The Great Italian American Songbook: 60 Tracks from the Greatest Italian-American Singers (3-CD)

by Various Artists

One of the reasons American entertainment became such a strong cultural mix was because of the immigration from so many countries. Many of the great Broadway songwriters and comedians were Jewish, while blues, soul and gospel came from the African-Americans. Cajun music came courtesy of the French; while English and Irish ballads dominated folk music, and even the famed American balladeers were often immigrants of Italian extraction. There were many operatic singers from Italy or of Italian extraction and this inevitably crossed over into popular music. The American singers were largely from Italian families, based predominantly in New York or Philadelphia, and this 60-track collection features the very best of them.