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Welcome to the other Great American Songbook.

Music publisher Max Dreyfus, the head of Chappell Music and dean of New York City’s allegorical Tin Pan Alley, once said, “Always take care of your writers. Without them you are nothing.” Dreyfus knew a good songwriter when he heard one – Richard Rodgers, George Gershwin and Cole Porter, to name but three – and we like to think we do too, although we specialise in a more recent era. It takes nothing away from the towering achievements of Rodgers, Gershwin and Porter to acknowledge that the 1950s and 60s produced their own fair share of brilliant songwriters.

Each CD in Ace’s Songwriter series offers an overview of a very specific artistic vision and personality, from the tongue-in-cheek playfulness of Leiber & Stoller to the soul stylings of Van McCoy and the earthy street-grounded rockers of Ernie Maresca. Randy Newman and Burt Bacharach are widely considered the embodiment of the word songwriter, but Neil Diamond and Jackie DeShannon are so firmly embedded in the public consciousness as star performers that many may be momentarily surprised to encounter them as the prolific tunesmiths they actually were. Great songs are all you would expect from a Bacharach set, but perhaps you’ve never stopped to think just how many great songs Bo Diddley wrote. Luckily, Ace have, and now you can enjoy hearing the proof.

The halcyon days of the Brill Building era are represented by the great writing teams of Leiber & Stoller, Pomus & Shuman, Goffin & King, Mann & Weil, Sedaka & Greenfield and Greenwich & Barry, who so dominated the Hot 100 during that golden age (although not all of them actually operated out of the Brill).

Those writers in turn influenced those who came along in their wake. The Sloan & Barri and Boyce & Hart teams added a folk-rock slant to the mix. Chip Taylor delved into a more country-flavoured sound. Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson & Joshie Armstead borrowed from the church for their soul epics. All of them made tremendous contributions and more than earned the honour of being anthologised in the usual Ace fashion, with accompanying action-packed booklets filled with interviews, essays, rare photos and vintage clippings.

You’ll find big hits, fabulous near-misses, obscure LP cuts, interesting interpretations of hits and rarities, sung by a dazzling array of star performers, living legends, notorious characters, cult favourites and talented also-rans. The real stars here, though, are the songwriters. And, of course, their great songs.

It’s tempting to say that had these writers been the only ones working in the second half of the 20th century, the 50s and 60s would still be considered rock’s golden age. But one thing is certain: it wouldn’t have been a golden age without them.

Andrew Collins hasn't decided what he is yet. He writes scripts, mostly. But he also broadcasts on BBC 6 Music; having been a proud part of the network's launch line-up, he is now a willing sub, often popping up at breakfast. He is also Film Editor at the Radio Times and films a weekly TV review for The Guardian called Telly Addict. He once penned episodes of EastEnders, then moved into sitcom with BBC2's Grass (co-written with star Simon Day), BBC1's award-winning Not Going Out (co-written with star Lee Mack), Radio 4's Mr Blue Sky and, most recently, Sky Living's team-written Gates. He is script-editing the first Pappy's sitcom for BBC3. He also writes books, including the biography of Billy Bragg, Still Suitable For Miners, and a trilogy of memoirs, Where Did It All Go Right?, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and That's Me In The Corner, which detail his evolution from latecoming Northampton punk via a brush with provincial New Romanticism to fully-flown Goth and part-time art-school B-Boy, and a ramshackle media career from the NME during the Madchester years, to Select for Grunge and Q for Britpop. It was at 6 Music in the early days that Andrew's first producer, Frank Wilson, broadened his musical mind and whose infectious enthusiasm accounts for much of the music chosen here. Cheers, Frank!

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Talk about turning the fox loose in the chicken shack!! Turning a music fanatic like me on to this catalogue and saying pick your Top 10, it is agonising. Perhaps if it was only one genre like doo wop it could be done, but between jazz-rockabilly-doo wop-rock and roll-funk-jive-big bands etc I am at a loss, why not ask for my top 100! I am copping out in advance to all who did not make the Top 10 list, by the time you read this I hope my 24 hour a day internet radio outlet of oldies will be running and I can just play most of them and relieve the frustration of the current restriction. Watch this space. I guess it could have been worse, Ace could have said, "Pick one"!! Here is the crème de la crème, songs I can listen to anytime anywhere!

www.emperorrosko.net

Suzi is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 2. As a child in 1950s Detroit she absorbed rock 'n' roll from the radio and her older siblings' record collections. She remains passionate about the music from the golden era of the fifties and sixties with all its energy, innocence and romance.

www.bbc.co.uk/radio2