Day 24: Love Songs from the Great American Songbook (1)

I am a lover of the old songs from what is sometimes called "the Great American Songbook." These were the songs that formed the catalog of crooners and jazz musicians for many years. These songs were often extraordinarily beautiful, sometimes silly, fairly often trite,  but also often bordered on the profound.

Just about all my favorite love songs are from the "songbook," and I am a big fan of love songs. So let this be, I hope, the first of a series of weekly posts that feature my favorite love songs from the Great American Songbook.

Starting off, how about "My One and Only Love," written by Guy Wood (music) and Robert Mellen (lyrics), not exactly two household names in the world of popular song. It was published in 1952 and memorably recorded in that year by Frank Sinatra, but the version that has really stayed with me through the years is the one by Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane (in 1963). This, for me, is the gold standard.

See what I mean?

But one of the fun things about looking up songs for these posts is discovering renditions that you hadn't been aware of. So I also want to feature this pleasing take by the great Paul McCartney.