Listen: I Shall Sing / Miriam Makeba
I Shall Sing / Miriam Makeba

I will forever regret missing Miriam Makeba when she returned to NY in ’88, supporting her then new album, SANGOMA. It reunited her with the Warner/Reprise label, and I was offered some tickets by Julie Panebianco in the label’s college department one floor down from Elektra. I recall spending that whole evening wondering what was happening only a mile or two away, while I sat home doing something completely unmemorable.

Collecting all the US and UK pressings of her singles proved surprisingly hard, so it became a mission.

‘I Shall Sing’ always escaped me for the longest time, until a few weeks back. Oddly the single isn’t even listed in most Miriam Makeba discographies. Like the album from which it came, KEEP ME IN MIND, the attempt was to bring on a more soul and rock approach, and in the case of ‘I Shall Sing’, a Van Morrison cover helped achieve the purpose. Later recorded by both Art Garfunkel and Toots & The Maytals, hands down, it’s her’s that takes the cake in my book.