@9point = Sunday Concert: Miriam Makeba -- Makeba was in Australia in June for the first time in more than 10 years. Her concerts throughout the country were standing room only. She returned to her native South Africa in 1991 after 30 years exile. She led one of the most extraordinary lives of any musician in recent times. In 1967 she had worldwide success with her recording “Pata Pata”. Her career blossomed, and she found herself being feted by world leaders from Fidel Castro to John F. Kennedy and working with performers like Harry Belafonte and Cleo Laine. But events in her life meant constant turbulence. Her marriage in 1968 to black activist Stokely Carmichael led to the cancellation of her US concerts and recording contract; she left the US to live in Guinea. During her first tour of Australia in 1964, she was jeered by racists in a Sydney nightclub and cut short her tour as a result. In the past four years Miriam Makeba has toured extensively with Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie and Hugh Masekela and in 1990 was invited to “come back home” by Nelson Mandela. ABC Radio National, Sunday, August 13, 4.05pm.
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