Behind Blue Eyes

After college I noticed that if you allowed yourself to listen to just about any music with an open mind, there were decades of great recordings. Of course there was even more bad music. (Maybe all that music is not “bad” but just not to your liking.) My first experience was when I drifted into classical music. I do not even know why I started—but somehow I became aware of it. That began a long pattern of following musical connections through all sorts of genres. I am no classical expert and I will not bore you with attempts to discuss it. But, I do want to bring up one of the great “discoveries” that really opened my eyes.

Shortly after becoming blissfully married to my bride, she bought an album called The Cole Porter Songbook by Ella Fitzgerald. As a kid brought up on psychedelic rock I knew Ella Fitzgerald only as the lady that could break a glass on the Memorex tape commercials. I also had heard her singing scat as she loved to do, but that never interested me. What I did not know was what pure and beautiful voice she had. And best of all, The Cole Porter Songbook was only one of several “songbooks” she recorded covering several of the great song composers of the first half of the 20th century.

These were typically double albums that were recorded in the late 50s. The arrangements of the songs were not adventurous—they were sublime. The bands were fabulous. If you have even the slightest interest in the popular music of these composers, you owe it to yourself investigate these (dare I say) historic recordings.

• Cole Porter Songbook (1956)
• Rodgers & Hart Songbook (1956)
• Duke Ellington Songbook (1957)
• Irving Berlin Songbook (1958)
• George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (1959)
• Harold Arlen Songbook (1961)
• Jerome Kern Songbook (1963)
• Johnny Mercer Songbook (1964)

In 1994 Verve Records issued a box set of these in CD form. We have about half of them in vinyl or CD form. When Julie gave me an iPod for my birthday in 2002 I learned how to record the vinyl to digital and spent hours tediously repairing The Cole Porter Songbook so I could have it in my earbuds. At that time each CD was selling for $18. Remember that most of these albums were double CD. So I also have some used CDs (one used set I have was broken out of the boxed set and sold separately). Now they are available at the iTunes Music Store at $10 a CD or 99¢ a song.

Julie and I were lucky enough to see Ella Fitzgerald live at the Venetian Room at the Fairmount Hotel in Dallas. This was probably in the late 1980s. It was like an elegant night at a 50s night club. It was certainly the real deal when it came to the music.

By the way, Rod Stewart should be ashamed of himself for trying to do a similar concept over the last few years. If you cannot add anything, don’t bother. In fact, I read that Frank Sinatra blocked Capitol records from re-releasing some albums of his own that were in the same “single composer” style. I guess Frank had a little more class that Rod.