Jonah Sithole ranks among the top guitarists in Zimbabwean pop. Best known for his adaptations of music from the ancient, spiritually charged mbira (22-pronged thumb piano) Sithole has also played most of the styles popular in Zimbabwe through the revolution decade of the `70s, and up to the present. Sithole first picked up a guitar at 12 when his older brother played lead in a band that entertained mine workers at the Shabani mine in southern Zimbabwe, near the border with Mozambique. Sithole used to borrow his brother's instrument, and he learned the basics simply by imitating the music he heard around him. Sithole's professional career began a few years later when he left high school in Bulawayo to play bass in his brother's band, then based in Kwekwe. He started his first group in 1970 in the capital, Harare, and he continued his wandering ways playing Zairean rumba with the Limpopo Dance Band, and also pop and soul with the Great Sounds in Mutare.

1974 saw the fateful meeting between Jonah Sithole and Thomas Mapfumo, Zimbabwe's best known pop singer. The two artists crossed paths at the Jamaica Inn outside Harare and they worked together on and off for the next 14 years, most notably from 1978 to `81, the period during which Sithole fused his band, The Storm, with Thomas's Acid Band to form The Blacks Unlimited, the group Thomas still leads today. Together, Sithole and Mapfumo produced some of the classic songs of chimurenga or "struggle" music, deeply rooted in mbira and other traditions and fueled by the visionary militancy of the Zimbabwean independence struggle. Sithole played the leads on The Blacks Unlimited's landmark 1980 album Gwindingwe Rine Shumba, a celebration of the country's hard-won independence.

Sithole parted ways with Thomas most recently in 1988, and he went on to play with The Pied Pipers and then singer Dorothy Masuko, a veteran star often compared with her contemporary Miriam Makeba of South Africa. But in 1992, Sithole once again became a bandleader, reforming Deep Horizon, the group he had first created a decade before during an earlier falling out with Thomas. Deep Horizon's 1992 song "Sabhuku" established Sithole and his group as major players in Zimbabwe's burgeoning pop scene. The words tell a poignant tale of a village headman or Sabhuku, who proves unresponsive to his people, losing first their respect, and consequently his power and position. The song's music presents a skilled reworking of "Nhemamusasa," one of the most beautiful and popular songs in the traditional mbira repertoire. In arranging the song for mbira, bass, guitar, keyboard, drums and percussion, Sithole shows his trademark sensitivity to the original mbira piece. "Mbiras create confusion for other musicians," warns Sithole. "You really have to rehearse each song independently or you wind up just filling in gaps rather than playing melodies." Sithole rejoined the Blacks Unlimited in 1995, and alongside another veteran guitarist Joshua Dube, he thrilled Zimbabwean audiences with what would turn out to be his final performances. Hard times led this pioneer mbira guitarist back to the Blacks Unlimited, but for many fans, it was where he belonged all along. Sithole recorded two cassettes with Mapfumo and the band, and was the sole guitarist on the CD Chimurenga: African Spirit Music (Womad Select 1997), a classic by any measure. His health failing from the illness that has robbed Zimbabwe of too many great musicians--AIDS--Sithole died in August of 1997.