The First Of The Singer Songwriters: Key Cuts 1924 - 1946 (2008)

"Its title aside (which suggests that Hoagy Carmichael was a some distant forerunner of Jackson Browne), there's no doubt that this 101-track 4CD set is lovingly assembled, and it outlines an impressive and amazing legacy. Carmichael was technically a singer/songwriter, of course, in the sense that he was quite a capable performer, and he certainly had a public persona as a laid-back jivin' jazz cat. Carmichael is also different than the other great American jazz and pop song stylists of his time like the Gershwins, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. He didn't necessarily need a lyricist, for one, and his songs only occasionally had romance as a central theme, preferring instead to deal with places, times and mindsets, with "Georgia on My Mind" being a perfect example. This set balances between Carmichael's own versions of his compositions and key versions by others, recorded between 1926 and 1946. All of these are excellent in their own way, framing the legacy of a very unique writer." (Steve Leggett, Allmusic)