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Last week, Joseph Shabalala, Founder and Choral Director of the iconic South African musical group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, died at the age of 78. At the direction of South Africa’s President Cyril Rhamaposa, Shabalala will be buried on February 22 in a Special Official Funeral held in his honor.

Just two days after his passing on February 11, Ladysmith Black Mambazo was on tour in the US. My wife and I had the pleasure of chaperoning the class of our five-year-old granddaughter to one of their performances on the campus of UC Davis. Not any performance, but a midday show at the famed Mondavi Center, filled to capacity with more than 1,800 kindergarten and elementary school students, some of whom had traveled with their teachers from as far as three hours away to hear the concert.

It had been a decade since I last heard the group perform live. I was reminded that I carry their music deep within me; their harmonies always seem to emanate from someplace inside my soul. I consider this a result of the group’s magic, perhaps, but just as much a function of my own lost history, of which their music will always be a reminder.

1960 was a watershed year in South Africa. It was the year of The Sharpeville Massacre, which led my family to flee the country when I was fourteen. In that same year, nineteen-year-old Shabalala had a series of dreams in which he heard Mbube harmonies—a form of South African vocal music—which dramatically influenced the sound of the choral group he founded in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa. The singers later renamed themselves Ladysmith Black Mambazo. (“Mambazo” means axe, referring to how they consistently chopped down competition from other choral groups in South Africa.)

I don’t remember when I first became aware of the group. In my own mind, it was long before 1986, when American singer/songwriter, Paul Simon, began to collaborate with Shabalala on his Graceland album, catapulting Ladysmith Black Mambazo into the global spotlight. I do know I made it a point of attending their concerts whenever I could. It was a small way of maintaining some connection to my past.

In 2007, after an absence of nearly forty years, I returned to South Africa with my wife. We drove through the province of KwaZulu-Natal and explored the town of Ladysmith, hoping to hear the harmonies I had come to associate with the name. I was not disappointed. As in most places in South Africa, music and singing are ubiquitous. At a small restaurant just outside the town, we stopped for lunch and were warmly welcomed. In conversation with the owner, we talked about my having been uprooted from South Africa to the US. In the middle of our meal, a young man tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, his voice filled with hope. “I heard you say that you were from America. Can I ask if you know the man, Paul Simon?”

He was a singer waiting to be discovered. Not wanting to dash his hopes, I reminded him that if I was only six degrees of separation from Paul Simon, so was he.

At last week’s concert, nearly 2,000 young mouths hung open as the singers began to harmonize in their trademark a cappela, as they joyfully danced across the stage. Between beats, pins dropping on the floor would have been audible. Several of Joseph Shabalala’s sons performing with the group were introduced to the audience as a prelude to a musical tribute to their father and legendary founder.

It now falls to them and the group Shabalala created to carry on the heart work of this man described as one of South Africa’s best ambassadors. His music will live long into the future, and his contribution to global harmony will not be soon forgotten.