That's What I Call Sweet Music: American Dance Orchestras of the 1920s

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About That's What I Call Sweet Music: American Dance

Product Description Part of EMI UK'S 'songbook Series'. A Unique Collection of Famous Authors Hand Picked Favorite Music which They have Illustrated with New and Rarely Seen Artwork. Housed in Hardcover Book Digipack. Amazon.com The Songbook series of CDs from the U.K.--a label that asks several artists (everyone from Hunter S. Thompson to comix artist Peter Bagge) to compile discs of their favorite music--is a fascinating concept. What better way to pick the brain of your favorite author than to hear what he's currently spinning on the CD player? That's What I Call Sweet Music is underground comic legend Robert Crumb's chance to show off his rare shellac and it's one of the series' best efforts. This compilation of '20s American dance music features long-forgotten artists such as Paul Sprecht, Red Nichols's Stompers, Rudy Vallee, and others playing some truly infectious jazzy numbers that once comprised popular music in the U.S. Sure, some of the lyrics are corny, but the playing is consistently great (and the sound quality respectable). It's hard not to get nostalgic hearing these bygone numbers that blend big band, orchestral, and novelty music. As Crumb states in the gorgeously illustrated liner notes, "what you hear on this CD is the good-time, social music of a vanished urban civilization, a lost world of smokestack factories, clanging trolley cars--and everybody wore hats!" True enough. --Jason Verlinde