Hugh Masekela‘s 1968 song, “Grazing in the Grass,” featured on The Promise of a Future album, is arguably the late trumpeter’s most popular tune. The 2 minute-and-37-second jazz song provided listeners with an upbeat experience and ended up landing on the No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 spot the year it was released, as reported by NPR.
During a 1988 interview with the publication, Masekela, born in 1939, discussed taking the tune to the studio. He explained that he had been playing “Grazing in the Grass,” which was Philemon Hou‘s composition, at live events. Masekela said that when he was recording The Promise of a Future, saxophonist Al Abreu recommended adding “Grazing in the Grass” to the album.
“And the late Al Abreu, who played with me on ‘Grazing’ in that quintet I had – we were in the studio doing the album Promise Of A Future. We needed about four minutes more on the album, and we didn’t have another song,” recalled Masekela, who lived until he was 78, while speaking to NPR in the 1988 interview. “And Al Abreu said, remember that? He liked it very much. He said, there’s that song, man, that you always play, that we always play, you know? We should try and do that because of that simple part. So I just showed the piano player what to do and sang the four notes to the bass player. And we did it in one take. And six weeks later, it was No. 1.”
The song was later revamped by the group, The Friends of Distinction. Their 1969 remake, which had lyrics written by frontman Harry Elston, became quite a memorable tune. During an interview with Rebeat, Elston discussed recording The Friends of Distinction’s take on “Grazing in the Grass.”
“Well, I first called it ‘Flaking in the Grass’ because I didn’t know I could use the same title as the instrumental since I was changing the song and adding lyrics. But everybody was like, ‘Get out of here!’ so I came back with the same music and title and they loved it,” said Elston, who died in 2025 when he was 86. “We recorded it at RCA for our first album, and from then things happened very quickly. We weren’t teenagers, but we were pretty young, and not knowing how things worked, we just rode the wave. We didn’t know until later how big the song was.”
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