Customer Ratings & Reviews

On It Had To Be You: The Great American Songbook Vol. 1 by Rod "the Bod" Stewart, Rod lovingly resuscitates WWII-era standards by Gershwin, Kern, Porter, and others in a laid-back ballroom style. Opening with They Can't Take That Away From Me, the strummed guitar, reminiscent of manouche Jazz a la Django, provides a swaggering backing for Rod's playful delivery. The Way You Look Tonight opens with a sparse, nostalgic pianissimo piano solo and sliding into soft snare brushes as Rod croons the lyrics softly. Rod's delivery alternates between a wistful, lovestruck tone on softer, slower songs such as The Nearness of You, For All We Know, and The Nearness of You, or a playful, dashing sort of tossed-off delivery as the lyrics require (You Go To My Head, Moonglow, These Foolish Things). There are jazzier touches such as the blues-inspired intro on Moonglow, or the manouche guitar on For All We Know. Rod's band really shines on providing a retro-sounding backing suitable for candlelit dinners or soft, slow dancing, featuring numerous studio musicians on piano and synth, bass, guitar, and drums and guests Dave Koz on tenor sax, Arturo Sandoval and Chris Botti on trumpet. If I had to sum up the mood, it would be "low-key." This is wonderfully relaxed and free of too-modern arrangements. Rod's voice may have a scratchier edge than true '40s-era crooners such as Sinatra, but he really inhabits the songs with a playfulness and respect that make him utterly believable in the role of crooner. Even if you're not a fan of Rod's earlier recordings, just give It Had To Be You a try; you may just fall madly in love with these songs, as I did. My only disappointment with It Had To Be You was the fact that the subsequent albums never matched the brilliance of the original; As Time Goes By...The Great American Songbook: Volume II, Stardust... The Great American Songbook, Vol. III, and Thanks For The Memory...The Great American Songbook IV featured some lackluster duets with other music celebs and some of the best songs were already covered on this album. After the success of It Had To Be You, practically everybody cashed in on the Songbook hype, including Michael Bolton (Vintage), Cyndi Lauper (At Last), and Carly Simon (Moonlight Serenade). This album will appeal to several generations: the Greatest Generation that lived through WWII and remember these songs firsthand, the Baby Boomers that may have grown up hearing these, and finally, my generation (Gen X), who will probably be hearing many of these classics for the first time. Hats off to Rod for preserving and renewing interest in an important American musical legacy that threatened to be lost to fading memories and the ravages of time.