Focusing on the masters of song, such as Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King, Pomus & Shuman, Greenwich & Barry, Mann & Weil, Bacharach & David, and Sedaka & Greenfield, Emerson's tale was obviously an inspiration for the good folks at U.K.'s Ace Records, who launched their still-ongoing CD "Songwriter series" around the time the book was first published, in the mid-'00s.
Apart from the aforementioned songwriter teams, said series have also featured the early works of Neil Diamond and Phil Spector (separately, of course :-), plus career overviews of Boyce & Hart, Randy Newman, Sloan & Barri, Lee Hazlewood, Bert Berns, Chip Taylor, and Jackie DeShannon - to name but a few.
Of course every serious music enthusiast owns, for instance, Bobby Vee's big hit version of Goffin & King's "Take Good Care of My Baby". But not everyone's aware of the fact that Dion recorded the original version of that little gem. Well, Ace's compilers take both matters into account and include Dion's scarcely heard interpretation rather than Bobby's more familiar - and, frankly, better - one on their Vol. 2 collection of Goffin & King's compositions.
There are numerous other similar examples of how these excellent Ace series both educate and entertain the listener.
Digging for dusty obscurities ripe for (re)discovery is also something the Ace people obviously see as an often rewarding challenge.
Apart from the obvious highlights of the series (Goffin & King Vol. 1, Mann & Weil, Greenwich & Barry), personally I was also pleasantly surprised by the Sloan & Barri CD, as well as the Penn & Oldham, Jackie DeShannon, and Chip Taylor collections. Previously something I thought were merely a few hit wonders, thanks to the Ace folks, I am now a proper fan.
Always magic in the air, indeed...
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