We’ve recently had an influx of lullaby compilation CDs arrive in our office. Perhaps it has something to do with this time of year which is historically associated with a slowing down for the winter months. I made the mistake of listening to Lullabies of Love at 4.30pm yesterday when our office window had let through its last light. The calming Celtic tunes did nothing to alleviate my sleepy feeling; I guess that means the CD did its job well.
Lullabies of Love is a collection of Celtic lullabies produced in aid of One Home Many Hopes in Kenya. It’s a soothing compilation, although if you’re listening for pleasure you may find all 18 tracks a bit much for one sitting.
The Rough Guide to African Lullabies has a very different feel to it. Drawing together a selection of artists from across the continent, the album makes for good listening even if you don’t intend to nod off. If you can keep your eyes open until the end, a gem of a song awaits you. The original 1974 recording of Miriam Makeba’s ‘Malaika’ has that spark that earned Makeba her the epithet Mama Africa. At the other end of the track listing is the opener, ‘Mbube’ (otherwise known as ‘Wimoweh’ or ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’) sung by Ladysmith Black Mambazo. This is a slower version than the original song with a nice spoken introduction telling the story of a family living in the jungle. Sandwiched in the middle of these two classics are offerings by Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba who draw on the roots of desert blues, as well as other West African masters such as Toumani Diabaté and the legendary guitarist Ali Farka Touré. Also featured is Congolese guitarist Jean Bosco Mwenda, Eyuphuro from Mozambique and Zimbabwean Virginia Mukwesha.
Alongside African Lullabies, Rough Guides have also recently released a World Lullabies compilation. The liner notes to World Lullabies don’t make it clear whether every song is a lullaby, but the overall tone of the album is soothing and takes us across the world via Cuba and the Americas, Israel, Armenia, Madagascar and Scotland. One track however, doesn’t quite fit the mood: Michel ‘Beausolei’ Doucet’s ‘P’tit Galop Our Mamou’ is a Cajun dance tune which is a jolt of liveliness amidst the calm that, I suspect, would do little to help baby on her way to dreamland.
One last CD worth mentioning – if only because of its bizarre and arresting title – is Lullabies From the Axis of Evil. Released in 2004, the compilation features musicians from countries which George W Bush classified as enemies of the US during a 2002 speech in which he coined the term ‘axis of evil.’ The album is a series of mash-ups of a capella songs recorded in situ. Some juxtapositions work well while others bear obvious signs of doctoring to fit with instrumentation overlaid during production.
There have been a whole host of other lullaby releases this year, including World Lullabies (an independent release) and Lullaby by Celtic Woman. With two lullaby albums in the same year, I’m wondering if Rough Guides are trying to tell us something; perhaps we should all hibernate through the next trough of the recession since there’s plenty of listening material to keep us heavy-eyed. Or perhaps it was the last recession and its subsequent baby boom that spawned this trend in the first place… If that is the case, I’m sure there’ll be more sleepy-tuned compilations in the year to come. What all these albums highlight is a universal theme of love and nurture for our young ones the world over.
Let us know if there are any other lullaby CDs out this year that we should know about.
Olivia Haughton
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