Kurt Darren - For Your Precious Love

And, unlike so many Afrikaans artists, his isn’t spoiled by a plodding Boere accent when he makes the leap to English pop.

So, Kurt taking on eleven homegrown, proudly South African pop hits should be a strictly good thing. Except that’s only half-true.

For Your Precious Love is an admirable update to Kurt’s catologue of vocal achievements, but thanks to some stodgy production comes off as borderline cheesy. Of course, these famous songs weren’t written yesterday, and probably over-indulged on synth and sax in their original incarnations by bands like The Flames, Charisma and The Staccatos.

The uptempo songs suffer the most, although “Cry To Me” is so irrepressably catchy that even younger listeners might not mind being thrown into its time warp. When things slow down and Kurt belts out a hear-felt “I Don’t Know Why”, however, all the dignity of the original stays intact.

But it’s 2009, and casual listeners will begrudge the clear lack of ambition in limiting this record to an exercise in nostalgia. His fans won’t, of course. Kurt’s fans are loyal, they like a goeie jol, and they’ll forgive any slip ups behind the decks as long as Mr Darren does his charming thing, which he decidedly does on For Your Precious Love.