NOT FOR PUBLICATION before 31/5/26 South African songstress Lesley Rae Dowling sent shock waves through the local pop music business with her stunningly individual style of vocal delivery when she came on the scene in the early 1980s. Her producer Tully McCully wrote Grips of Emotion for her and it hit the charts in January 1982. The follow-up release, her debut album revealed that she was also a serious songwriter. Her song Spaniard was the second single to garner heavy rotation leading to the first album going gold not long afterwards. Visual for the new release featuring Lesley from the time of her debut releases . Since then Lesley has released about a dozen albums mostly in her home country of South Africa but also has releases in Australia and the Benelux. Last month Tully was going through his archive and stumbled on a multi-track tape containing a song that never made it onto any of Lesley's albums. The track, also written by Tully is, Don't stop loving me ....
Hamburg, March 2026 Tony Cox is not only a very talented guitar player, he also shines as an arranger. In this collection he looks for inspiration from some of the iconic South African popular songs from recent years. Essentially an instrumental album though Tony does add a little vocal accompaniment to three of the songs. The album title, is an Afrikaans word that refers to food one might take with you on the road for a journey - this is indeed the case with this collection. Always tongue in cheek, Tony Cox with his picnic basket (c) Songwrights Publishers Here is a review from the time of the original album release. Review: Richard Haslop 7 April 2014 The music of South Africa’s consistently brilliant fingerstyle guitarist Tony Cox has always been influenced by his geographical roots, full of mainly instrumental statements about where he’s from and who he is. But quite a lot of what he has played – as well, it must be said, as anybody anywhere – is South Afr...