You know, until that post I had no idea what The Great American Songbook was. Honestly. I have never been in any kind of band or done a solo act that required those songs. I looked it up and saw the contents, and just from a quick scan I have had to learn probably a dozen of those songs to play at weddings and such, and have learned a dozen more just because they are some of my favorite standards(Embraceable You, I Got You Under My Skin....). And now I have ordered a copy. I do buy music from time to time when I don't feel like I want to invest time in listening back and forth to figure out complex chords or write out a chart. (Like God Only Knows level complex. Incredible piece of writing. MacArther Park as well. Bought those.)

Unfortunately none of us will be around to know if these songs fade in another 50 or 100 years. I wonder if future generations will append it to add new songs to those.

I remember playing some show for high school aged kids (I was only 35-ish myself then) and they had their table decorations with the quote "Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you." And the quote was attributed to Corey Hart!!! THAT was the version they knew, so that's who they thought wrote it. Similar circumstances once playing in the Motown band. 5 of us, and we all sang. We were in the dressing room warming up doing the 4 Seasons cover of I Got You Under My skin. There was some 22-ish kind of kid in there and he made the comment about how great the writing was in the 4 Seasons. All the band guys, who knew better, just kind of looked at each other. I looked at the kid, and in my perfect fake angry face and voice I asked "Have you ever heard of Cole Porter?" The kid said "No. Who does he play with?" And I did an exaggerated "Heh heh heh. Get out of my dressing room!" And he left as everybody laughed about it. Good times!

Point of those stories is that everybody knows what they know how they know it and don't bother to research it, and why would they of they aren't a music student? I knew somebody who went round and round with me saying that Cole Porter wrote My Funny Valentine. There comes a point where you just say "Okay. You want to be right? Then Porter wrote it."

My opinion is that I don't think the old masters like Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mozart, etc.... belong in that conversation. They are in their own elite group. They were to music what Henry Ford was to cars, where they did the heavy lifting and set the foundations and standards that we have all built upon since. The people who wrote the show music like what is in that book belong there. Porter, Arlen, Berlin, the Gershwins, Glenn Miller, Goodman etc... And this generation's book would include Lennon and McCartney, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Diane Warren, Brian Wilson also belongs in that group... the hitmakers since 1950-ish. Funny thing about Brian Wilson is that his best work was NOT what people know when you say The Beach Boys.

Off to buy my book.

Edit: I now see that there are like 5 Great American Songbooks. So, one at a time, I will end up with all of them.

Last edited by eddie1261; 10/16/17 03:16 AM.