Page "Great American Songbook" Paragraph 41

Since the 1930s, many singers have explicitly recorded or performed large parts of the Great American Songbook.

Lee Wiley was among the first to record collections of one specific songwriter or songwriting team, beginning with George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin ( 1939 ), followed by Cole Porter ( 1940 ), Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart ( 1940 ), Harold Arlen ( 1943 ), Irving Berlin ( 1951 ) and Vincent Youmans ( 1951 ).