The Song Planner

Great American Songbook

tagStarted c. 1920Peak 1925–1955Last big hit still activeFrom United States

Located in 1 route

Easy Listening / Standards / Lounge → Vocal Standards / Traditional Pop

Great American Songbook performance centers on enduring American popular songs whose strength lies in supple melody, refined harmony, structural balance, and lyrical sophistication. Interpretations can be orchestral, jazzy, intimate, or grand, but they rely on songs sturdy enough to survive multiple arrangements and generations of singers.

History

The canon grew from Tin Pan Alley publishing, Broadway, Hollywood musicals, and interwar popular song, then became the shared common language for pop and jazz interpreters; its composers and lyricists provided the working repertoire for everyone from Sinatra and Ella to Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, Linda Ronstadt, and Michael Bublé, and its persistence in revivals, archives, educational institutions, and holiday or tribute programming is precisely why it remains less a nostalgia niche than a continuing performance tradition.

Defining artists

Essential listening

← Explore Easy Listening / Standards / Lounge

Sources

  • Great American Songbook Foundation, “What is the Songbook?”
  • Wikipedia, “Traditional pop”
  • Library of Congress, “Songs of America.”