Route 66: Bobby Troup + Nat King Cole

Route 66 is one of the classic swing songs. I bet you have sung this one time or another:

"Get your kicks on Route 66"

Many people don't know that the song was written by a man called Bobby Troup. Most people associate Route 66 with Nat King Cole because he was the first artist to record the song in 1946.

I thought it would be interesting to hear how the composer would perform the song, so here is Bobby Troup performing Route 66.

You can then compare it with how Nat King Cole and his trio played Route 66 below.



As I'm often is involved with rigging bands on Swingkatten's dance nights I could help noticing the look of the microphones: so small.

I wonder why they made microphones like that then and also why we don't see such microphones nowadays. It must be techical reasons why they changed the look or could it be astaetics as well?

Nowadays you mostly see Shure SM58s (ok, you non technical types can roll your eyes now... ;-) ). Is there anyone who know the history of microphones?

What do you think of the different versions of Route 66? Please comment.