Real name John Griffith. Born in Ireland, but moved to South Africa as a child.
Met Jonathan Handley at Wits Medical school and they formed Slither.
Concerned that the South African Medical and Dental Council would strike them off the roll if they became famous they both changed their names! So they became Jon Roxi and John Ireland.
John Ireland pursued a solo career and Slither went on to become the Radio Rats.
John Ireland’s first single was a rendition of “Greensleeves” with words called “You’re living inside my head” which was released in 1978 along with the album Thinking Aloud (1978).
He went on to release several more singles including “I like” (1982) which received widespread radio play in South Africa. He released five more albums: Revelation (1980), John Ireland (1982), She Speaks To Me (1983), Just Desserts (1986) and Lonely Man (2004).
Born in Johannesburg in the 1940s and formed his first band, The Dukes, in 1961. He had further success in the early 60s with his band Johnny And The G-Men.
In 1963, he released his first solo album, This Is Johnny and the single “Tulips For ‘Toinette”
When the Dukes broke up in 1966 he left for England where, in 1967, he formed the short-lived Floribunda Rose with other South African musicians.
The following year he formed another band with South African musicians, Scrugg. When Scrugg broke up in 1969 Kongos went solo, releasing the album Confusions About A Goldfish (1969) and Kongos (1972). The latter album included the successful singles “Tokoloshe Man” and “He’s Gonna Step On You Again”.
He continued to release singles infrequently throughout the 1970s and 1980s but increasingly focused on writing film music.
Singer songwriter who was born in England, grew up in Zimbabwe and South Africa. He became fascinated with Zulu music, dance and other aspects of Zulu culture and struck up a partnership with Sipho Mchunu.
The two performed as the duo ‘Johnny and Sipho’ in the 1970s before forming the band Juluka in 1979. During this time Clegg studied Anthropology and completed his Masters degree, and embarked on a parallel career as an academic. When it was clear that he could make a living from music he resigned from academia and focused full time on music.
After Juluka broke up in 1985 Johnny Clegg released a solo album Third World Child with a more electronic and international sound than his music with Juluka. The single ‘Third World Child’ received widespread airplay in South Africa.
In 1986 he formed the band Savuka which Clegg dissolved in 1993.
He then reignited his solo career while also reforming Juluka with Sipho Mchunu for one album and occasional live performances. Between 2002 and 2017 he released four solo albums.
In 2019 he died of pancreatic cancer.
