Volumes 3 and 4 of the The Encyclopedia of More Great Popular Song Recordings provides the stories behind approximately 1,700 more of the greatest song recordings in the history of the music industry, from 1890 to today. In this masterful survey, all genres of popular music are covered, from pop, rock, soul, and country to jazz, blues, classic vocals, hip-hop, folk, gospel, and ethnic/world music. Collectors will find detailed discographical data—recording dates, record numbers, Billboard chart data, and personnel—while music lovers will appreciate the detailed commentaries and deep research on the songs, their recording, and the artists. Readers who revel in pop cultural history will savor each chapter as it plunges deeply into key events—in music, society, and the world—from each era of the past 125 years. Following in the wake of the first two volumes of his original Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, this follow-up work covers not only more beloved classic performances in pop music history, but many lesser -known but exceptional recordings that—in the modern digital world of “long tail” listening, re-mastered recordings, and “lost but found” possibilities—Sullivan mines from modern recording history. The Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volumes 3 and 4 lets the readers discover, and, through their playlist services, from such as iTunes toand Spotify, build a truly deepcomprehensive catalog of classic performances that deserve to be a part of every passionate music lover’s life. Sullivan organizes songs in chronological order, starting in 1890 and continuing all the way throughto the present to include modern gems from June 2016. In each chapter, Sullivanhe immerses readers, era by era, in the popular music recordings of the time, noting key events that occurred at the time to painting a comprehensive picture in music history of each periodfor each song. Moreover, Sullivan includes for context bulleted lists noting key events that occurred during the song’s recording

Wonderful sing-along favorites with easy-to-play piano arrangements, guitar chords, and complete lyrics: Greensleeves, Auld Lang Syne, Down in the Valley, My Wild Irish Rose, Yellow Rose of Texas, and many more.

For nearly a century, New York's famous "Tin Pan Alley" was the center of popular music publishing in this country. It was where songwriting became a profession, and songs were made-to-order for the biggest stars. Selling popular music to a mass audience from coast-to-coast involved the greatest entertainment media of the day, from minstrelsy to Broadway, to vaudeville, dance palaces, radio, and motion pictures. Successful songwriting became an art, with a host of men and women becoming famous by writing famous songs.

The author contends that America has a continuous and coherent musical history spanning two hundred years and he covers that history from the eighteenth century through the present decade

The American Song Book, Volume I: The Tin Pan Alley Era is the first in a projected five-volume series of books that will reprint original sheet music, including covers, of songs that constitute the enduring standards of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, and other lyricists and composers of what has been called the "Golden Age" of American popular music. These songs have done what popular songs are not supposed to do-stayed popular. They have been reinterpreted year after year, generation after generation, by jazz artists such as Charlie Parker and Art Tatum, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. In the 1950s, Frank Sinatra began recording albums of these standards and was soon followed by such singers as Tony Bennet, Doris Day, Willie Nelson, and Linda Ronstadt. In more recent years, these songs have been reinterpreted by Rod Stewart, Harry Connick, Jr., Carly Simon, Lady GaGa, K.D. Laing, Paul McCartney, and, most recently, Bob Dylan. As such, these songs constitute the closest thing America has to a repertory of enduring classical music. In addition to reprinting the sheet music for these classic songs, authors Philip Furia and Laurie Patterson place these songs in historical context with essays about the sheet-music publishing industry known as Tin Pan Alley, the emergence of American musical comedy on Broadway, and the "talkie" revolution that made possible the Hollywood musical. The authors also provide biographical sketches of songwriters, performers, and impresarios such as Florenz Ziegfeld. In addition, they analyze the lyrical and musical artistry of each song and relate anecdotes, sometimes amusing, sometimes poignant, about how the songs were created. The American Songbook is a book that can be read for enjoyment on its own or be propped on the piano to be played and sung.

Classic American Popular Song: The Second Half-Century, 1950-2000 addresses the question: What happened to American popular song after 1950? There are numerous books available on the so-called Golden Age of popular song, but none that follow the development of popular song styles in the second half of the 20th century. While 1950 is seen as the end of an era, the tap of popular song creation hardly ran dry after that date. Many of the classic songwriters continued to work through the following decades: Porter was active until 1958; Rodgers until the later 1970s; Arlen until 1976. Some of the greatest lyricists of the classic era continued to do outstanding and successful work: Johnny Mercer and Dorothy Fields, for example, continued to produce lyrics through the early '70s. These works could be explained as simply the Golden Age's last stand, a refusal of major figures to give in to a new reality. But then, how can we explain the outstanding careers of Frank Loesser, Cy Coleman, Jerry Herman, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, Fred Kander and John Ebb, Jule Styne, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, and several other major figures? Where did Stephen Sondheim come from? For anyone interested in the development of American popular song -- and its survival -- this book will make fascinating reading.