Summertime is here, so this week on the show, I’ll be bringing you my annual salute to warm weather with a Songs of the Season episode for summer. This hour, we’ll hear some summertime favorites from the Great American Songbook, both familiar and less familiar. On this program, I’ll have some odes to the heat from Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald, a song each about June, July, and August, and other tunes from Nat King Cole, Nancy Wilson, Frank Sinatra, and more.
Summer songs featured this episode:
- Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Summertime (Gershwin/Heyward/Gershwin)
- Mel Tormé - Too Darn Hot (Porter)
- Ella Fitzgerald - Heat Wave (Berlin)
- Frank Sinatra - Summer Wind (Meier/Mercer)
- Bing Crosby and Peggy Lee - Watermelon Weather (Carmichael/Webster)
- Helen Carr - Summer Night (Warren/Dubin)
- June Christy - Lost In A Summer Night (Previn/Raskin)
- Johnny Mercer - Memphis in June (Carmichael/Webster)
- Helen Forrest with Artie Shaw and His Orchestra - The Last Two Weeks In July (Baer/Lewis)
- Julie London - Time for August (Hamilton)
- Nat King Cole - Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer (Tobias/Carste)
- Nat King Cole - Summer Is A-Comin’ In (Wilder/Barer)
- Nat King Cole - This Morning It Was Summer (Haymes/Cole/Hawkins)
- Nat King Cole - Guess I’ll Go Back Home (This Summer) (Robinson/Mayer)
- Blossom Dearie - Once Upon a Summertime (Legrand/Barclay/Marnay/Mercer)
- Dave Brubeck and Carmen McRae - Summer Song (Brubeck/Brubeck)
- Tony Bennett - Indian Summer (Herbert/Dubin)
- The George Shearing Quintet with Nancy Wilson - The Things We Did Last Summer (Styne/Cahn)
Did I miss your favorite summer song from the Great American Songbook? Let me know at mchilla at indiana dot edu!
