CAN THEMBA

There is an old saying in show business. "Any stage artist who can hit it off with the Sophiatown audience has made the grade, but definitely." The Sophiatown audience is just about the hardest-hearted, the cruellest, the most prejudiced , the most hostile audience God has created to plague the lives of musicians. Many great performers have cracked before that audience. They don't like the "Chiramborara" of the Manhattan Brothers. They don't like the mollyeoddling sentimentalism of the "'Sout' of the bawdah." They don't like the clatter of tap-dancing. They don't like nothing and they don't like no one. But they turn up to your shows and get there just to boo. Well, Dolly [Rathebe] started there determined to strike like iron in the heart of Sophiatown. She is a great stage personality today that she is just because she fought the hardest school in show business. And she won. . . [illegible] Sophiatown now gives Dolly grudging acclaim.

- Can Themba, "Dolly and her Men", Drum, January 1957.