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| Bophuthatswana Reserve |
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During this time he auditioned for what he thought would be his big break into Las Vegas. Wrong again. He was offered a month with the Dancing Machine at Sun City in South Africa.
| Harare in Zimbabwe |
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So Liberty kissed his beautiful girlfriend Dayna goodbye and bid farewell to his parents, three brothers, and numerous nephews and nieces, for what was intended to be a brief and profitable business trip, packed his two suitcases, and boarded an SAA jet to Johannesburg. The month became two and then three, and then the show moved on to Tasmania.
| Zulus |
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Liberty stayed behind to see what he could do on the great continent of mystery and adventure. Sweet and lovely Dayna didn't want to come out to Africa and soon found a substitute, whom she married. Lib put the heartbreak behind him and tried to see what he could do to take his mind off his lost love.
| Sangoma--Medicine Woman |
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After three more months in South Africa, he had to slip away to Zimbabwe to avoid political problems, and there he worked in Harare at the Archipelago Club for two months with an 11-piece band from Zaire. It was an amazingly pleasant time for him, with parties, barbecues, meeting new friends that he would remember the rest of his life and tasting the experience of living in a beautiful central African country where wildlife roamed free and life was so relaxed and easy.
| On a Kalahari road |
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Returning to South Africa, now fully documented, Liberty embarked on a concert tour as support act for Geraldine Brannigan, the Irish recording artist, who was then quite popular there. It was a long and interesting tour, crossing Zululand, Transkei, the Transvaal, Natal, the Cape Province, and three deserts, the Karoo, the Namib, and the Kalahari.
| Swazi family and Lib |
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After that came the concert at the grand Good Hope Centre in Cape Town, where George Benson had played after his engagement at Sun City. Problems ensued when the promoter took the proceeds of the concert and absquatulated to France with her boyfriend, leaving Liberty destitute for months while he waited for payment, under litigation, of the money still owed to him from his time in Zimbabwe over a year before.
| Gladys and Swazi tribesmen |
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Stints in Namibia, Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, and Swaziland followed later.
(Liberty later found himself back in the African tropics when it became necessary to move to the Canary Islands for a short time--which later turned into a two-and-a-half-year stint.)
Going up to work in Swaziland was a great time for Liberty. The pace of life there was so easy-going that it made Zimbabwe look like New York. The first time was at the Royal Swazi Spa and the second time was a wild six-week run at the Why Not? Disco in Ezulwini. Ezulwini means Happy Valley.
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