On this day in 1939, Hugh Ramopolo Masekela, legendary South African musician, was born in Witbank, South Africa.
Masekela grew up playing the piano and at a young age was introduced to the trumpet by Father Trevor Huddleston. Masekela mastered the trumpet and went on to play in South Africa’s first youth orchestra, the Huddleston Jazz Band.
Masekela later collaborated with many famous artists and played in the orchestra for the successful South African Broadway style hit, King Kong. In 1961, Masekela went into exile after the political unrest surrounding the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre. Masekela studied at London’s Guildhall School, then the Manhattan School of Music.
In New York, he befriended Harry Belafonte, who helped him to settle in the United States as a student. While in New York, Masekela composed and recorded many new songs; including his 1968 number one hit Grazing in the Grass, which won him a Grammy award for ‘Best Contemporary Pop Performance – Instrumental’ that same year.
Masekela returned to South Africa in the early 1990s and continued to produce music and perform extensive tours around the world.
From 1964 to 1966 he was married to singer and activist Miriam Makeba. He had subsequent marriages to Chris Calloway (daughter of Cab Calloway), Jabu Mbatha and Elinam Cofie. He is the father of American television host, Sal Masekela. Poet, educator, and activist, Barbara Masekela, is his younger sister.
Masekela died in Johannesburg at the age of 78, in the early morning hours of 23 January 2018, from prostate cancer.
Information courtesy of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Masekela and https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/hugh-masekela-south-african-musician-born.
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