Not sure if this would count but in 1967 Diana Ross & Supremes released an album “The Supremes Sing Rodgers & Hart”
Glad you brought that up, because there's kind of an intersection---where "new" artists started recording these standards far enough back that I'm not sure it counts as nostalgia, but maybe as attempts to cross over to a then-still-viable "adult" radio audience (MOR).
Sam Cooke:
Sam Cooke's first
seven albums--between 1958 and 1961---were all standards albums, some with more contemporary arrangements, some not.
His 1962 album "Twistin' The Night Away" was the first true break from that, but he went back with his very next album (1963's "Mr. Soul"---which had "I Wish You Love", "All The Way", "Willow Weep For Me", "Cry Me A River" and "For Sentimental Reasons", among others).
The last two studio albums while he was alive were more contemporary, but he'd still work in something like "Tennessee Waltz."
And the last album released during his lifetime was "Sam Cooke Live at the Copa", which apart from "Twistin' The Night Away", "Blowin' In The Wind" and "Frankie and Johnny", was all standards.
Bobby Darin:
Bobby swerved between the lines so often it was like watching a driver ed film about DUIs.
Marvin Gaye:
Marvin's first, third and fourth albums (1961-64) were standards. And just when it appeared he'd broken out of that mold with the fifth, "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", album six was a tribute to Nat "King" Cole, who had died a few months before.
Aretha Franklin:
Aretha's first
nine albums (1961-67) for Columbia were all attempts to make her the new Ella Fitzgerald. There were flashes of soul, but her transformation didn't happen until she moved to Atlantic.
The Supremes:
The Rodgers & Hart album wasn't the first for them---a year and a half earlier, they did a "Live at the Copa" album that was heavy on the standards and mixed in their biggest hits to date plus a Sam Cooke Medley.
The Four Tops:
Their fourth album, "On Broadway" (1967) was a collection of Broadway showtunes.
The Temptations:
Their sixth album "In A Mellow Mood" (1967) was a collection of standards.
Stevie Wonder:
Stevie's third album, "With A Song in My Heart" (1963) is a collection of standards. Stevie was 13 years old at the time.
If you're noticing a lot of Motown there, that's because Berry Gordy desperately wanted white America to accept his artists, and for a solid stretch, he thought having them sing standards in tuxes in nightclubs was the ticket.
Gordy, for the founder of a legendary label, had horrific taste in music. The first time he heard Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On", he called it "the worst piece of shit I've ever heard" and refused to release it. "Tears of a Clown" sat on a Miracles album for three years because he couldn't hear it as a single.
Stevie Wonder's incredible streak of albums ("Music of My Mind", "Talking Book", "Innervisions", "Fulfillingness' First Finale" and "Songs in the Key of Life") almost ended up on another label. Stevie let his contract expire, recorded on his own and told Berry that either he had creative autonomy and a lot of money in a new contract with Tamla or he had material ready to deliver to Warners, Columbia or Atlantic. Berry caved.
Anyway, after a good night's sleep, I'm really not sure whether these do fit the stuff that came later. These were albums released by artists not in control of their careers, steered into them by their record labels who were just looking for a hit.
The albums that began with Ringo Starr's "Sentimental Journey" were the artists themselves choosing to do the material for their own reasons.
I question the motives of some of the ones who cashed in after Linda Ronstadt (lookin' at you, Rod!), but up to that point, I think we have artistic choice, which is different from the pre-1970 stuff).
(Sidenote: In my earlier rundown of standards albums by pop artists in the 70s/80s, I left out Diana Ross' "Lady Sings the Blues", which was the Billie Holliday biopic. And that being a purely Berry Gordy product---film and soundtrack, it's exempted from the "purely artistic choice" category. Berry was still being Berry.)
