The Great American Songbook

Growing up in the 50's & 60's, I was exposed to much of this great music on a daily basis. My early listening experiences were filled with the great voices, Sinatra, Martin, Tony Bennet, Andy Williams, Robert Goulet, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee and countless others. This was real music to be savored and many of the songs listed in this work I can still sing to this day. Thanks for the memories.

Great Performances Series - PBS

"A" special treat !

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart




Randy Newman once said his favorite lyricists were Bob Dylan and Lorenz Hart


Frank Sinatra - "The Lady Is A Tramp"

"Mountain Greenery" -- This song has some very impressive rhymes: "We could find no cleaner retreat from life's machinery..."

Stacey Kent - "Thou Swell"

"Manhattan"

Elvis Presley - "Blue Moon"

Great stuff. Here's one sung by the man himself. Savannah's own Johnny Mercer when he was around 80. And another of Johnny's hits by New Orleans' own King Louie. And if this one doesn't end up in the canon, it will be a shame.

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Let's Get Lost

Lina Romay - 1943




Chet Baker - 1955

The Cops 'n Robbers - "I Could Have Danced All Night" (1965)

No this isn't the British Invasion thread. The Cops 'n Robbers were an obscure English R&B band in the Stones/Pretty Things mold who released a handful of sides and never had a hit. Their repertoire was firmly in the English blues tradition (they cut "St. James Infirmary") and they also covered Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (an excellent interpretation that predates Them's better known version, but that's a subject for another thread).

Somebody -- presumably their management -- got the bright idea for them to cover Lerner and Loewe's "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady. Completely atypical of their recorded output, it's a vaguely Latinish arrangement that even incorporates horns. It reminds me a bit of Brill Building pop, except that the lead singer sounds like he wants to break out and go totally James Brown on everybody.

Compare it to Jamie Cullum's version -- could Jamie have somehow heard the Cops 'n Robbers?

Dean Martin - "You Belong To Me"

Hoagy Carmichael - "Georgia On My Mind"

quote:

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Hoagland Howard Carmichael was an American composer, singer and actor who is referenced in two James Bond novels as a good representation of what agent 007 looks like.

In Casino Royale, it is Vesper Lynd who first makes this connection.

‘He is very good-looking. He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless in his …’

Bond is told of this, and later muses:

As he tied his thin, double-ended, black satin tie, he paused for a moment and examined himself levelly in the mirror. His grey-blue eyes looked calmly back with a hint of ironical inquiry and the short lock of black hair which would never stay in place slowly subsided to form a thick comma above his right eyebrow. With the thin vertical scar down his right cheek the general effect was faintly piratical. Not much of Hoagy Carmichael there, thought Bond, as he filled a flat, light gunmetal box with fifty of the Morland cigarettes with the triple gold band.

In Moonraker, Gala Brand also makes the connection:

Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold.

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Ian Fleming, Hoagy Carmichael