Review
by Andy Kellman
Legacy released this 18-track disc less than two months prior to the 11-CD/one-DVD Take a Look: Aretha Franklin Complete on Columbia. In a sense, The Great American Songbook is nothing more than a box-set sampler, but it shall remain an excellent overview of Franklin’s overlooked (or willfully ignored) early-‘60s releases, which were heavy on interpretations of songs written by the likes of Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, George and Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, and Irving Berlin. While she had not fully blossomed and was years away from the gutsier material of her commercial peak -- only “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody” scratched the Top 40 -- her voice was nonetheless supremely expressive, rooted in her gospel upbringing and drenched in soul. She was no mere stylist; when she sings “Ooh, honey, I’d like to really melt your cold, cold heart,” there is as much fire as there is in any given line of “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman.” Even the earliest cuts here, taken from late 1960 and early 1961 sessions with the Ray Bryant Combo, are soul through and through. (Note for fanatics: the mixes of "Trouble in Mind" and "Love for Sale" eliminate the fabricated crowd noise heard on Yeah!!!.)
Tracks
Title Composer Time
1 Listen Now! My Little Brown Book Strayhorn 3:19
2 Listen Now! Trouble in Mind Jones 2:56
AMG Pick 3 Listen Now! Try a Little Tenderness Campbell, Connelly, Woods 3:16
AMG Pick 4 Listen Now! It Ain't Necessarily So Gershwin, Gershwin 2:53
5 Listen Now! How Deep Is the Ocean Berlin 2:48
6 Listen Now! Cold, Cold Heart Williams 4:37
7 Listen Now! Love for Sale Porter 2:32
8 Listen Now! How Glad I Am 2:33
AMG Pick 9 Listen Now! Skylark Mercer 2:53
10 Listen Now! This Bitter Earth 4:35
11 Listen Now! Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive Arlen, Mercer 2:17
12 Listen Now! What a Diff'rence a Day Made 3:33
13 Listen Now! Only the Lonely Cahn, Heusen 4:55
14 Listen Now! Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody Lewis, Schwartz 2:24
15 Listen Now! God Bless the Child Holiday 3:03
16 Listen Now! Say It Isn't So Berlin 3:09
17 Listen Now! Are You Sure Wilson 2:41
AMG Pick 18 Listen Now! That Lucky Old Sun Smith 3:17
