The Great American

Rod Stewart has been mining the Great American Songbook for the better part of a decade, so it would only make sense that he would get a little bit better as time goes by. And, by some stroke of fate, Fly Me to the Moon the fifth installment in this never-ending series and first since 2005, as Rod spent the back half of the 2000s taking songbook detours into rock and soul is Stewart’s best album in the entire series. Some credit must be due to producer Richard Perry, who returns to the project after a few records off, but what distinguishes Fly Me to the Moon isn’t precision but relaxation.

The Great American Songbook has many top-drawer interpreters, but Nancy Wilson is rarely spoken of in the same breath as Ella Fitzgerald or Dinah Washington or Frank Sinatra or Mel Tormé. The reason lies less with her talents, which are sizeable, and more with her orientation, which fits the show tunes concept of putting the song across with precise diction as well as emotion instead of the jazz vocal tradition of personalizing a song. Those who know only Wilson's crossover work and think she intrudes in the field of vocal jazz should simply listen to her 1959 performance of "On the Street Where You Live," where she often varies notes and tempo but preserves the essential ebullience of the song intact – an excellent musical performance combined with an excellent reading of a classic standard. That song is only one of the treasures present on the two-disc set The Great American Songbook, one in a loose series of three Capitol compilations to compile Wilson's late-'50s and early-'60s prime, the others focusing on blues ballads and lost love. There is a lot of music to wade through (more than twice as much as the other volumes in the series), but the compilers ably mix up the proceedings, balancing small-group performances that have a loose touch from all involved with large-band spectaculars featuring impeccable arrangements (often by masters of the form Billy May or Gerald Wilson).

2021 release. Although for many decades it was principally the domain of jazz-styled singers and musicians, The Great American Songbook has undergone a significant revival in recent years, in terms of the mass market's rediscovery of the genre. Loosely defined, these are the most popular and enduring songs from the 1920s through to the 50s, most of which were written for Broadway theatre, musical theatre and/or Hollywood musical movies. And although regular Pop Music has generally endured a somewhat difficult relationship with what has always been perceived as "serious" music, many R&B and early Soul performers dabbled in the Great American Songbook over the years. This unique compilation presents thirty memorable examples, featuring artists like Ray Charles, Big Maybelle, Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John, LaVern Baker, James Brown, Etta James, Bobby Bland, Timi Yuro, Ruth Brown and many more. Many of these sides are hard to find elsewhere on CD.

Running times 75 minutes and 77 minutes. This 49-song compilation includes a wide range of performances and both studio and live. The first 4 songs on Disc 2 are from a 1953 concert recorded in Japan with her quartet. Ellis Larkin's is on piano for the Gershwin songs. Includes 4 songs from the famous Cole Porter Song book, Original recordings produced by Norman Granz, Recorded March 27, 1956 at Capitol Studios, Hollywood with the Buddy Bregman orchestra featuring Paul Smith on piano and the finest of session musicians. There are also 3 Rodgers and Hart and 10 Gershwin songs. Recording dates from 1947 to 1955.

The title track is a barroom serenade that name-checks Springsteen’s spare, pitch-black Nebraska track “State Trooper”; “Sandpaper” pays off the reference with an appearance by Springsteen himself that plays like a heartland-rock Looper—a weathered elder meeting a younger version of himself who already has seen so much. (It also sounds more than a little like “I’m On Fire.”) And for all of Bryan’s humility, he’s self-aware enough to lean into the romance of his origin story and underdog status, numbers be damned—he is nothing if not an elite storyteller.

Aretha Franklin is one of the giants of soul music, and indeed of American pop as a whole. More than any other performer, she epitomized soul at its most gospel-charged. Her astonishing run of late-'60s hits earned her the title "Lady Soul," which she has worn uncontested ever since.

Another great addition to your MF collection.Part 2 of the American Music Hall concert Recorded in 1973, and between the releases of MF Horns 2 & 3, this concert shows touches of older and newer MF.