The two albums featured on this CD, "Miriam Makeba" and "The World of Miriam Makeba," were favorites of my mother when I was a little girl growing up on the south side of Chicago in the sixties. Mom played them so constantly I came to (phonetically) know most of the songs by heart by the age of nine, precociously singing along to "The Click Song," "Pole Mze," "Little Boy" and "Tonados De Media Noche"--to the great amusement of grown-up family members and guests. I was delighted to discover a Makeba CD featuring not just one but both albums and ordered it immediately, waiting impatiently for its arrival. Upon receiving it I eagerly placed it on my CD player, happily pressed PLAY, sat back smiling as my childhood came floating back to me...

...and was startled, puzzled and more than a little disappointed to discover what appears to have been an error or mix-up for one of the albums.

Though "The World of Miriam Makeba" contained all of the wonderful songs I remembered from my mother's album, many of the selections included for "Miriam Makeba" seem to me to be from a different Makeba record entirely!

Enjoyable as they are, I don't at all recall cuts like "The Naughty Little Flea" or "Olilili" or "Where Does It Lead?" etc., being on either original album, whereas songs like the playful "Can't Cross Over," the dreamy, sensual "(Love Tastes Like) Strawberries" and the heartbreaking lullaby (where a crooning mother consoles a hungry child--there is nothing to eat) "Ntjilo Ntjilo" are absent entirely--what happened here??

Even so, Makeba's voice is so strong and beautiful, and her command of her South African and international material so absolute, that regardless I have to give this collection at least four stars. Only the odd and annoying absence of the aforementioned and other remembered songs keeps this from being a five-star rave.