Customer Reviews

Africa

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Maybe I'm biased because I grew up listening to Makeba, but it's great to find her songs from the 1970's put onto a CD. This was the period when her voice was its absolute finest -- no matter how much you love Makeba's later works, here her voice is like a mix of Dinah Washington's power and Ella Fitzgerald's smoothness. I'm personally not a huge fan of the way so much "world music" today has been subsumed by rock and jazz -- on these songs, although the instruments are western and a few of the songs are somewhat pop, this is the closest you'll get to hearing Makeba sing in a really traditional style. For those of you who tend to listen to Classical music, and are therefore sensitized to inane percussion in today's rock & jazz, you'll very much like the mixes they do here; they keep her voice foremost and frontmost in the composition, so it's more like Makeba singing songs, than like a studio composition. I listen to this one over & over again, & never get tired of it.

This collection features recordings made by Mariam Makeba from 1960 to 1965 in the USA. These recordings were responsible for the introduction of South African music to a larger international audience. Makeba's amazing personality shines through all of these songs, affirming her position as the queen of South Africa music. Later Makeba married one of the leaders of the Black Panthers, which caused the Authorities to deport her to Europe. Previous reviews mentioned "the retreat song" and "the click song" as outstanding. I love these songs but for me the second part of the CD (songs 12-24) is even more spectacular. A song of praise for Kenyan leader Jomo Kenyatta ("Pole Mze"), a song of love to the leading quatert of South African revolution - Subukwe, Lutuli, Mandela and Sisulu ("Nogqongqo" from 1965) and the everlasting "Kwazulu". Makeba delivers these with the utmost love that radiates straight into the heart. Through these songs I started to love South African music.

This album revisits the young Makeba before she became "Mama Africa". The instrumentation is immediately recognizable as early 60s "world beat", but her voice shines through the sometimes syrupy accompaniment. A lot of songs for the money and some of her deserving classics. A nice album and a good addition to an Africa world-beat CD collection.

The songs here on this album make me envious of the people who are able to speak and sing this musical language. The "Retreat Song" especially, and "The Click Song". They make you want to get up and dance to their very distinctive beats, and make you want to go out and find that place in Africa where the people are so joyful that they make up such gorgeous music. These songs speak out to you. I highly recommend this recording to anyone.

This is the first exposure I've had to Miriam and I love this Album! I do believe she has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard. The rambunctious " click" song is great.

Mariam Makeba was and is a legend. Her introduction of African style music to the United States during the 1960s and 70s opened the way for many groups playing and singing folk-style and pop-style music with an African flavor. What can I say, Makeba is just wonderful in this series of songs mostly sung in her native Zulu dialect. I was fascinated by the fact that the various Bantu related languages have taken on some of the click sounds used by the Khoisan-speaking "bushmen."

This recording, more than any other, seems to me to capture the spirit of Africa that failed to be crushed by political repression. If you like African music you will like this CD!

I grew up with just one of Miriam Makeba's albums, the only one available at that time, simply called: Miriam Makeba. Technology has outdated the record albums, replaced with tapes and now cd's. That album, no longer available, I searched for some of my favorite songs, and they are here. Miriam Makeba has a beautiful voice, a warm voice. If you want an introduction to Miriam Makeba, I recommend this one.

I can't understand a word of it. But; her voice is a musical instrument as wonderful to hear as charlie parkers horn or george shearing's piano. A perfect evening a glass of fine wine and listening to the above.

I first heard some of this music in the 1960's when I was still living in England and my best friend had gone to South Africa for a year. She sent me a single with 'The Click Song' on it, because of apartheid she wasn't supposed to do that. I'm glad she did because Miriam Makeba has a beautiful crystal-like voice which moves me to this day. I don't understand any of the words, but manage to sing along anyway! This is a happy, uplifting CD, certainly worth owning.

The jubilant, warm excitement that comes across on this album is almost tangible. So much of "World Music" can sound contrived, overly spit-shined and polished up to the point that what makes it valuable culturally has been cleaned up and edited away. This album by Miriam Makeba is exactly what valuable "World Music" should sound like - it takes you away to the place where the music originated, and through only one sense, makes you feel as if you're surrounded by the others, and actually in the originating locale.

Miriam Makeba's name is one that's been familiar to me since childhood. My parents enjoyed listening to her music, even taking me in my childhood to a concert in which she performed with Hugh Masekela. I'd honestly not even remembered that her music could be as engaging and uplifting as it is, until a recent auto ad came out playing her very catchy "Pata Pata". Ever since the first time that I heard the song played in that Honda ad, I've been on a bend to get my hands on an album with a good recording of it. Even though it's not on this album, the songs recorded here really do keep me from missing it too much. This is a great album, and one that you won't regret adding to your collection, especially at the great prices it's being sold for!

Incidentally, if you ARE looking for that particular version of "Pata Pata" that's played in the 2010 ad for the Honda Accord Crosstour, I believe that you'll find it on Her Essential Recordings: The Empress of African Song. Cheers!