Customer Reviews

Crocodile Love

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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I've been a fan of Johnny Clegg for years, and one of the challenges of enjoying his music is that much of it isn't distributed in the U.S. Sure, you can buy imports, but they can be pretty expensive.

I remember when this album came out in 1997. There was nowhere to buy it for a reasonable amount of cash. So I forgot about it for a decade.

Now this album is finally available for a price I can afford, and I've been listening to it for months. Love is Just a Dream is one of Johnny's best, and I find Journey's End and Circle of Light also as enjoyable as anything Savuka put out.

If you're a Savuka fan who somehow missed this album, it's well worth the download.

I started of buying Jonny Clegg & Savuka albums while I was still at university, and then got stuck! About 10 years later I discovered his previous band Juluka, but not albums were available for purchase even on the net. Finally I went to South Africa and found a mother-lode at the Johannesburg airport! This album, put out after Suvuka broke up and long after Juluka had ended is awesome. I think in many ways it is more polished than most of the earlier Juluka albums, in some ways more similar to Suvuka, but somehow a special blend comes through. For quite some time this has been a regular listen, revealing new nuances as time goes on. Particular favourites are Love is Just a Dream, Crocodile Love, Journeys End, Circle of Light, Ubaba Akalele & Makhelwane, but there's really not a duff track on the disc. Buy this album and dig in!

Jonathan Clegg was a political studies student of mine at the university in Johannesburg in the early 70s, and I am fortunate to have observed his career from its very inception.

Johnny and Sipho played a serious and significant role in undermining the basic premises of 'apartheid', and we shall always thank him for that.

While his current music may lack some of the exciting 'immediacy' of his work from the late 70s and early 80s, this album is certainly a fine follow-up thereto.