Release-Topic, May 30, 2015
Provided to YouTube by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Banuwa Yo · The Song Swappers and Pete Seeger
Folk Songs of Four Continents
℗ 2004 Smithsonian Folkways Recordings / 1955 Folkways Records
Released on: 1955-01-01
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series about the Liberian folk song "Banuwa" that have been popularized in the United States and in other countries since the 1950s.
This post showcases six YouTube videos of the song "Banuwa". (Notice that the earlier form of that word "Banua" was eventually changed to the phonetic spelling "Banuwa").
This pancocojam post also showcases a YouTube sound file of the 1963 African American Rhythm & Blues song "Bon-doo-wah".
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-history-of-and-remembrances-about.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post is entitled "The History Of And Some Remembrances About Versions Of The Liberian Folk Song "Banuwa" ".
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, entertainment, educational, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the unknown composers of the Liberian folk song that became "Banuwa". Thanks to all those who composed and arranged modified versions of that Liberian folk song. Thanks to all those who are featured in these showcases videos, and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/12/three-examples-of-liberian-folk-song.html for the 2014 pancocojams post entitled "Four Examples Of The Liberian Folk Song "Banuwa" "
Two of the videos that are showcased in this 2024 post are included in that 2014 post.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
Unfortunately, there are no YouTube video performances of "Banuwa" from Liberia, West Africa.
Video #3 that is given below is the only YouTube video that is available at this time* that is performed by people in the African continent. However, that video is from Uganda, East Africa.
* https://compvid101.blogspot.com/2012/09/lost-somewhere-in-translation-banuwa.html Comparative Video 101: Lost Somewhere In Translation: "Banuwa", September 7, 2012
"Though there are one or two YouTube videos of African groups performing "Banuwa," they are church groups from central and east Africa, more than a thousand miles distant in geography, language, and culture from the west African coastal origin in Liberia of the song. This first version is by a German choral group called SingLust, and except for a slight mispronunciation, they are doing the lyrics as noted above:
-snip-
Other excerpts from that article are given in Part II of this pancocojams post. A few comments from Liberians and from people who lived in Liberia are also found in Part II of this pancocojams series. Those comments confirm that "Banuwa" was and still is a folk song from that West African nation. However, (again unfortunately), those comments don't provide information about the lyrics for that song or which Liberian language those lyrics come from and what those lyrics mean.
If you know of any YouTube, Facebook, or any other social media examples of "Banuwa" from Liberia, West Africa, and/or if you know about when and how the song "Banuwa" was or is now performed in Liberia, please share that information in the comment section below. Thanks in advance.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - Kingston Trio "Banua" (1958)
cooltunes74, Nov 2, 2012
From the self titled Capitol Lp.
SHOWCASE VIDEO #3 -African choir sings banuwa
Nico van den Berge, Jun 1, 2009
English at the bottom.
Dit is een hele creatieve manier om met je koor op te komen.
Om de beurt lopen de leden van het koor van de African Bible University (ABU)
vanaf verschillende zitplaatsen uit het publiek naar voren en nemen hun plek in
op het podium. De gelegenheid is het afstuderen van de eerste lichting
studenten van de ABU, omdat deze universiteit 4 jaar geleden begon. (Die Mzungu
is mijn vrouw Inge Houtman.) Het lied bestaat voornamelijk uit één woord:
Banuwa (spreek uit: ba-noe-wa), dat op verschillende manieren wordt gezongen.
Het is afkomstig uit het noorden van Afrika. Meer weten we er niet van. Is er
iemand die weet wat dit voor lied is en wat de woorden betekenen?
(nvandenberge@cs.com)
www.zendeling.wordpress.com
One by one the choir members appear from their seat and walk
to the stage in front. The choir of the African Bible University in Uganda
sings Banuwa during the gradution ceremony of 2009. The Mzungu in the choir is
my wife Inge. Does anybody know what the word Banuwa means? (we don't)
nvandenberge@cs.com
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The word "Mzungu" is a colloquial (sometimes considered to be offensive) term in East Africa which means "White person".
Here's a discussion thread comment from the publisher of that video that was written in response to a question (that is no longer given in that discussion thread) about the original words for that folk song:
@nvandenberge, 2010
"@jesst666 Well, uh, don't know if this is THE original version. We tried to
have it as original as possible, but who on earth knows the original version of
a folk song like this? "
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SHOWCASE VIDEO - #4 - Banuwa - Folk Song from Liberia / Música folclórica da Liberian
nynoca16, May 30, 2013 [Brazil]
Sam estava na percução.
-snip-
Google translate: Portuguese to English:
"Sam was on percussion."
-snip-
nynoca16 is the mother of Sam who is one of the drummers in this Brazilian video.
The title for this video initially attributed this song to Libya (which is in North Africa) instead of Liberia (which is in West Africa). Several people wrote comments indicating that she had the wrong title. nynoca16 apologized for that mistake and indicated that she had written "Libya" in the title for the country where the song "Banuwa" came from because that was the country name that was given on that school's program. (Hopefully, that was an innocent mistake on the school's part, and the school hadn't been teaching students that the folk song "Banuwa" was from Libya.)
nynoca16 also wrote that she was trying to change that country's name to the correct name, but was having some difficulty doing that. Thankfully, eventually she was able to correct this video's title and correctly attribute that song to Liberia.
Read that comment exchange at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHhDIVUBr3A
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #5 -Banuwa
Jonathan Katz, Mar 23, 2017
No description has been added to this video.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #6 -Banuwa
Strum Strike and Blow, Nov 7, 2021
Massed piece Banuwa
Strum Strike and Blow 2021
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #7 - "Bon-doo-wah"
The Orlons - Topic, Jul 25, 2018
[…]
Composer Lyricist:
Kal Mann
Composer Lyricist:
David Appell
[Comments are turned off]
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According to the Internet, The Orlons released the song "Bon -Doo-Wah" in December 1963.
I was 13 years old at that time and I have no memory what so ever of that record. (I also don't remember any "Bandua"/ "Banduwa" folk songs in the United States from the 1950s on, and only learned about those folk songs as a result of my research for this post.
The word "bon-doo-wah" in this R&B song is used as a refrain. I don't believe that that R&B group ever associated that record with the Liberian folk song "Banuwa" or its modified American folk song.
Here's some information about The Orlons from that group's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orlons
"The Orlons are an American R&B group from Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, that formed in 1960.[1] The group won gold discs for three of
their singles.
In 1962, the group provided back-up vocals for Dee Dee
Sharp's hits "Mashed Potato Time" and "Gravy (For My Mashed
Potatoes)". They later found fame with their first national hit, "The
Wah-Watusi", which reached No. 2 in the US pop chart[1] and which
triggered the brief Watusi dance craze. They recorded their own versions of the
Dee Dee Sharp songs for their debut album, The Wah-Watusi, which received a
rating of 4.5 out of 5 from AllMusic in 2006.[4] They had a second hit in the
same year with "Don't Hang Up", a No. 4 hit on the pop chart. The
group had three hits in 1963: "South Street", the group's last Top
Ten hit, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard chart; "Not Me", which
reached No. 12; and "Crossfire", the group's last hit, which reached
No. 19.[3]"...
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This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series.
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