Never Just One Thing, Part XV: The Glory of Dylan, Covered
How many truly great songs does it take for a composer to qualify as having a timeless and even epic body of work? Ella Fitzgerald recorded her classic Songbook series, in which she performed the best of the giants of the Great American Songbook: Porter, Arlen, Gershwin, Ellington, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Hart, and so on. These collections generally include about 32 songs or so, and you know that there were plenty of gems that didn't make the cut. There was a super Chuck Berry collection called The Great Twenty-Eight , which is sheer perfection and leaves off a truckload of first-rate songs. I had a Creedence Clearwater collection with about the same number of songs. In all of these cases we are talking about songs that are utterly unimpeachable, blending craftsmanship and inspiration of the highest order, in proper measure. So if you take the number 30 and then add 20 or so more they didn't have room for on those best-of's you get 50 perfect songs as the
