Why do the songs of what’s become known as The Great American Songbook persist? Because they’re more than just great tunes, says singer Gregg Arthur, “they’re great stories.”

Gregg Arthur. Photo supplied

 

“I always look for a personal connection in a song before I decide to perform it,” he tells Limelight. “I like to know what the story is and to relate to it personally in some way. For example, there’s a Jerome Kern tune I love – The Way You Look Tonight. Dorothy Fields wrote the lyrics, and a century later, they’re still perfectly relevant: ‘Some day, when I’m awfully low / When the world is cold / I will feel a glow…’ Timeless, isn’t it? And still so modern-sounding. Just wonderful.”

The Way You Look Tonight will be just one of the songs Arthur plans to present at the Melbourne Recital Centre on 20 September, in a new concert featuring his most requested classics from composers such as Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Hoagy Carmichael, and Duke Ellington – songs Arthur has been close to for most of his life.

“I grew up lucky because my...