 | R&B:Top 100 Acts |
DavesMusicDatabase.com is devoted to ranking, rating, and reviewing music of all genres and eras. The DMDB blog serves up album and song reviews, best-of lists, music history snapshots, and music-related essays.
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Showing posts with label Ray Charles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ray Charles. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2026
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Traditional Pop/Vocal Jazz: Top 25 Albums
 | Traditional Pop/Vocal Jazz:The Top 25 Albums |
While traditional pop and vocal jazz aren’t quite the same thing, they share a lot of commonalities. Traditional pop is considered a genre of music that generally pre-dates rock and roll in the 1950s and generally consists of artists performing standards from the American songbook. Crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Perry Como are popular singers of the genre. Musically, the singers were frequently backed by swing bands. Vocal jazz is a sub-genre of jazz in which a singer’s voice is used as an instrument, which includes techniques such as vocal improvisations and scatting in which the singer imitates the instruments. It emerged out of the New Orleans jazz tradition which was built on the field hollers and work songs of African-American slaves. Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan are some of the genre’s most notable performers. Like traditional pop, it often leans on standards. 18 sources focused on the best traditional pop, vocal jazz, and standards albums were aggregtated to create this exclusive Dave’s Music Database list. Check out other best-of-genre/category lists here. 
1. Norah Jones Come Away with Me (2002)
6. Billie Holiday Lady in Satin (1958)
11. Frank Sinatra Come Dance with Me (1959)
16. John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963)
21. Billie Holiday Lady Sings the Blues (1956)
Resources and Related Links:
First posted 9/15/2024; last updated 2/28/2026. |
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Dave's Music Database Hall of Fame: Album Inductees (Feb. 2025)
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The Top Traditional Pop/Jazz AlbumsOriginally posted 2/22/2025. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the 25th group of album inductees. These are the top 10 traditional pop/vocal jazz albums of all time (see the DMDB’s top 25 list here). Three were inducted in previous classes – Frank Sinatra’s Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, Judy Garland’s Judy at Carnegie Hall, and Norah Jones’ Come Away with Me. |
Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (1954)Inducted February 2025 as “Top Traditional Pop/Jazz Albums.” |
| AllMusic.com: “This recording was not only Louis Armstrong's finest record of the 1950s but one of the truly classic jazz sets.” He covers 11 songs written by W.C. Handy, including the notable “St. Louis Blues.” This is “essential music for all serious jazz collections.” Read more at Wikipedia. |  |
Ray Charles The Genius of Ray Charles (1959)Inducted February 2025 as “Top Traditional Pop/Jazz Albums.” |
| Ray Charles was one of the most influential singers of all time with “a revolutionary fusion of blues, jazz, R&B, and gospel.” RD The Genius of Ray Charles showed an artist “still in his twenties and signaled both his eagerness and ability to transcend genres at will.” RD It “comes on strong with a ravishing set of six big-band-flavored jazz numbers.” RD On the second side, “Charles turned in a more seductive direction and arrived at a roster of ballads backed by massive, swooning string sections.” RD Read more. |  |
Natalie Cole Unforgettable…With Love (1991)Inducted February 2025 as “Top Traditional Pop/Jazz Albums.” |
| Natalie Cole was born into music royalty as the daughter of Nat “King” Cole, a jazz crooner who charted more than 100 times in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. She became a star in her own right, winning the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1976 and charting sixteen top-10 R&B hits in the ‘70s and ‘80s. However, she found her greatest success in 1991 when she recorded an album of songs her father had made famous. It won her the Grammy for Album of the Year and sold seven million copies in the U.S. Read more. |  |
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook (1956)Inducted February 2025 as “Top Traditional Pop/Jazz Albums.” |
| “Ella Fitzgerald was already the preeminent voice in the jazz world when she began what became her signature project in 1956; a series of recordings devoted to works by each of the great stage and screen composers of postwar America.” TM They “are all wonderful, but her natural wit and intelligence was at its most perfect” AZ on Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, the first collection. She “shines as the perfect interpreter of Cole Porter’s bittersweet love songs.” AM It “is a dream pairing of singer and song,” TM “arguably history’s finest jazz singer singing some of the best-written American pop standards.” AM Read more. |  |
