The Great American Songbook: Stories of the Standards

From the Editors

Intriguing, Inspiring and Entertaining Stories of the Songs, the Singers and the Composers From Tin Pan Alley to Broadway and Hollywood, THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK: The Stories Behind the Standards tells the stories of our most popular songs with humor, drama and insight. This is timeless music written in unique ways that is constantly being reinterpreted by each generation. Isaac Stern made this distinction between talent and genius: "A person possesses talent; genius possesses the person." This is a book about singers, musicians, lyricists and composers taking their talent into the atmosphere of immortality. They are fascinating, and they set the standards by which popular music is measured. They may not have lived easy lives, but their creativity drove them to new heights and they changed the face of American music forever.<P>Music by a wide variety of artists is covered, including: George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Cole Porter, Rogers & Hart, Paul McCartney, Dave Brubeck, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, John Coltrane and many others. Some chapters tell the story of just one song; others sketch the life stories of the artists. Music lovers will find new facts and deeper understanding about old friends in THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK The Stories Behind the Standards, and readers unfamiliar with the standards will find the book accessible, easy to read, and delightfully entertaining and informative.
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Customer Response

What a terrible book!
There are errors of fact on every page, sometimes in every paragraph! For one example, the pages on Kay Swift, George Gershwin, and Can't We Be Friends? have more than fifty wrrors. What a terrible book, a complete cut and paste job from canned sources with errors added for originality! No editing whatsoever? Shocking.

The Great American Songbook...is great!
My title says M.O.R. Collector, that's because I very much enjoy American Standards and middle of the road variety of music that was popular in the sixties and early seventies.

For awhile I was running a web stream of this music and I had to code each mp3 with composer information. (I was copying music from vinyl disc, not CDs, so this information was input manually.)

Anyway, I was fascianted by seeing which composers wrote some of my favorite tunes. Up until that point I had not bothered looking at the composers that were listed on the records.

After that I started looking up these names on the Internet and found their histories incredibly interesting. Finally, I found this book, and a few others and was able to read not only histories, but little thumbnail accounts of why songs were written, or how a melody was reused for another song that became popular.

For those of you wanting to read up on this rich history I can recommend this book very highly.

Happy reading.

Learn the history of popular musicians and songs
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (1/07)

"The Great American Songbook: The Stories behind the Standards" is a pleasure to read. The author Chuck Denison has researched the history of singers, musicians, lyricists, and composers and tells their stories here. He tells the history of these people and how their lives interacted with their music. Some of the people written about include: George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Cole Porter, Paul McCartney and Frank Sinatra.

The majority of the people written about did not have easy lives, but it was the rough patches that these people lived through that gave their music an edge. Denison talks about the music genius that this people carried within them. He also discusses those that seem touched by a muse. He writes: "The muses, the supernatural forces of beauty, art and music capture us, and reveal themselves. In an instant, we hear the melody, catch the concept and dream the solution."

I enjoyed reading the stories behind many famous songs from the past. The ones that stood out to me included: "Silver Bells," "Mr. Ed," "Que Sera Sera," "White Christmas," "I've Got Rhythm," "Blue Moon," "Yesterday," "I'm in the Mood for Love," and "The Way You Look Tonight." By learning the background of the song, it increased my interest in what the music meant to the people creating it. I wish that I had had a book like this when I was taking music classes in high school and college.

"The Great American Songbook," is a great book for music enthusiasts. At only 111 pages, I wish that there was more to read about! Music teachers should definitely take note and consider this book as a supplement to textbooks. It will greatly increase the student's appreciation and understanding of the music.

The Changing Face of American Music
Chuck Denison has collaborated with jazz photographer Duncan Schiedt to produce this compact collection of stories of the origins of some of our most popular songs.

This work is not an encyclopedia of, nor a complete history of American music. It is a sampler to demonstrate the impact music has had on American culture. These are stories about artists, composers, and lyricists, the genius who set these standards. The book is made up of entertaining stories and background information on Broadway hits, Hollywood movies, and the songs that made them succeed.

Denison covers the whole spectrum of music from "avant garde" to "be-bop." He takes us behind the scenes to share insights from the lives of George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hart, Paul McCartney, and dozens of others.

The author has created a nostalgic journey that takes us back in time to the early 1900's through the pre World War I days. He highlights the "Roaring Twenties" and takes us down memory lane with captivating stories from the days when radio was the center of family entertainment. The popular program "Hit Parade" was prime time entertainment.

He takes us back to the patriotic songs of World War II and the era that introduced the "Hollywood Musical". Denison likened the music of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and Beatlemania to a quasi-religious experience for the 60's generation.

The collection of Duncan Schiedt's photography reveal moments of musical history "captured for all time, an image of a memory." These images enhance the importance of this excellent work.

Inaccurate vanity press product
The book covers about thirty songs. The one song that I know the history of is totally incorrect!! Jimmy Van Heusen told me in 1979 that he co-wrote the song that we know as "Nancy" with Phil Silvers on the 20th Century lot. It was written as "Bessie with a laughing face". Bessie was the wife of Jimmy's partner, Johnny Burke. Later they used it at birthday parties for other woman...and finally at little Nancy Sinatra's fourth B-day. Frank cried...thinking they wrote it for her. This author claims Frank co-wrote it with Jimmy and Phil for Nancy.

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