CHITIMPA (right) playing in the Terbanacle of Glory Church band in Lvingstone. On the left is brother Ronald Mwiiinga.

THE stage gimmick was crazy, their costume was like that of the Ngoni warriors and the band’s beat sounded Afro rockish.

Even off the stage, the band members’ dressing clearly depicted their character.

These were true colours of a band called Black Jesus, an outfit that rolled out a combination of western and Afro rock, much to the amusement of throngs of fans that besieged their weekend shows during the early 1970s.

You said, Black who?

A group of elderly men in their early 60s discussing Zamrock music affirmed, “Black Jesus! Have you heard of that Band?

Probably not much to me including the current young generation, for the band was formed long before most of them were even born.

Patrick Chibuta, flanked by Peter Shawa and James Chambila were keen followers of the Black Jesus Band who could not miss out on any of the group’s weekend engagements.

“I can say Black Jesus was a great band in its own right that played a variety of music including western heavy rock covers,” Chibuta now 64 years of age, said in a recent interview at Fisenge in Luanshya.

That discussion unearthed one of the surviving members of the group who is hanging out there in Livingstone.

A thorough search revealed the band’s former drummer Billy Chitimpa, who now wants to set up a recording studio, some 36 years since the demise of Black Jesus.

“The band was formed in 1973 when most of the members were at Luanshya Boys Secondary School. It quickly got recognised and soon became big. I had not joined them at that time,” Chitimpa confessed.

This was after some members including Chitimpa quit another school band called the Monsoon, in which Rogers Mwape played lead, Simon Tembo (bass) and Goodfellow Himaambo on drums.

But why was the band called Black Jesus?

“It was the belief of band members that Jesus Christ was a black man and a hero who was killed by the Jews because of his status and to us, this was one way of reminding people about him through music,” Chitimpa explained.

Black Jesus was a three piece band woven around Darius Mwelwa on lead guitar, Garry Sondashi (drums) and Bernard Banda also known as Charlie Watts, on drums.

In 1974, Banda quit and in, came Chitimpa who was by that time the band’s road manager, to take over the drums and at the same time, recruited Boyd Chandamali on African drums.

It was at the time of stiff competition coming from already established bands such as Mosi-Oa-Tunya, Witch, Tinkles and others, that Black Jesus pushed to be noticed.

Black Jesus played heavy rock music of the likes of Carlos Santana, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk, Jethro Tull, Rolling Stones and beat from Afro rock Kings such as Osibisa and Manu Dibango and the Africa 70 ensemble.

“Black Jesus adopted the Osibisa type of costume and this is the same costume that the Makishi, Mashabe and Julizya bands took on.

It is also the same one that Darius Mwelwa took to the Amayenge when he quit our band,” Chitimpa recalls.

The band later shifted camp to Lusaka and took part in the competition to choose who were to go to Nigeria for an African music festival, which was won by the Big Gold Six.

Black Jesus had a lot of exposure starting with Barn Motel going through to Bar-B-Que restaurant and other joints in the capital city as well as the Copperbelt.

The band also graced almost all the UNIP functions especially during first republican president Kenneth Kaunda’s departures and arrivals.

In 1977, the band went into recording at the then Zambia Broadcasting Services(ZBS) where it came up with singles such as Ziko La Zambia,

Kuomboka and Chisikina cha Akazi (ointment for women), which were not bad though, were criticised by music columnists such as the late Smokey Haangala, due to alleged poor voice mixing.

“But that did not dampen our spirits and we were determined to soldier on despite heavy criticism because we had a lot of fans,” Chitimpa said.

It was not long that, the band’s sponsor, a Luanshya business executive followed them in Lusaka to grab the musical instruments.

This disturbed the band’s rhythm forcing Chitimpa and Darius to quit and co founded the New Cross Bones together with Chris Chali who later changed the group’s name to the Amayenge.

This was after the band had just released a bloc buster if an album called Amayenge in around 1979.

“Sadly, the grabbing of our instruments signaled the end of the Black Jesus. We could not hold on for too long and this made us move to form the New Cross Bones in 1978,” Chitimpa said.

Chitimpa later joined the Events Band led by the legendary Zimbabwean song bird Dorothy Masuka, who was then based in Zambia.

Now at 61 years of age, a born again family man and working for a small printing company in Livingstone, what next?

“I just want to raise money and go for a truck driving course and I also want to set up a small recording studio as you know, much of the music is not live but done on computers and this is not good for the Zambian music industry,” Chitimpa complained.

The Black Jesus left its own legacy which is still adored by some senior citizens fans that appreciated their music approach.

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