Billie Holiday Lady in Satin (1958)Inducted February 2025 as “Top Traditional Pop/Jazz Albums.” |
| “Lady Day was in big trouble by 1958.” BL “Although not yet 43, she could have passed for 73.” AM “Her raspy singing reflected a lifetime riddled with abusive relationships, drug addiction and time spent in prison.” PM “The sweet tones of Holiday’s upper register were practically non-existent, but her voice remained an immovable force.” PM Lady in Satin is “as heartbreaking and necessary as it is gorgeous,” PM a “startling masterpiece rooted in tough times.” BL Without it, “there would simply have been no divas like Nina Simone or Janis Joplin crying their hearts out so uncompromisingly in the decades to come.” RD Read more. |  |
Frank Sinatra In the Wee Small Hours (1955)Inducted February 2025 as “Top Traditional Pop/Jazz Albums.” |
| Sinatra’s “break-up with Ava Gardner provided the perfect catalyst” TL for what has been hailed as “the all-time greatest break-up album.” RD “The wisecracking, finger-snapping Sinatra of popular legend is absent;” RD this is an “authoritative take on masculine loneliness.” TL It is also “one of the finest jazz albums of all time.” CAD and “considered by many to be the first concept album.” CAD Read more. |  |
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely (1958)Inducted February 2025 as “Top Traditional Pop/Jazz Albums.” |
| “The sad songs come one after another on this album, Sinatra’s definitive ballad collection.” TM “Only the Lonely follows the same formula as his previous down albums, but the tone is considerably bleaker and more desperate.” AM The “world’s greatest saloon singer is in his element” TM playing the part of “a wounded Everyman…who lurk[s] in the lounge nursing their disappointment, bending the ear of the barkeep, seeking consolation in the woozy hues of jazz and cocktails.” TM “It’s a heartbreaking record, the ideal late-night album.” AM Read more. |  |
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Kendrick Lamar “Not Like Us” debuted at #1
 | Not Like UsKendrick Lamar |
Writer(s): Sean Momberger, Ray Charles, Kendrick Duckworth (see lyrics here) Released: May 5, 2024 First Charted: May 18, 2024 Peak: 13 BB, 11 DG, 16 ST, 122 RB, 12 UK, 11 CN, 12 AU, 19 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.6 UK, 1.56 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 688.80 video, 1530.76 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details.
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About the Song:Rapper Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born in 1987 in Compton, California. He released his first album, Section 80, in 2011 but didn’t really take off until his sophomore effort, Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City in 2012. The album peaked at #2 and was certified three times platinum. Five #1 albums followed from 2015 to 2022. He first reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2015 as a featured artist on the remix of Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.” He ascended to the top on his own in 2017 with “Humble” and, in 2024, reached #1 a third time as a featured artist on Future & Metro Boomin’s “Like That.” Lamar’s guest verse on “Like That” was a diss of rappers Drake and J. Cole in response to their 2023 song “First Person Shooter.” While Kendrick and Drake denied conflict between them for years, there is speculation that their feud goes back as far as 2013 when Lamar dissed Drake and other rappers on Big Sean’s “Control.” Lamar claimed it was meant in friendly competition. After “Like That,” Drake responded with “Push Ups,’ “Taylor Made Freestyle,” and “Family Matters.” Lamar came back with “Euphoria,” 6:16 in LA,” and “Meet the Grahams,” a song which accused Drake of pedophilia and sexual misconduct. Less than 24 hours later, Lamar also dropped “Not Like Us,” which echoed similar themes while also challenging Drake’s cultural identity. WK The song also compared Drake t a slave owner, accusing him of exploiting Atlanta rappers like Future and Lil Baby for street credibility and cash. SF Critics hailed it “as one of the greatest diss tracks in history.” WK “Not Like Us” was produced by Mustard, who’d previously reached a career best of #5 with Ella Mai’s “Boo’d Up” in 2018. SF He sampled “I Believe to My Soul,” a 1968 cover by saxophonist Monk Higgins of a 1961 song by Ray Charles. WK “Not Like Us” became Lamar’s fourth trip to the pinnacle of the Billboard Hot 100 and became the longest-running #1 song in the history of the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with 21 weeks on top. WK It was nominated for Grammys for Record and Song of the Year. It was the most played song in the world on Spotify in 2024. SF Resources:Related Links:
First posted 1/4/2025; last updated 6/15/2025. |
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Ranked
 | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Ranked:1986-2024 |
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