Original Angels

One of the most interesting album releases by a major artist during the first half of 2016 is “Fallen Angels” by Bob Dylan, on which he interprets twelve classic songs from the golden era of the Great American Songbook, performing them with his own unique and entirely sympathetic approach. For those who are familiar with the Acrobat label, you will know that we specialise in collections which present the original recordings of those times in a variety of ways, especially artist hits collections and year-by-year chart anthologies, and we felt that an album of earlier versions of the songs on “Fallen Angels” would make an interesting and enjoyable project. For this collection, we have chosen two original versions of the songs featured on “Fallen Angels” by artists recording them in an earlier era as new songs aimed at the contemporary charts, or reviving them for a similar purpose, or recording them for an album. Inevitably, it includes performances by some of the great interpreters of the Great American Songbook, whose work may possibly have inspired Bob Dylan’s approach to the repertoire. Listened to in juxtaposition to that album (so it you haven’t got it, you really should) it makes for a fascinating comparison as to how different artists see the same song both within the same era and at the distance of well over half a century. It also makes for some very classy and enjoyable listening.