Various Artists – All-Star Festival (1963)

This compilation album was released by the United Nations to support the refugees of the world. It's from the year 1963. I have a feeling that nothing like this happens anymore, which is a shame. Although, I don't really know if anyone would buy a record like this anymore anyway. I got this vinyl album from my father's aunt who doesn't really listen to LPs anymore. It has some excellent old-timey music. Mainly commercial jazz, blues and pop. There isn't really that clear theme in the selection of songs. I guess these are just popular artists from the time. There are some really big names on this album, such as Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Edith Piaf and Ella Fitzgerald. I feel like the range of popular music at the time was much more international. It's not all English language music either, although most of it is.



The album kicks off with an amazing laid-back song Lazy River, performed by Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. This is the kind of music that I might expect to hear on the background in a Woody Allen film. Maybe during a montage where a couple in love is doing funny things around Paris or New York. I love how this kind of music really takes me back to those films where the characters always have all the time in the world to just hang about town and go to parties.

The Everlasting Arms, performed by Doris Day, has some harp music and beautiful singing, with an added spice of strings. This sounds a lot like a Disney song. Nana Mouskouri's Ximeroni is a typical Greek folk song. It changes the mood quite a lot from the old jazz standards. Ella Fitzgerald's All of Me changes the mood back to old jazz this time with a larger music hall/big band sounds. Édith Piaf's Je m'imagine is a great French chanson where her distinguishable voice is just as lovely as you'd come to expect. Anne Shelton's interpretation of Greensleeves is a very dreamlike. Like out of a storybook. Mahalia Jackson's Nobody But Jesus takes us to groovy gospel sounds. The singing voice is just great. It's strange to think how different the atmosphere is in churches where this kind of music is performed compared to European churches. The album ends with Caterina Valente's La Golondrina. This Mexican song sounds like the music played in traditional Mexican restaurants.

This kind of music sounds very old these days and it can only be listened to with retro in mind. But I think this is a really good compilation to own for the sake of education. There's some music on this album that I would never listen to otherwise. Maybe I should. I truly enjoy many of these songs.

I don't know if this kind of idea would really work anymore, because people see these kinds of compilation albums as kind of pointless at the time of Spotify and Youtube. But I do think that well curated compilation albums are a good way to get acquainted with new music. And I really like owning music like this on vinyl, because there's something very special about listening to old sounds like this with that scratch on the background.

Listen to songs from this album on Spotify.