. T.


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2:47:06 PM EDT
Well, we have just about finished another trip to the USA and will be heading to Australia and Japan in a couple of days.  Thank you again to all of our friends who came to see us perform over the last two weeks.  Some of the wonderful moments were...

singing with Sweet Honey in the Rock at two of the shows we performed together in Highland Park, IL and Interlochen, MI.  They are wonderful performers and we hope we will share a stage again....

performing for 15,000 Styx fans in Lansing, Michigan.  We were the leadoff group that evening and though the crowd eagerly awaited listening to Styx they were interested in our performance and seemed to enjoy it very much.  Also, the guitar player for Styx, Tommy Shaw, was such a nice person, coming up to us and introducing himself, as well as watching our performance from the wings....

performing an intimate evening for about 300 people at a sold out show in Louisville.  Thanks to our great friend Mary Miller for bringing us back to Louisville, our third concert there in the last 15 months...

and the wonderful audiences who joined us in Lancaster, PA even though it rained part of the night and it was an outdoor concert...the standing room audience that came to see us and The Indigo Girls in Detroit...the wonderful crowd and people with the Magic Johnson Foundation who joined us in Hollywood, CA...and the three great sold out shows in Steamboat Springs, Arvada and Boulder, CO.

Again, thank you all for joining us and we hope to see you in October and November when we return to the USA and Canada.




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4:44:10 PM EDT
If you haven't yet heard, or seen on the TV, we recorded a song with Josh Groban for his next CD.  Josh's manager, Brian Avnet, called our manager, Mitch Goldstein, and told him that Josh wanted to record a South African song called "Weeping" and he really wanted us singing on the song. 

We met Josh in New York, at Sony Studios, and we began recording the song.  It's beautiful!  We met up again when we were in California and finished the recording.  While we were in the studio, the TV show Good Morning America came in and filmed us and Josh and interviewed him with Joseph.  It was on their show a few weeks ago.  We're very excited for the song to come out.  Should be in October.


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4:36:39 PM EDT
It's been a shile since our last blog report but here's some updating.  The last we wrote we were starting the California-Oregon part of our USA tour.  The people were great as usual.  However, we did run into some problems with Mother Nature as she pured the rain down on California.  We continually had problems with road closures and detours but no shows were delayed.

In fact one night leaving Northern California for Oregon a bridge was out and we had to make a five hour detour to get to the next show.  But that's life on the road.

We met some wonderful South African friends all along the way.  Thanks to the home boys and girls for supporting us!

And before we headed home we made a long delayed visit to Dallas, Texas and Austin, Texas.  They were great shows and we were very happy to return to Texas.  After that we headed home to our families in South Africa, after being away from home for almost three months.

However, we didn't have much time as we were set to go to The United Kingdom in two weeks time.

Thanks again to our friends in the USA for all their support on our tour.  We look forward to returning in July and later in the year.

Peace be with you!


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9:21:10 AM EST
We have just finished a run of concerts through the midwest and all the people have been fantastic.  Now we're off to California and Oregon before finishing the tour in Arizona and Texas.  We hope everyone who has seen our concert has enjoyed themselves as much as we have enjoyed performing.  We hope, if you have the opportunity, we will meet many of our fans while we continue on our travels.


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11:52:08 AM EST
We must let you know, if you don't already know, that a South African film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.  It is called "Tsotsi" and it's a powerful film.  We hope you have a chance to see it sometime.

Also a great friend of ours, Eric Simonson, won an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary Film.  In 2000 Eric was the director of a short documentary about us called "On Tip Toes" which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2001.  Eric also was the director of our two theatrical projects.  "The Song of Jacob Zulu," which was performed on Broadway in New York City as well as many other places, was nominated for many Tony Awards, and the show "Nomathemba."

Congratulations to Eric and the filmmakers of "Tsotsi"!


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11:46:43 AM EST
Well, we did see the cartoon of us as "Ladysmith Black Mambazo in Outer Space."  It was funny and we're appreciative for the show thinking of us.

We're on the move through Minnesota right now.  We started in Duluth, with two sold out concerts and many excited people.  Last night we were in Grand Rapids with another sold out show.  It's very cold here and it's been snowing alot.  Today is a day off and we move to the southern part of the state.  Looking forward to having warmer weather.


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11:32:28 AM EST
As we were on our tour bus, last night, driving from our show at the University of Iowa in  Iowa City, we received a phone call from a friend who said they were watching the TV show "Saturday Night Live."  On the program they showed a cartoon called "Ladysmith Black Mambazo in Outer Space."  We're trying to find out more about this and whether it was funny and good.  If anyone saw it please let us know what you thought.

Something interesting about this is that we were told, in January, that we were being considered for that TV show to perform songs from our new CD with some of our guest singers.  Obviously, this did not occur, but it seems we made it onto the show anyway.

Every so often we hear about ourselves being mentioned on a TV show.  Recently we were mentioned in the movie "Mean Girls" and in the TV cartoon "The Family Guy."  It might sound strange but we are indeed honored that these shows choose to mention our name.  Thank you very much.


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