24 October 2010

5 On Friday - The Great American Songbook






This is up early as I have some medical stuff going on for Thursday and Friday.  Shortly another Friday will roll around and I am still fighting with blogger over uploading images, so color my face red approaching livid purple.  I had to cut and paste html from a previous 5 on Friday just to get the logo in and will have to to a three way copy of web picture to computer from computer to Picasa, copy code in Picasa and paste in Blogger so I definitely need soothing.  Fortunately Travis of Trav's Thoughts has provided this happy meme and Rod Stewart has provided this week's music.  So on Friday hop on over to Trav's blog for the instructions and to sign in so that we can all share the great music. 

For several years now Rod has been releasing a series of albums with covers of the great songs often referred to as "The Great American Songbook".  The fifth volume in the series has just been released.  The songs in each album are mainly from the 30s through 50s written by the amazing songwriters of that period such as Cole Porter, the Gershwin's, Rogers and Hart, and Johnny Mercer.  Rod may not have a top of the line crooning voice, but he sings well and simply, has carefully chosen the songs, and delivers them with excellent production values.  The best reason for buying these recordings is to have access in one place to the most unforgettable music of an era.

Since this whole blogging exercise has been one of making the dumb program work despite the frustration, I then selected one somewhat lesser heard song from each of the albums and then went to Amazon to link the album where it is featured so that you can buy it and then to You Tube to find the other singers who celebrated the music..

The Great American Songbook - It Had to Be You

Song Chosen:  For All We know sung by Nina Simone



The Great American Songbook Volume II - As Time Goes By

Song Chosen: Crazy She Calls Me - Rod Stewart



The Great American Songbook Volume III - Stardust

Song Chosen: A Kiss To Build A Dream On - Louis Armstrong



The Great American Songbook Volume IV - Thanks For The Memory

Song Chosen: Long Ago And Far Away - Jo Stafford



The Great American Songbook Volume V - Fly Me To The Moon

Song Chosen: Beware My Foolish Heart - Margaret Whiting

4 comments:

Julia Phillips Smith said...

Thanks for all the 'fresh' selections from the Great American Songbook, Jamie. These are awesome!

Durward Discussion said...

With this album, you now have about 65 of the greatest songs ever written. Every single one is a song you've heard before sung by someone.

Julia Phillips Smith said...

Just had a second listen - *sigh*

Travis Cody said...

I've got my mom's old record collection and a lot of these songs are in it. One of those projects that keeps sitting is getting all of them digitized and then transferred to my Ipod.

I love listening to these old tunes. It always reminds me of visiting with my grandmother and learning to love and appreciate music from two of the most important women in my life.