Cover design used for 1950'ies period*

SIDI that has taken over the license of production and distribution from Egyptian Sono Cairo that Digital Press Hellas previously held, augmented with a few more titles from the Sono Cairo catalogue. I have not yet compared versions and don't yet know if they are the same recordings as the ones on Digital Press Hellas nor how they are edited. The quality of the ones I have gotten sofar are all very good except for the Aghani film Aydah that has better sound on the Sono Cairo K7. I will update this list as soon as I have some more information. 72 of the CD's below are also available as a boxed set J72-001 Golden Collection of Oum Kolthoum - The Diva of Arab Music.

SIDI has changed their numbering system once and the numbers in front are the ones in their first catalogue. Numbers and titles last revised at 980404/LF.

* The CD's three different covers are supposed to indicate chronology, and the titles are also listed in groups under headlines like: Song's of the 40's, Song's of the 50's, Song's of the 60's, Song's of the 70's. A closer look at the titles listed however reveal that this is not such a strict order, or there are misunderstandings about the dating.The years given behind a title are just an indication of what artwork has been used for the CD. For a probably much more accurate dating click on each title to go to the firstline index that has not only the date but some other pertinent information about the songs.

[said by a Canadian distributor in Toronto to be temporarily withdrawn due to fabrication error. Someone (I cannot find his e-mail address any longer) claimed that he had all these three in his 72-CD Boxed set. Maby they were all included in the beginning. Maby also the contents of the Box have changed due to licence disagreements over the 3-4 years it has been in existence.

(If anyone have this please tell me soemthing about the contents. My guess is that it follows the Sono Cairo K7 and in the year 2000 there was also a release of all these on a new K7 edition from Sono Cairo)

No.82025

Touf We Shouf
Hak Beladak
Soat Beladak
Soat El Watan

SIDI 94 SDCD 01B55 SONOCD 232 Majm'oat Aghani Wataniah (Part 1) 1970-73 [check]

Part 2 is not included in the boxed set and seems to have been renamed (but only in their catalogue):

Majm'oat Aghani Wataniah (Part 1) -> Nationalistic songs (2)
Majm'oat Aghani Wataniah (Part 3) -> Nationalistic songs (1)

The numbering has some gaps in it and may have been left for future releases, but it is actuaally more reasonable to beleive that they emanate from withdrawn titles or plain errors! The following numbers I have not been able to establish in any catalogue (I have sofar seen three). Note also that there is nothing pre 1940 according to the dates given by the company. For material of that period on CD refer to either the 8 volumes published by Club du Disque Arabe or the sofar 5 volumes publishedby EMI-Music Arabia, Dubai. For K7's there is a good series of 14 volumes on Sono Cairo, Egypt, even containing 21 more songs than the CD releases together. There is also a probably no longer obtainable K7 release by EMI-Greece. (I'll list the contents of those later ok! /LF)

Any comments are welcome e-mail: disco@bolingo.org