Audio Remasterer: Martin Haskell.
There are few songwriters enshrined in the Great American Songbook more uniquely American than Hoagy Carmichael. While Cole Porter epitomized uptown savoir-faire and George Gershwin embraced a modernist sense of the cosmopolitan, Carmichael was the mellow Southern Gentleman, an easygoing yet thoughtful Everyman who was as much at home amidst dinner-party elegance as he was with a glass of iced tea on a back porch. STARDUST MELODY is a marvelous introduction to and overview of Hoagy's catalog of classics, and it includes the soulfully nostalgic "Georgia On My Mind," the wryly romantic "Two Sleepy People," and the wistful yet impish "Rockin' Chair." The performances here are by a virtual who's-who of jazz and pop crooners from the first half of the 20th century--Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, and Sarah Vaughan among them.