The Green Arrows

A six-piece Zimbabwean ensemble distinguished by its three-guitar frontline, the Green Arrows revolved around siblings Zexie Manatsa on bass and lead vocals alongside Stanley Manatsa on lead guitar, emerging by the mid-1970s as arguably South Africa’s foremost act. Originally assembled in the mid-1960s under the name Mambo Jazz Band, the musicians honed their craft delivering “beer music” across bars and hotels until South African producer and saxophonist West Nkosi encountered them in the early 1970s. Nkosi promptly booked the group for singles sessions in 1974 and 1975, then supervised its debut long-player, the pioneering Chirpo Chiroorwa, released in 1976 and recognized as the first album ever issued by a Zimbabwean band. Zexie Manatsa’s low, raspy singing and commanding bass lines drove the sound, while Stanley Manatsa, Givas Bernard, and Fulton Chikiwati supplied interlocking jangly guitars and Raphael Mboweni supplied the drumming, resulting in a funky, fully electric approach that furnished an early blueprint for the chimurenga idiom later polished by Thomas Mapfumo and his successors. The band commanded enormous regional popularity from the 1970s through the early 1980s before successive lineup shifts eroded its momentum, eventually steering the remaining members toward gospel material under the name Gospel Arrows. In 2006 Alula Records reissued the complete Chirpo Chiroorwa album plus bonus tracks on CD under the title 4-Track Recording Session, still the definitive entry point to this inventive and exhilarating outfit.