One of my favorite things about the New Era of Downloading is the freedom you suddenly have to be your own record producer. Remember the days when you liked one or two songs on a new release and were forced to spring for the entire album if you wanted them? That was almost as annoying as having to fast-forward and rewind your cassette for five minutes just to find a particular track!

Anyway, like most people, I have a playlist of “desert island” songs I would gladly be shipwrecked with as long as I had them on my magic smart phone that never needed charging. But why dream about such a scenario when you can turn your favorite songs into downright celebrations any time?

Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind” was my favorite tune of his for a long time but I never had a copy of it, so one day I went on iTunes and typed it in the search window. Lo and behold, there were well over 100 versions of the song available from various artists—everyone from Julio Iglesias to Madeleine Peyroux to the Swingin’ Fireballs. It took a little time and cost me around $25, but I downloaded the best two dozen or so versions of the tune from that initial list of 100 and made myself a fun, swanky playlist called Summer Winds that runs for an hour and a half.

I have since done this same thing with Marvin’s Vineyard (50 different versions of “Heard it through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye), 24 versions of Irving Berlin’s “Cheek to Cheek”, and just recently, 25 awesome versions of “96 Tears” by Question Mark and the Mysterians.

A few years ago, I even burned a mix CD for my dad called Can’t Get My 26 Sets of Eyes Off of You, a tribute to the Frankie Valli classic that also happened to be my dad’s favorite song. He liked the thing so much he asked for another CD after he lost the first one!

It goes without saying, but the key to making a successful song tribute mix is arranging the tracks very carefully to prevent you or another listener from getting bored with the tune. It all starts with selecting as many different musical styles as possible. In the Marvin’s Vineyard mix, for instance, there are soul versions, funk versions, a reggae version, an a capella version, vocals by men or women or both. I even found a punk version for the Frankie Valli mix. The Vineyard collection runs a good three hours, and it took forever to get the songs in the right order, but if you do this right with one of your fave tunes, you can have yourself a sweet little tribute concert that will resonate for an entire long car drive or ear-budded hike.

Thanks, digital age!