Anglo Concertinas in South Africa

Edited by Paul Schwartz

Added 2005-04: Koot Brits Concertinas

Added 2005-01-17:

"I have been a possession of a Bandmaster Anglo 20 button for a while now and I've become reasonably good at figuring out how to play it, but, trawling your website I found articles on the use of the concertina in Boer music in South Africa. Having lived in SA for quite a while I was surprised that this aspect of the concertina could possibly be mentioned without reference to its use in mbaqanga jive music from the townships of SA, where the concertina has been manipulated over the last 50 or so years to be used as more of a rock/pop instrument - indeed few bands in the 1980's lacked a concertina player, who provided a very curious, inimitable and delightful backing melody to the Zulu guitar rhythms. As a reference I would probably point you towards the music of Johnny Clegg (especially the songs "Tough Enough", "I Call Your Name", and "Moliva"), though many of his rhythms have been more westernised, and the more accessible "Gumboots" by Paul Simon on the Graceland album. Alternatively, for a much more "traditional" use of the concertina in township jive, I recommend Johnson Mkhalali ("Joyce No. 2", and who played concertina in "Gumboots"), The African Jazz Pioneers ("Jive Township") and Nganezlyamfisa No Khambalomvaleliso ("Sini Lindile"), and the better known West Nkosi ("Ungithatha Kanjani")." -- Chris Milligan

I had no idea that the concertina was popular in South Africa, but apparently it is! Here is a little snippet from some correspondence I had with anglo player A.J. Van Tonder.

"In S.A. we play mostly "boere" music which directly translated means farmer music. I think most of the tunes are folksongs. Personally I like any music with lots of chords [...]

I think the great trek from the cape, inland to the Transvaal has a lot to do with the popularity of the concertina, as well as the distribution thereof. This happened in 1838 and there must have been quite a number of concertinas around in the Cape as it was under British rule at the time. The Afrikaners decided to move inland to be independent. There were quite a few of them who mastered the instrument by that time so the concertina was on the move. There are lots of stories around about how they entertained themselves but the main attraction when they stopped on the road was dancing and singing of folksongs. Then the guys would pull out there squash-boxes, guitars and "witblits" (similar to tequila) and the party is on. Depending on how long they stayed in one spot, this could last until the small hours of the night."

A.J. also said that in South Africa they sometimes call the concertina the "Donkylung" or the "Xmas-worm". I think I'll stick to "concertina"!

A.J. kindly provided the following pictures of anglo concertinas. Some were made in South Africa by local makers, some were restored by the same makers, and some are just owned by people living in South Africa. From what I can tell, most are Wheatstones and Wheatstone derivatives, and most seem to be of recent vintage (many made by Steve Dickinson under the Wheatstone name). From A.J.:

"The hexagonal and octagonal Wheatstones [top two] are mine (both 40 button). The Olga was build by Pierre Gerber of Mosselbay in the Cape Province. Unfortunately he discontinued building concertinas some time ago due to bad health. Certainly a great loss. He made everything himself, from the reeds to the bellows. You have to play it to really appreciate the feather light touch of the buttons (at least 50% lighter than the Wheatstone). I believe he did some alterations to the button mechanism to obtain an extremely fast action. Another Concertina builder, Hannes Viljoen [photo on Sean Minnie's site] passed away some 2 months ago. He was one of the first South Africans who succeeded in building a pump [bellows?] that were of the same quality as the Wheatstone. The 3rd concertina maker that I am aquatinted with is Willie Van Wyk of Kempton Park near the Johannesburg airport. He is still in business but is constantly busy reparing and rebuilding concertinas from all over the country."

More concertinas in South Africa
By Sean Minnie

I would like to include the following comments as a fellow South African and also Boermusic concertina player.

A "Boer" is indeed a farmer, though "Boer" also refers to Afrikaans speaking Europeans, thus I can also be a "Boer" without necessarily being a farmer.

The tunes played in boermusic are 99,9% instrumental and don't even have words, thus they can not be folk songs. The tunes that can be classified as folk songs are also seldom sung with the concertina as accompaniment. [note from Paul: this refers to a mistake I often make when I speak of "songs", which is a word better reserved for music one sings and not instrumental pieces which, from what I've been told, are more accurately referred to as "tunes".]

While The great trek did indeed take place in 1838. You may have noticed that the earliest English concertina in existence dates from 1835. The Anglo is the most popular concertina in South Africa and was not invented until later.

According to your page it is estimated that Lachenal started production of concertinas in 1850. Lachenal being the mass produced instrument is not at all common in South Africa. The main instrument is rather the Wheatstone. Judging by the account of how the concertina proceeded from the great concert halls to folk musicians (on the classical concertina page), it seems unlikely that there were Wheatstones in South Africa at that time. Historians estimate that the first Wheatstones arrived in South Africa in the 1920's only. This is the reason that one rarely finds very old concertinas in South Africa. All this to say that it is probably unlikely that there were concertina players on the great trek.

As a fellow South African and concertina lover, I have authored a page to provide more information. It can be viewed at http://mzone.mweb.co.za/residents/sminnie/concertina.htm As I have some time, I will update and expand the page to cover the usage in great detail.

All the Best from the south,

Séan Minnie