9 October 2023

Felicia Marion’s first name says it all. It’s all about felicitations, happiness and joy.   It seems that was her calling. She has been bringing joy to the world with her singing for around 50 years.

For most of those years – about 40 – that joy has been dispensed in the gospel and ministering sphere. Before that, though, Felicia was a singer with top South African female vocal group, Joy, which had the mega-hit in 1980, Paradise Road.

Paradise Road charted off the scale, topping the charts in SA for nine weeks, and became something of an unofficial anthem during the protests of ’80s with its classic lines, “There are better days before us/And a burning bridge behind us. . .”.

Today, Felicia is the only surviving member of the trio.  She celebrates her 68^th birthday in a few weeks. Anneline Malebo died in 2002 and Thoko Ndlozi passed on in 2021. Although the Anneline and Thoko are no longer with us, the achievements of Joy live on through the constant playing of their hit on local radio. It is almost a daily occurrence.

Joy’s flame burnt brightly for just a few years before the departure of Felicia to gospel brought it all to an end. If one were to research the history of the trio today, one wouldn’t have much success.  Two articles on the web is the sum total of what I could find.

For Felicia, it all started back in 1976 when she, a slip of a girl from Maritzburg, was performing in Johannesburg in stage shows and at the famous Pelican Club in Soweto.

“I had started my performing career in Maritzburg in my Dad’s variety show,” Felicia told me. “My Dad formed an almost all-girl group with my sister on bass and I on vocals; two other females – one on rhythm guitar and the other on drums, and guy on lead guitar.

“I moved to Jo’burg in 1976  did gigs around Jo’burg and became a professional performer. I was cast in the chorus for the Des and Dawn Lindberg adaptation of Black Mikado. I was always a performer. I wasn’t trained for anything else.”

For most of 1975 Felicia had been doing Sunday night gigs at The Pelican doing Diana Ross and Motown songs. Around that time, she also gigged with the top jazz outfit, Spirits Rejoice, a group she says was ‘the bestest”.

“Ian Bernhardt [who managed black acts in Jo’burg] suggested I form a trio. I agreed reluctantly. We caught Thoko’s set at Jerry Cohen’s club and I was impressed, so we chatted, exchanged contact details, arranged to meet and shared the vision with her. She was sold.

“Now to find the third one. Spirits Rejoice trumpeter George Tyefumani had heard Anneline in Cape Town, so we called her. She was excited – and that was the birth of Joy in February 1976.”

Neither Anneline nor Thoko were novices in being on stage.  Anneline had toured with the Rockets and Thoko, apart from club gigs and cabaret appearances, was also involved with stage plays presented by noted playwright Gibson Kente.

For the next few years, Joy did clubs and variety shows and being support acts for Spirits Rejoice who had a huge following. Ian Bernhardt’s daughter, Linda, had assumed the management role for the group.

“At the end of 1979, we found that doing covers was not going to work out so Linda and [producer] Greg Cutler decided to approach top record company guys, Patrick Van Blerk and Fransua Roos, to produce original material for us,” Felicia recalls.

The trio did studio recordings for a few weeks and laid down eight tracks. Van Blerk and Roos wrote three for the group and the LP featured four traditional African songs, including the always popular Jikel ‘Emaweni/Qonqgothwane and a stirring Iza Nezembe.

Success for Paradise Road did not come easily.  Linda Bernhardt, in a rare interview, told the Daily Maverick that Joy had broad appeal but was essentially a black act.  And that meant they struggled to get airtime on SABC. However top radio DJ David Gresham latched onto it for his 5.30 Radio Special show and plugged it endlessly. Paradise Road hit the fast lane.

The song made it onto the prestigious Billboard 100 and the young women became support acts for top overseas entertainers and ventured to the UK for TV shows. Back home, they supported Timmy Thomas, Clarence Carter and Dobie Gray on their South African tours, and Leo Sayer at Sun City.

The popularity of Paradise Road earned them two Sarie Awards for Best Vocal Group and Best English LP of the Year in 1980 but it seemed the top-selling album was a hard act to follow.  Joy went on to record another album titled High Life, but, according to Felecia, it did not do very well.

An enforced change to the line-up followed when Anneline left to have her baby.  The group brought in another Capetonian, Brenda Fassie who was just starting out on her stellar career.

The injection of the dynamic Fassie could have taken the group to another level but other things were happening that was going to have a big impact on the group.

Felicia explains: “I really felt uncomfortable with all the trappings of show biz at that point. I was invited to a church service and that was when the realisation ‘hit me’.”

In fact, it was a lot more dramatic than that. The six years performing with Joy had taken its toll on Felicia. She was working in an environment where drugs and alcohol was a constant presence. She had relationship issues and her life was a mess.

Felicia was on the brink of committing suicide when a friend reached out to her and, through a frank discussion about religion and purpose in life, talked her out of it.

She admits walking away from Joy was one of the worst moments she experienced. “I converted to Christianity and that led directly to the group’s demise.”

Joy was no more.  It had given her much – performing with Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba on their world tours (including Mandela’s 70^th birthday concert at Wembley), working with other top local and international acts.  Now, she was on a new Paradise Road.

Felicia threw herself into her faith and in the ensuing years received accolade after accolade. She was awarded the Best Gospel Artist title in 1996 from the Association of South African Music Industry. Three years later, in 1999, she performed at the much-acclaimed Alleluia Gospel Festival in Jamaica.

She has also released a number of gospel albums, including Sweetwaters/Amazimtoti, My Heart is His and Compassion.

As she approaches her 68^th birthday, Felicia still does a few gigs, but “not as much as I’d like to”.

What brings her “joy’ these days?  “What brings me joy these days is a simple life doing gardening which I am extremely passionate about!”

Click on pics to enlarge.