The Willard White Songbook contains a selection of simple arrangements (piano accompaniments with guitar chords) of show tunes, spirituals and such-like, tied in with Sir Willard’s debut recording as a solo artist, which amazingly enough, has only just appeared. The discovery for me is an excellent little song about bananas, but all the music is good. And if you haven’t already got Deep River, or Swing Low, or Some enchanted evening, or 01’ man River, you might buy it. Musicologists of the future will cherish it for the guitar chords added to Copland’s brilliant piano arrangement of I bought me a cat. The animal noises are represented by a variety of discordant means, which have been painstakingly analysed. The goose chord of D-E flat-F-A fiat becomes F minor7 with added sharp 13th. The dock (A flat-F-A natural) becomes F major7 with added sharp 9th. Enough to make the eponymous cat laugh (BflatmaJ7-C-F).

(Sheet Music Review)