Why is it that LPs called "[brilliant singer] Sings The [brilliant songwriter] Songbook" are always such a let-down? And are there any that aren't?

I have been encountering many of these in the mid-to-late 50s and so far every single one is extremely dull choice-wise and predictable arrangement-wise.

I know I posted this to Twitter earlier but it's like a ghost town these days

George Jones Sings the Songs of Dallas Frazier is a top to bottom banger. George Jones Sings the Great Songs of Leon Payne is also v v good, but is mostly a compilation of previously released tracks so probably doesn't count. There's also Nilsson Sings Newman of course, but that might be a little obvious.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51IsPa05CGL.jpg

Scott Walker Sings Jacques Brel might not be your cup of mud but it would be considered by no one to be a let-down.

I wonder if there’s an observer bias about this. Those 1950s albums probably did sound adventurous and unpredictable at the time if they were doing songs from the ‘20s and ‘30s. And now they just sound staid, bc the ‘50s.

Nilsson sings Newman is one of the best albums either of them ever made.

Hollies sing Dylan?

Nilsson sings Newman, obv

Didn't Ella Fitzgerald start this, with the Cole Porter songbook and then lots of others?

I think those are good. Many people have done!

I was going to say, Ella is peak. Hell was just thinking about those albums the other day.

I was psyched when I first heard that Glenn Danzig had released an album of Elvis covers, but maybe I'm too harsh a critic, as it felt too mannered and - dare I say - classy.

I was hoping for a collection that sounded like either a) he unearthed them from the Static Age vaults (a la "Hybrid Moments"), or b) he intended the songs as a bonkers UK-only release of Danzig III - How The Gods Kill in the style of "Sistinas".

I listened to Ella sings Cole Porter and Ella sings Rogers & Hammerstein today, both were dull. I am only listening to music from 1956 at the moment and they are my two least favourite albums so far. I like Ella by the way.

The Ella songbook to get is the Ellington one!

xp sorry it wad Rodgers & Hart

Also check out 12 Nights in Hollywood or whatever it’s called.

Not a songbook album so not for this thread but get on it anyway.

The album title doesn't quite fit the thread title format, but I loved Gretchen Peters' album of Mickey Newbury covers from a few years back.

https://t2.genius.com/unsafe/300x300/https://images.genius.com/655493c1b35396dab5abd5d957e4a8ac.827x827x1.jpg

Charenee Wilson’s album of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson covers is outstanding

https://chareneewade.bandcamp.com/album/offering-the-music-of-gil-scott-heron-brian-jackson

same train, a different time: merle haggard sings the great songs of jimmie rodgers is among my favourites of this category

Natalia Lafourcade’s Agustin Lara tribute album is more good than bad.

The ones that rarely work for me are songwriters with unconventional voices paired with conventionally beautiful ones: Holly Cole Trio covering Tom Waits (Temptation), Joan Baez Sing Leonard Cohen, and so on.

Robyn Hitchcock's album of Dylan covers is good, though, maybe because his voice is as distinct as Dylan's.

I think I may be the only person who liked Bryan Ferry's Dylan covers alblum.

my folks went to see Rod Stewart when he was doing his American Songbook tours and he said hundreds of people went onto the concourse when he hit that point of the set because they were so bored

that dwight yoakam sings buck owens album is a straight up masterpiece

can't quite recall title phrasing but Carmen McRae's Billie Holiday LP is awfully good

Really dig the Julie London album of Cole Porter tunes.

Willie Nelson covering Lefty Frizell, too.

omg and Merle's Bob Wills record is most def a classic

Forgot about that one

Good ones from the world of chanson:

Barbara chante Brassens
Barbara chante Brel
Patachou chante Brassens

Trying to remember the name of the Dutch singer who did the Bacharach album.

believe it or not Gene Ween's tribute album to Rod McCewan is really nice

Jose James has been doing this with Bill Withers and Erykah Badu, but it's hard to improve on the originals.

Famous Blue Raincoat, Jennifer Warnes' album of Leonard Cohen songs, is pretty wonderful.

Trying to remember the name of the Dutch singer who did the Bacharach album.

This was a really fortuitous charity shop find from last year for me, "Jack Jones Sings Michel Legrande".

https://i.imgur.com/3a3Dsf2.png

Really brings to mind the more lushly orchestrated side of sixties Scott Walker, who ironically later covered "What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life" on the ill-fated second side of "Till The Band Comes In."

You didn't at least like the purity of Ella's tone doing the sly smut of "bewitched bothered and bewildered" on that Rogers and Hart set?

yeah there were some high points, Little Girl Blue was a great closer, think the problem here may be with the whole idea of The Great American Songbook and trotting out the same songs with the same arrangement for the millionth time as if that's enough.

Mercedes to add a sitar?

Oops. Needed

But surely when Fitzgerald recorded her LPs in the 1950s, the Great American Songbook was barely established - these were songs from diverse shows and films, which hadn't especially been brought together before. I think the work she did was terrific. It helped establish a corpus of songs, and sung by one of the C20's great singers.

On the other hand, someone else repeating it in 1995 or 2015 - not so good.

It is hard to maintain a purely historical approach I guess if the Ella versions are the 50th you've heard? For me they were maybe the 3rd or 4th - and then not as a conscious exercise.

Lol I just re-read my comment and thought maybe if it was the 50th version there was little bit history to hear...

Little but. Argh

pinefox otm

ella's songbook albums are wonderful and played a big part in establishing the canon afaik

just don't care for them so far, I would enjoy much more a compilation of her versions of the same songs from the 30s & 40s, will see if this changes when we get to her Ellington disc.

establishing the canon is also not necessarily a good thing

Max Andrzejewski's HÜTTE and Guests Play the Music of Robert Wyatt: https://whyplayjazz.bandcamp.com/album/h-tte-guests-play-the-music-of-robert-wyatt

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Louis Armstrong - Disney Songs the Satchmo Way, it's a good time for pretty much anyone I feel

Also Sara Isaksson & Rebecka Tornqvist - Fire in the Hole is fantastic, especially if you love Steely Dan but are also kind of sick of listening to Steely Dan

I still ride for the Scarlett Johansson album of Tom Waits covers. Def plays like something between Ze and 4AD

i wish ODB would have done this

We will always have his susudio and build me up buttercup covers as tantalizing glimpses of what could have been

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51F49jqbBJL._SY1000_.jpg

Sure that’s not a Freaky Trigger April Fool’s joke?

Check it out yourself: https://julianahatfield.bandcamp.com/album/juliana-hatfield-sings-olivia-newton-john

She has also released an all-Police covers album too.

love that hatfield album

also love the scarlett waits album

The Bird and the Bee tributes to Hall and Oates and Van Halen are very lovely too.