Joseph Pessach (November 17, 1905, Sir Lowry's Pass Village – April 27, 1978, Los Angeles), better known by his stage name Josef Marais, was a folk-singer from South Africa.[1]
Marais left South Africa in the 1920s to study violin and viola in Europe, finally settling in London. He toured as a concert violinist for several years and when he heard that His Master's Voice was eager to record songs in Afrikaans for the South African market, he offered his services. The very successful recordings were heard by the BBC who approached Marais with the request that he translate and perform the songs for British audiences. These broadcasts were heard by the British representative of NBC and Marais was invited to New York in 1939 to do a radio show for NBC.[1] During World War II, he worked at the U.S. Office of War Information. In 1945, he started singing with Roosje Baruch de la Bardo, a Dutch immigrant who worked at the Office of War Information as a linguist; in time they became a team and she adopted the name Miranda. They were married in 1947 and performed for more than 30 years as Marais and Miranda, recording many South African traditional folk ballads and original songs such as "Zulu Warrior".[2] [3]
Several of their songs achieved popularity when recorded by high-profile American recording artists, such as "Sugar Bush" (a duet between Doris Day and Frankie Laine), "A-round the Corner (Beneath the Berry Tree)" (Jo Stafford) and "Ma Says, Pa Says" (a duet between Doris Day and Johnnie Ray).[4] [5]