WITCH brings the sound and history of Zamrock to the Henry Miller Library stage.

Good music has its way of finding an audience. If it must, it will travel the 10,000 miles that stretch between the copper mining town of Kitwe in Northern Zambia and Big Sur.

This – and 50 years – is how far the band WITCH (We Intend to Cause Havoc), led by vocalist Emanuel “Jagari” Chanda, has traveled to present its version of Zambian Rock, or “Zamrock,” to the intimate Henry Miller Memorial Library on June 23.

For Chanda, the journey is summed up easily: “I just love music,” he says. “People came from different countries to work in the mines of Zambia. They brought along their traditions – dances, music. All that was stuck in me. That was what I was trying to explore when I had the chance to become a musician.”

Zamrock is its own kind of mixture – a sound that emerged in a place newly liberated from Western colonization but still influenced by Western culture.

While in high school, listening to The Monkees and the Rolling Stones on the jukebox at the local mining bar, Chanda responded to an advertisement looking for a vocalist. The first album WITCH recorded was Introduction, released in 1972.

In the mid-’70s, another opportunity arose. Migrants being pursued by their governments in neighboring Zimbabwe and Angola sought refuge in Zambia. In response, President Kenneth Kaunda declared curfews, blackouts and announced that 80 percent of the music played on the Zambian National Radio must originate in Zambia.

“So now everybody rushed to record something,” Chanda says. “That was the [Zamrock] boom.”

Chanda left the band in 1976, however, when his bandmates decided they didn’t want to tour abroad. “We couldn’t get out,” says Chanda, with a hint of regret.

He became a music teacher. WITCH continued to tour locally, and recorded two albums with a new singer.

Then, in 2012, WITCH’s entire catalog was re-issued and, partly because of new national leadership and partly because of a stunning 2019 bio-documentary, a window opened for the then-60-year-old to return to the stage.

“We finally toured Europe and North America,” Chanda says, just days before he is set to take up the mic in Big Sur. “It’s very encouraging.”

WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc) plays at 7pm Thursday, June 23. Henry Miller Memorial Library, 48603 Highway 1, Big Sur. $90. folkyeah.com