Seth MacFarlane Aaron Curry

Seth MacFarlane has made several albums performing tunes from the Great American Songbook, but for his next project, he’s turning to classics of another kind. 

On Sept. 18, The Family Guy and Ted creator will release Seth MacFarlane Sings The Muppets (via Verve Records/Republic Records). The 14-track collection will include selections from three Muppet feature films — The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan — as well as from television’s Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.

The set, which is available for pre-order, will include many beloved Muppet-associated tracks such as “Rainbow Connection” and first single “Bein’ Green,” penned by noted composers such as Paul Williams, Joe Raposo and Jeff Moss.

“Songs from Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and the Muppet films became bona fide standards,” said MacFarlane in a statement. “My friend and the arranger of this album, Andrew Cottee, and I are contemporaries, and we both had fond memories of all those great Muppet songs from that era. We both loved the idea of creating an album in which we selected our favorites and recorded them in the style that might have come out of orchestrators like Nelson Riddle and Billy May, had these songs existed in the golden era of arranging.”

In addition to his career as a Emmy-winning television and film creator, MacFarlane is a multiple Grammy-nominated singer with six albums that have landed in the top five of Billboard’s Traditional Jazz Albums chart. His most recent release was last summer’s Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements.

The Muppets album, produced by Joel McNeely, was recorded at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, Calif., with a collection of musicians from London and Los Angeles conducted by John Wilson.

“The music of The Muppets was an obvious choice for a new recording project with Seth,” Cottee shared in a statement. “The whole process of selecting the songs, arranging, recording and hearing the full mixes was a joy, and I hope that comes across to everyone who listens to this album.”

See the Seth MacFarlane Sings The Muppets tracklist below:

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