Sun City was a 1985 album that contained several versions of the Steven Van Zandt-led Artists United Against Apartheid's "Sun City" protest song against apartheid in South Africa as well as other selections in the same vein from that project.
Featuring Afrika Bambaataa, Big Youth, Ruben Blades, Kurtis Blow, Bono, Duke Bootee, Jackson Browne, Ron Carter, Clarence Clemons, Jimmy Cliff, George Clinton, Miles Davis, Will Downing, Bob Dylan, The Fat Boys, Bob Geldof, Herbie Hankock, Nona Hendryx, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Eddie Kendrick, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Joey Ramone, Lou Reed, David Ruffin, RUN-DMC, Scorpio, Gil Scott Heron, Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Star, Tina B, Pete Townshend, Bobby Womack.
In addition to the title track, other songs were recorded at the time completed an album's worth of material. Drummer-musician Keith LeBlanc and journalist Danny Schechter came up with "Revolutionary Situation", an audio-collage set to music that took its title from the words of South Africa's then-interior minister Louis Nel condemning the state of the country. Amid a background of yapping police dogs, sounds of mayhem and revolt in the township, LeBlanc and Schechter mixed in angry declarations by activists like Alan Boesak, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela's daughter Zindzi, looped with what was at that time the most recent interview with her father, recorded in 1961.
Inspired by meetings with other artists who volunteered, Bono of U2 went back to his hotel room and wrote "Silver and Gold" the same evening. The song was quickly recorded, with Keith Richards and Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones, and Peter Wolf of The J. Geils Band. Wood's guitar work is notable for using Keith's switchblade as a slide. "Silver and Gold" was also distributed separately as a promotional single. A last-minute inclusion, the song was left off the track listings of the original 1985 album and cassette pressings and considered to be a hidden track. Bono later explained, in an appearance on the US syndicated radio show "Rockline" with Bob Coburn, that he submitted the tape of the song after the album's artwork had been printed by EMI Manhattan Records.[1] When Razor and Tie reissued the album in 1993, the song was included on the track listings. U2 also recorded two versions of the song: a live version in the Rattle and Hum film and album and a studio version on the B-side of "Where the Streets Have No Name".
Digitally remastered