The action brought by Spoor and Fisher on the part of the family relied on a little known legal provision: Section 5(2) of the 1911 Imperial Copyright Act. And it fostered a resolve to take legal steps to stake a claim on the part of the family to proceeds from the song, especially The Lion Sleeps Tonight version, and to gain due acknowledgment of Solomon Linda’s role in creating the song, and of its South African origin. The article caused an outcry in South Africa. In the late 1990s, journalist Rian Malan wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine exposing the machinations which had taken place and making the point that, while the derivatives of Mbube had made millions of dollars, the Linda daughters, one of whom had recently died from AIDS, were living in abject poverty in South Africa and deriving no material benefit from the fruits of their father’s creative work. No stone had been left unturned to ensure that the Linda family had no claim to the copyright in Mbube. In 1992, with litigation raging in the United States regarding Wimoweh and The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the rights to which had been acquired by Abilene Music, Folkways exacted a further assignment of worldwide rights to Mbube from the Linda daughters for another dollar. In 1983 the American music publishing company, Folkways, which had gained control of Wimoweh, exacted for a consideration of one dollar an assignment of Regina’s rights (as his legal heir) to the renewal term of Wimoweh under United States copyright law, and threw in at the same time her worldwide rights to the song, such as they may have been. He died in 1962, leaving a wife, Regina, and four children. Solomon Linda had assigned his worldwide copyright in Mbube to the Gallo Record Company for a consideration of 10 shillings. But neither the origins of the song, in Mbube, nor the role played by Solomon Linda was acknowledged, and the song was presented as being of American origin.

Then in the mid-1990s it was incorporated into the Disney musical The Lion King. In this form the song became a major hit and has remained popular for more than 40 years. Wimoweh was successful in the United States in the 1950s, and was later reworked into another version in the 1960s by song writers George Weiss, Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, as The Lion Sleeps Tonight. He liked what he heard and transcribed the music from the record to make his own song, which he called Wimoweh (a corruption of the Zulu lyrics, Uyimbube, or 'he is the lion'). In the early 1950s the recording of Mbube released by Gallo Records, already a good seller in South Africa, found its way to America and came to the attention of Pete Seeger, the folksinger. This is the story of the legal battle to claim back for Linda’s children a share in the proceeds from their father’s creation. Linda´s role in the song´s creation is undisputed, but he died a pauper, leaving his family too poor even to afford a headstone for his grave. It has earned by some estimates over $15 million in composer royalties. More than 150 different artists have recorded it and it features in at least 15 movies and musicals. There are versions in French, Japanese, Spanish, Danish and many other languages. The English-speaking world knows it as the central theme from the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight. On the third take, Linda came up with a haunting skein of notes that went on to become the most famous melody ever to emerge from Africa.

In l939, a Zulu migrant worker and entertainer who called himself Solomon Linda stood before a microphone in Johannesburg’s first recording studio, improvising falsetto vocal lines against a rolling, driving vocal chant. Dean personally directed the litigation on behalf of the Linda family. Hot on the heels of the settlement in 'The Lion Sleeps' copyright case, this first hand account was written for WIPO Magazine by leading South African copyright expert, Dr. Solomon Linda (left) and his band, the Evening Birds Copyright in the Courts: The Return of the Lion

Wimoweh the lion king