George and James is an album by The Residents

The Residents

The Residents is an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. The first official release under the name of The Residents was in 1972, and the group has since released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs....

, released in 1984. It was subtitled American Composer Series - Volume 1. The American Composer Series was originally supposed to be an ongoing project lasting from 1984 until 2000 that profiled a number of different artists. The idea was to "make music about music." Ultimately only two full albums surfaced (Stars and Hank Forever is the other one), although a few tracks from the planned album profiling Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...

 and Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

 have surfaced.

This particular offer includes a side of reworked George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

 songs, while side two has the same songs in the same order as side one of James Brown's classic Live at the Apollo.

Unenthusiastic reviews, the transition from vinyl to CD (meaning that the concept of a split album would be spoiled) and re-negotiation of the songwriting fees (making the project financially impossible) scuppered the series.

Track listing

1. "Rhapsody in Blue
   Rhapsody in Blue
   Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
   
   "
2. "I Got Rhythm
   I Got Rhythm
   "I Got Rhythm" is a song composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and published in 1930, which became a jazz standard. Its chord progression, known as the "rhythm changes", is the foundation for many other popular jazz tunes such as Charlie Parker's and Dizzy Gillespie's Bebop...
   
   "
3. "Summertime
   Summertime (song)
   "Summertime" is an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin by ASCAP....
   
   "

Live at the Apollo

1. "I'll Go Crazy"
2. "Try Me
   Try Me (song)
   "Try Me" is a song written and performed by James Brown. He recorded it with his singing group The Famous Flames in 1958. A plaintive ballad, it was the group's second R&B hit , and early in 1959 it became their first song to reach #1 on the R&B chart and was also the first time the group hit the...
   
   "
3. "Think"
4. "I Don't Mind"
5. "Lost Someone
   Lost Someone
   "Lost Someone" is a song recorded by James Brown in 1961. Like "Please, Please, Please" before it, the song's lyrics combine a lament for lost love with a plea for forgiveness. In the US, the single was a #2 R&B hit and reached #48 on the pop chart. Although the single is credited to "James Brown...
   
   "
6. "Please, Please, Please
   Please, Please, Please
   "Please, Please, Please" is an R&B song written by James Brown and Johnny Terry and recorded by Brown and The Flames. Released in 1956 as a single on the Cincinnati, Ohio-based label Federal Records, it was Brown's first professional recording and his first hit, eventually selling over a million...
   
   "
7. "Night Train
   Night Train (song)
   "Night Train" is a twelve bar blues instrumental standard first recorded by Jimmy Forrest in 1951.-Origins and development:"Night Train" has a long and complicated history. The piece's opening riff was first recorded in 1940 by a small group led by Duke Ellington sideman Johnny Hodges under the...
   
   "

Bonus Track on British Cassette Release

1. It's a Man's Man's Man's World
   It's a Man's Man's Man's World
   "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" is a song by James Brown and Betty Jean Newsome. Brown recorded it on February 16, 1966 in a New York studio and released it as a single later that year. It reached #1 on the Billboard Top R&B Singles charts and #8 in the Billboard Hot 100...