Fred Astaire - Saga All Stars: I Won't Dance! / 1952 (2007)

Saga All Stars lets you rediscover, in the best possible conditions, the immense figures who were, among others, the queen of soul Aretha Franklin, the youthful but already groove-dynamic James Brown, rock’n’roll pioneers Elvis Presley and Gene Vincent, the fantastic crooner Nat King Cole, the irresistible Marilyn Monroe and the spellbinding Nina Simone.

Without question, he was one of the greatest all-around performers in motion picture history, though his vocal skills were among the least of his talents. Indeed, to overstate Fred Astaire's average musical ability only serves to demean his genius as a dancer. The extreme athleticism and rhythmic sophistication of his dance was masked by an air of off-handed suaveness that emphasized an utter control of his medium. That same delivery, transposed to song, revealed a genial, somewhat rhythmically astute, but ultimately unexceptional vocalist whose limitations could not be hidden by strong material and/or a winning personality. Astaire's warbling mezzo tenor was little more than a slightly melodicized extension of his speaking voice, charming, perhaps, and certainly effective given the relatively low artistic standards of the run-of-the-mill Hollywood film, yet no more profound than one of their typically threadbare plots. In the '30s Astaire and Ginger Rogers co-starred in a series of superficial but often quite witty musical comedies, such as Roberta, Top Hat, and Shall We Dance? The most important songwriters of the '30s and '40s wrote songs especially for him, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin among them. He was often the first to sing songs that would become standards and Berlin purportedly preferred Astaire's renditions of his tunes to those of any other vocalist.

Tracklist:
1. Fred Astaire - 'S Wonderful (03:01)
2. Fred Astaire - They All Laughed (02:59)
3. Fred Astaire - The Continental (03:32)
4. Fred Astaire - Change Partners (03:19)
5. Fred Astaire - Dancing in the Dark (04:50)
6. Fred Astaire - Cheek to Cheek (05:43)
7. Fred Astaire - I Won't Dance (03:04)
8. Fred Astaire - Nice Work If You Can Get It (02:11)
9. Fred Astaire - Steppin' Out With My Baby (02:25)
10. Fred Astaire - Night and Day (05:03)
11. Fred Astaire - I Concentrate On You (02:47)
12. Fred Astaire - A Fine Romance (03:48)
13. Fred Astaire - The Way You Look Tonight (03:00)
14. Fred Astaire - They Can't Take That Away from Me (04:26)
15. Fred Astaire - You're Easy to Dance With (03:26)
16. Fred Astaire - Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails (03:48)