One of the side projects I took on as I’ve gone through all my songs has been cleaning up their data as best I can. I finished assigning a year of release to nearly every song awhile back, and figured there must be a list or two in that. Here’s the first of them, a sample of songs in my collection from the 1940s.
1. Perdido – Duke Ellington (1940)
2. This Land Is Your Land – Woodie Guthrie (1940)
3. Somebody’s Been Fooling #1 – Big Joe Williams (1941)
4. Knock Me A Kiss – Louis Jordan (1943)
5. Freedom Road – Josh White (1944)
6. In The Pines – Leadbelly (1944)
7. Virgo – Mary Lou Williams (1945)
8. What A Wonderful World – Louie Armstrong (1947)
9. Gypsy Woman – Muddy Waters (1947)
10. All I Want For Christmas – Nat King Cole (1949)
A number of these songs are from a CD I got at the Smithsonian called “American Folkways”, which is a collection of American roots music. They, and Duke Ellington songs, make up a lot of my pre-1940s music as well. I’ll be going through subsequent decades, possibly taking a little more time with some of the later decades.
Entire song list report: Started with “Vehicle”, by Ides of March, which is immediately followed by the MOB version. Finished with “Walk Back In”, by Keb’ Mo’, song #5785. That was 68 songs for Spring Break week, not too shabby. The last V song was “Vx Fx Dx”, by Michelle Shocked. The first W song was “Wade In The Water”, by the Asylum Street Spankers. Have a great weekend!
Bah. You had to suggest getting release years into the library. I discovered I have at least a hundred whose year is blank.
I have about 150 songs from the 1940s (and about 75 from earlier years), most of which come from a six-CD boxed set from Time-Life called The Best of Broadway, organized by decade. The remainder of the 1940s songs are primarily from one of the two major Sinatra boxed sets I own: Portrait of Sinatra.