UNC and Bowling Green are polar opposites, yet they both share a weird fight song. Why? Blame a man who the CIA drugged with LSD, wrote lots of erotic novels, and sang a song that makes no sense.
This is wild. My FIL asked me about this song and where it came from about 4 years ago. I did just enough research to say that we (UNC) probably stole it from Bowling Green. You've done an extraordinarily good job of getting all the context around it.
That's really the only thing I can think of that might tie them together. Weird side note: this was the same era that a mentor of mine, John Sanders, was at UNC. It's kind of crazy to imagine him on campus at the same time as these two.
That's a good lead. From what I can tell from the Daily Tar Heel, Norm Sper stuck mostly to swimming, diving, and cheerleading. He was a dramatic arts major, so he probably would have taken drama classes, and Gil Fox knew at least one drama professor very well. Gil doesn't seem to have acted in any productions at UNC and looked like he was focusing mostly on music and fencing. So it's VERY possible that they met because they were both in the same musical and dramatic circles, but a Playbill might actually put them on stage together (or, maybe Gil created music for a production).
I never though about the Gil Fox angle, or that he could have possibly attended UNC. If he was enrolled in graduate school in the UNC Department of Music, perhaps that was where it was introduced.
Joel Carter, choral director at UNC, arrived from Stanford in the late '40s, and Marching Tar Heels director Earl Slocum had been there since 1933, after seven years of teaching in Greensboro. The choral recording is from 1957 and MTH probably still use a lot of Slocum arrangements but I don't know when they started playing it.
Old (Daily) Tar Heels and yearbooks printed many cheers and/or songs that didn't live up to the test of time. One remnant though is the yearbook itself, as Yackety Yack came from one of those cheers.
The editor of The Oxford Song Book, Volume Two, Thomas Wood, introduced The Swazi Warrior to Canada and Australia in his travels in the 1930s, but I could not find any evidence he came to the States. The Heritage Research Coordinator of The Scouts in the UK indicated to me in our correspondence that he did not find that or a similar song in early editions of the Hackney Scout Song Book.
There was at least one wire story that wrote a story about the Zulu Warrior song being sung by South Africans fighting along other Allied troops, so it wasn't just Fox. Zulu Warrior was a semi-popular song of the era, with performances by bandleaders Fred Waring and Mitch Miller. Marais had a radio program for a time as well.
The "Izika zumba" version fascinates me because of its use in South African music education.
It appears Fox's father-in-law was also a student at UNC as well as starting a business in Chapel Hill.
This is wild. My FIL asked me about this song and where it came from about 4 years ago. I did just enough research to say that we (UNC) probably stole it from Bowling Green. You've done an extraordinarily good job of getting all the context around it.
I don't know if you went this far, but you might see if Wilson Library has any playbills from Playmakers Theater. They certainly have images from a 1948 production, which might show the two together on stage. https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/catalog?group=true&group=true&search_field=all_fields&q=Playmakers+Production%2C+Circa+1948
That's really the only thing I can think of that might tie them together. Weird side note: this was the same era that a mentor of mine, John Sanders, was at UNC. It's kind of crazy to imagine him on campus at the same time as these two.
That's a good lead. From what I can tell from the Daily Tar Heel, Norm Sper stuck mostly to swimming, diving, and cheerleading. He was a dramatic arts major, so he probably would have taken drama classes, and Gil Fox knew at least one drama professor very well. Gil doesn't seem to have acted in any productions at UNC and looked like he was focusing mostly on music and fencing. So it's VERY possible that they met because they were both in the same musical and dramatic circles, but a Playbill might actually put them on stage together (or, maybe Gil created music for a production).
I never though about the Gil Fox angle, or that he could have possibly attended UNC. If he was enrolled in graduate school in the UNC Department of Music, perhaps that was where it was introduced.
Joel Carter, choral director at UNC, arrived from Stanford in the late '40s, and Marching Tar Heels director Earl Slocum had been there since 1933, after seven years of teaching in Greensboro. The choral recording is from 1957 and MTH probably still use a lot of Slocum arrangements but I don't know when they started playing it.
Old (Daily) Tar Heels and yearbooks printed many cheers and/or songs that didn't live up to the test of time. One remnant though is the yearbook itself, as Yackety Yack came from one of those cheers.
The editor of The Oxford Song Book, Volume Two, Thomas Wood, introduced The Swazi Warrior to Canada and Australia in his travels in the 1930s, but I could not find any evidence he came to the States. The Heritage Research Coordinator of The Scouts in the UK indicated to me in our correspondence that he did not find that or a similar song in early editions of the Hackney Scout Song Book.
There was at least one wire story that wrote a story about the Zulu Warrior song being sung by South Africans fighting along other Allied troops, so it wasn't just Fox. Zulu Warrior was a semi-popular song of the era, with performances by bandleaders Fred Waring and Mitch Miller. Marais had a radio program for a time as well.
The "Izika zumba" version fascinates me because of its use in South African music education.
It appears Fox's father-in-law was also a student at UNC as well as starting a business in Chapel Hill.
What a ride. Thanks!