Johnny was 15 and I was about to start at Wits following conscript military service in the SA Navy. A friend and I purchased a 1948 Land Rover for R400 and planned to spend the year-end holidays driving through southern Africa – with a personal budget of all we could afford, R80 each.

We needed four people to have the R300 we estimated the trip really would cost, plus a contingency. I had “recruited” a teacher from the school where I was teaching until Wits began – we needed one more. An ad in the Johannesburg Star classifieds elicited a call from a wonderful woman, in the music industry, saying she had a son in high school who was kind of different but would be good on such a trip, would we accept him?

I really only cared that he/she had R80, but we went through the formality of a personal interview – which made sense as were going to be cramped in the Landie and camping alongside it for eight-plus weeks.

So Johnny Clegg became our fourth travelling partner.

We set off to eSwatini/Swaziland, with minimal luggage but a Clegg guitar case stuffed in the back somewhere. We only broke down twice en route to Manzini. We were planning on heading through to Mozambique with plans to drive north from Maputo (Lourenco Marques/LM) through Beira, on to Blantyre and through Livingstonia to the shores of Lake Malawi, Monkey Bay then home via the then Rhodesia/now Zimbabwe – somehow.

The budget only allowed for sleeping out at night, basic local food – three mangoes for a “penny” and a sack full of fresh shellfish for R1 on the beach of Inhambane with cheap Green Wine were the highlights – and petrol at the 30 cents/gallon (3.78 litres/gallon). Then through Vilanculos before crossing the Save River on a floating raft affair pulled by ropes en route to Beira.

Sleeping in the bush, on beaches with sand, Tsetse flies and mosquito bites wherever.

From Beira to Malawi meant crossing one of the four Zambezi River bridges, at Tete, before driving through “Frelimo country” in a convoy of vehicles protected by the Portuguese military.

While there were many adventures getting this far, it was from Tete onwards that Johnny became the light of the trip. Everyone headed to Malawi had to wait in the dust-road-only Tete for as many days as the Portuguese decided before they and “their” convoy were to drive on – with typically an hour-plus notice before final departure. It was hot, dusty and worthy of an African version of a Wild West movie. Waiting, waiting meant the stories of Frelimo grew larger, possibly reflecting the beer consumption in the heat.

Two days later and about 40 minutes out of Tete, the exhaust system sheered off the side of our Land Rover’s engine block. We sounded like an old tank on drugs. Within just a couple of minutes we were surrounded by our Portuguese protectors who were shouting at us to “pull out” of the convoy and wait for two hours until they were long gone so our Landie would not alert Frelimo – who were mysteriously missing our approximately 60-vehicle convoy in the first place.

No amount of arguing that the dangers of Frelimo they had convinced us of now persuaded them otherwise – louder and more aggressive versions of “out” were showered on us.

So “out” it was, on the side of a dusty highway in the midst of savannah and December sunshine in central-ish Africa. Within a short while, once the Landie’s engine had sort of cooled down, Johnny climbed onto the front of the Landie and placed his butt in the spare tyre perched on the bonnet of our rather worse-for-wear vehicle. Guitar across his body, Johnny started through some of his then emerging repertoire – with a personal quietness that was so special about him. He sang for much of the two hours until we set off for the Malawi border before it closed for the night. It was Christmas Eve – December 24. He brought peace to us all.

Sounding like who knows what, we eventually made it to the Malawian border 30 minutes before closing time – given the noise of our Landie, the dustiness of our faces and the short-on-any-humour in our demeanour, it was an odd conversation persuading the border guards to “let us in”.

Now on to Blantyre with a bloody noisy vehicle and nowhere planned to stay. Travellers’ lore has it that when in doubt, go find the Sikh Temple and they will have a room for guests. They were beyond gracious and stunning in generosity, including finding a cousin to fix the Landie on Christmas Day – at no charge. Wow.

The drive to Mt. Mulanje, then Zomba Plateau, and sleeping in the mountain club lodge was followed by a few nights of sleeping in the open “courtroom” of the Tribal Courts – as long as we arrived after 4pm, left before 8am and asked the resident Judge nicely. The Chief of these Judges was in Lilongwe; he interviewed us in his elegant office as he was intrigued by our story, but mostly Johnny’s, and why we had a huge Z painted on the side of the Landie. While it was my obsession with the recently released movie on the Greek revolt at repression, Z, we chose to explain that it was part of ZA for or home country. Hmmm. He was gracious.

More driving – east, south and ultimately a hair-raising 22-hairpin-bend drive down the plateau to Lake Malawi from near Livingstonia, with brakes that failed and a cheerful car-fixer in the middle of the wilds, brought us to the shores of the most beautiful lake, hot, disgruntled and looking for personal space far apart, but not too far from one another.

We were near Monkey Bay on the shores of the Lake, swimming, cooling down and generally repairing ourselves. Fifty metres away, Johnny was sitting in tall grass on a rock with his feet in the water, singing to his guitar as he found his equilibrium again.

Quietly, a woman appeared from a nearby village and sat near Johnny – she was in floods of tears. Raised a Zulu, she had married a Malawian miner and come to his home village, near where we now were. She had not heard Zulu ever since, let alone Zulu songs sung with the intensity, subtlety and beauty that was Johnny.

They talked, hugged, cried, sang. She left quietly. It was about 4pm as I remember that moment.

About two hours later, as we were looking sadly at some local fruit and bread we had bought for dinner, there was a rising noise of song and movement coming down the hill from the village. Johnny’s friend had mobilised the villagers to bring us a chicken dinner and some pretty strong beer, and to hear the”‘voice of the white Zulu angel”.

A night never to be forgotten.

While the trip home through Zim had its own magical adventures, we made it back having covered so many thousands of miles, slept under the stars of southern Africa, under the roofs of the Malawi Tribal Courts and anywhere that looked vaguely safe. We had formed very strong personal bonds – particularly brother-like between Johnny and myself.

A week after returning to Johannesburg, both Johnny and I were really ill with malaria and all the bad stuff that comes with that, despite all the required drugs taken in advance.

Over the years our bonds were weakened by distance but never our caring for one another – I was at concerts at UCT in the Cape, Johannesburg Civic Centre and small clubs in Boston and New York, where I now live.

Johnny, you are a legend, go in peace. You deeply affected my life. DM

Dr Adam Klein is Adjunct Professor, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York