Lola Novaković early recordings

Now this is a strange, little historical artifact - the very first single by girl who will soon became biggest female pop star in Ex Yu.
Late 1950s were years when lot of new pop singers appeared on a music scene and were mostly gracing stages of than-immensely popular pop festivals, our own version of not-so-distant San Remo. It is interesting fact that those festivals were firstly planned as presentation of composers and singers were actually secondary (often same song was sung in two different versions by different singers). Its very interesting to hear all those young guys and girls from todays perspective because one can clearly hear foreign influences and who wanted to be Doris Day and who Ella Fitzgerald.

Lola Novaković is recorded here with Spanish-language movie theme (very clumsy Spanish, I must say) and pronunciation aside, her strong, clear voice is backed with some great arrangements (its truly a bolero). As a sharp contrast to this bolero, B side got true swing number (a cover of course) that sounds incredibly enthusiastic and optimistic, except that lyrics unfortunately have nothing to do with original ("Little Red Riding Hood" completely replaced "Alice in Wonderland") but if listener ignores this mash up with lyrics, its a great swinging music and wonderfully shows off the versatility of young singer. I am great fan of this old recordings and find them very enjoyable.

Great early 1960s songbird emoting trough than popular music landscape and backed with professional orchestra.
Novaković had a strong voice and recognisable tone, often matching foreign originals with passion and "tear" in her voice - here she bravely faces Italian originals (San Remo of course), full blown Spanish melodrama and even than new Greek hit "Never on Sunday". Though her strong voice sometimes sound strident when she belts, whenever she tone it down its quite amazing - this kind of singing was fashion at the time. She was certainly very versatile.

It is hard to understand today why would recording company release several EP recordings with absolutely identical cover but apparently this is how things worked way back in 1960s.

Lola Novaković was hit-maker of the first order during early 1960s and "Jugoton" served her well with nice,little EP recordings that perfectly mirror the soundtrack of time - she had cute,little (somewhat squeaky) voice, instantly recognisable and easily translated into theatrical ballads or upbeat novelty songs. Because she could sing anything, this is exactly what she got: two cinematic ballads and two pop jingles. In ballads (Italian and French origin) she is powerful and subdued, her voice nice and clear - it took me some time to get used to her tone but now I find it pleasant - while upbeat songs are, well, upbeat. "Rosalie" is note-for-note cover of cowboy song (relative of "Cowboy Jimmy") that almost bursts into Dixieland but manages to stay firm in music frame of wild west. "Valentino" is much better, pretty Tango that Novaković emotes calmly,like a dream.

Her early 1960s recordings are very interesting survey of what was popular back than - Novaković was professional enough to tackle absolutely any music genre under the sun and she almost did. Listen her recordings and you will find Tango, San Remo covers, schlager, Jazz, even Rock (via covers of Italian singers like than-young Mina). Give her Spanish melodramatic songs or Mexican waltzes, Novaković was right there, with just right amount of pathos in her voice to impress mainstream audience who followed her with great admiration. This versatility is simultaneously gift and a curse - gift because from today's perspective Novaković is far more interesting than her contemporaries, a curse because sometimes her discography seems roaming all over the place and some music choices are questionable - what was popular at the time (Mexican waltzes, for example) sound cheesy today, but Novaković did it with such aplomb that its hard to tell where her heart exactly lied, in dreamy orchestrated ballads or in commercial material. However, I dare listener to find a wrong note in anything she had recorded back than - its all very professional and polished to perfection.

Very interesting EP with music from Spanish movies - for once, Novaković left simple jingles aside and focused on really beautiful, orchestrated music straight from Spanish popular songbook, Carmen and all. It is very impressive, specially when one consider Ex Yu singers back than were mostly limited with right material and often sang cutesy cha cha cha numbers popular at the time, even Novaković herself was singing ditties only a few years ago - here she got huge orchestra with cinematic sweep, quasi-classical arrangements and even conductor of serious calibre (Ferdo Pomykalo) so results are quite awesome. Clearly, the idea was to channel than-popular Spanish singer Sara Montiel who had some hugely popular melodramatic movie themes and surprisingly they pulled it off nicely. Pomykalo did the music with a great taste (Hollywood would have been impressed) and singer obviously loved this material - this is actually quite impressive and I must admit that I never heard Novaković singing so right. All the songs have Serbian translation and for once, lyrics don't sound forced but poetic (ubiquitous Mario Kinel wrote lyrics for "La Malaguena").

The same year when Lola Novaković recorded impressive Spanish songbook EP, she also did this interesting single with two songs associated with great Italian singer Milva. Where on Spanish EP she was backed by seriously cinematic orchestra of Ferdo Pomykalo, here she got herself equally talented Nikica Kalogjera who surrounds her with swirling strings that sound like foreboding thunder on a horizon. Because originals themselves were bombastic ad theatrical, music here is equally dramatic but Novaković is perfectly at home with it and matches Italian singer perfectly and I must say fearlessly, considering we are talking about San Remo classics. I heard many other Ex Yu singers attempting same feat and failing, but Novaković really nails it here.

"Zlatna Kolekcija"

When Zagreb's "Croatia Records" released this double CD compilation of famous early 1960s songbird from Belgrade, it was surprising just until I realized she had indeed started her discography with releases for "Jugoton" (now "Croatia Records") - Zorana Novaković might have stepped into world in Belgrade but Zagreb was where her recordings were made from 1958 until mid-1960s. That her Croatian colleagues (Arsen Dedić, Gabi Novak, Stjepan Jimmy Stanić, Višnja Korbar) recorded for Belgrade's PGP RTB just shows how music industry back than worked differently.

Raised on Hollywood musicals and singers like Doris Day and Caterina Valenti, Novaković learned her craft trough performances in Belgrade's hotels and engagements trough Eastern Germany where she recorded her first single (released by "Jugoton" under license) but it was a year and half spend singing in Middle East's night clubs that gave her self-confidence and experience that resulted with victorious return home, triumphant solo concert (first ever by single artist) and continuous stream of hit singles, first of them being cute little ditty she had brought home from Middle East - "Mustafa".

This double CD compilation focuses on recordings Novaković made while under contract for "Jugoton" and they surely gave her star treatment. Her strong, clear and recognizable voice was very versatile and she showed equal enthusiasm for uptempo ditties as for sentimental ballads - perhaps under all those Italian covers, cha cha cha, San Remo, Manos Hadjidakis and country & western tunes it is hard to find who real Novaković was but apparently she had no problems with it and heroically plowed trough everything recording company threw at her, be it "Quando Calienta El Sol", "Moliendo Cafe", "La Malaguena", Mexican "Gotazon Apasinado" or something called "Ko-ko-da". Among all her famous singles and EP recordings, this compilation brings also some of her most popular festival performances ("Jednom u gradu ko zna kom") and they were without exception far more focused, stylish and elegant than the rest of Novaković's discography: included is her 1964. Eurovision entry "Ne pali svetla u sumrak" where she easily overshadowed even Claudio Villa (she got to 4th place, which was for a long time highest position Yugoslavia had achieved) - strangely, this song was never released on single and to my knowledge this is first time it was ever properly compiled on CD. Novaković continued later with fair success under PGP RTB but this first decade is where her legend was cemented. Excellent compilation.