Released 1965 Release date 1965 | Recorded 1936-1945 | |
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The Great Band Era is a compilation album featuring Swing music from 1936-1945. Reader's Digest released the album in 1965. In 1988, the Recording Industry Association of America certified 9 million sales of the album – making it one of the top selling albums ever within the United States. The album was released as a ten LP album box set. The album included many swing favorites, as well as new recordings.
Contents
Promotion
Reader's Digest sent out a free promotional record before releasing the album. Voiced by Vaughn Monroe, the record boasted that in The Great Band Era, RCA Victor sound engineers had "remove[d] all the irritating noise and scratchiness that was always present on the original records, even when they were brand new."
Music
The records contains mostly swing standards by major swing bands. It included an entire LP of "theme songs", or songs particularly associated or played exceptionally often by a band. Besides previous swing recordings, the album also contained some song versions released for the first time, including a version of Blues in the Night by Tommy Dorsey and Jo Stafford.
Sales
According to the RIAA, The Great Band Era sold over 9 million copies in the United States, making it one of the best selling-albums of all time within the country. In addition, the Australian Recording Industry Association certified the album as gold in 1999.
Track list
From Discogs.