Just as in Italy I purchased local artists, here in Hamburg I decided to look out for something German. After all, international pop or classical music I can get elsewhere but this is the place to check out home-grown music. Luckily for me, Hamburg still has huge shop with movies, music and electronics so I browsed to my heart delight and after some research decided the only thing I really can't live without would be compilation of German recordings by lovely Lys Assia who was very first winner of Eurovision Song Contest back in 1956 - since I grew up with annual TV spectacle, this is something that instantly appealed to me and good thing is that I bought it because her other title disappeared immediately.
Swiss-born Lys Assia for me represents all the best about Eurovision - when she won, back in 1950s, European schlager music was all about sentimental orchestrated ballads sparkled with magic dust, proper pronunciation, heavenly strings, restrained passion and of course backing choirs oohing to the skies. I didn't know anything else about her except lovely "Refrain" (and on my Eurovision LP compilation it was in French version) so the moment I saw this, CD was in my hands.
It is a double CD compilation of her German singles released 1951-1960 and quite generous, I must admit. Just as I expected, Assia was a lovely, classy lady who chirped sweetly not unlike Doris Day (in fact, she covers "Que Sera, Sera" here) and her repertoire was light pop of the day, something absolutely not cool today but I have stopped worrying about that since I was teenager so this suits me just fine and I love it. Honestly I don't know who else but me and Eurovision fanatics would listen to Lys Assia these days, however I am thrilled with my new purchase. Just imagine elegant, sophisticated and coiffured lady who was also multi-lingual and who was performing romantic 1950s light pop, lots of covers - many of these songs I recognized (Cole Porter's "True Love", "Arivederci Roma", "Ein Schiff wird kommen", "Jolie Jacqueline", "Tammy", "Domino", "Mi casa, su casa", "Melodie d'Amour") while others confused me because either because of German language ("Wenn die Glocken hell erklingen" turned out to be Edith Piaf cover) or because orchestrated schlager versions were so sugary that it took me forever to connect the melody to original (her almost Disney version of "Ein klaines Haus am Ende der Welt" is actually "Blueberry Hill" but I had to think hard about that one. Many of songs here were adopted regularly by lots of other international singers from the same era, "Monsieur Taxi-Chauffer" for example I recognize from Swedish version by Alice Babs. Of course we have German version of Assia's shiny moment - "Refrain" in German - but also her other Eurovision song, "Giorgio" that almost won next year (she came second) and which sound incredibly innocent and childish today, as most of 1950s pop does actually. With few exceptions it is a wonderful compilation that represents best of continental sound of light popular music of those days.
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