The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

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Song of the Day: The Second Time Around

The song of the day for Sunday, May 19, 2013 is The Second Time Around.

About This Song

The Second Time Around was written by great team of Jimmy VanHeusen and Sammy Cahn for the 1960 movie High Time, where is was introduced by Bing Crosby.  It’s been recorded by many popular singers including Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Tormé, Rosemary Clooney and Michael Feinstein,

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded this song for one of his favorite albums, the 1966 The Movie Song Album. Other great songs from this album include Emily, The Days of Wine and Roses and Maybe September, from The Oscar,  in which Tony Bennett appeared in a non-singing role.

The Second Time Around was arranged by Al Cohn and conducted by Johnny Mandel.

http://open.spotify.com/track/1MkzQmxuXvQAgXPhCwyi0Q
The Second Time Around, as well as The Movie Song Album, is available from iTunes.

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Song of the Day: I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face

The song of the day for Saturday, May 18, 2013 is I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face.

About This Song

This song is, of course, from the very successful 1956 musical My Fair Lady. The music is by Frederick Lowe and the lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. My Fair Lady was nominated for nine Tony Awards, and won six, including Best Musical, Best Actor in a Musical for Rex Harrison, and Best Direction of a Musical for Moss Hart. The 1956 original cast album became the best-selling album in the US that year. My parents had that album and I know we all listened to it frequently.

I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face is sung by Henry Higgins at the end of show, when the Professor finally recognizes how much Eliza Doolittle (played by Julie Andrews) means to him and how much he will miss her. (Spoiler: she comes back.)

The song has been steadily recorded since 1956, with recordings by Chet Baker, Ruby Braff, Nat King Cole, and many more.

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face with Count Basie in January, 1958, for the Basie/Bennett album released in 1959.

http://open.spotify.com/track/5wNGLVq6BUm9SXPzosUh55
I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face, as well as the digitally remastered Bennett & Basie Strike Up The Band, is available from iTunes.

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Song of the Day: Wait Till You See Her

The song of the day for Friday, May 17, 2013 is Wait Till You See Her.

About This Song

Wait Till You See Her is a lovely waltz by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1942 for the musical By Jupiter, which was their next-to-last collaboration. Over Hart’s objections, the song was cut from the show before the official opening. However, Mabel Mercer had fallen in love with the song and began to feature it in her cabaret shows. Alec Wilder, in American Popular Song, called it “…one of the loveliest songs Rodgers or any other theater writer has ever written.” Wilder first heard it sung by Mabel Mercer and credits her for the ongoing popularity of the song as standard.

About This Version

Today’s version is from Tony Bennett’s 1973 Improv album Tony Bennett Sings 10 Rodgers & Hart Songs. I have always been a big fan of the songs of Rodgers and Hart, but Bennett’s treatment of these songs is truly wonderful. In addition to his light and sensitive treatment of this waltz, the songs in this series are remarkable as well for the composition of the quartet that he used. The quartet was composed of Ruby Braff on cornet, George Barnes and Wayne Wright on guitar and John Guiffrida on bass. The arrangement for Wait Till You See Me is light and subtle. Listen for the very soft and very beautiful cornet work. And even though this song is very short at not quite a minute and a half, it says everything that needs to be said about this song.

http://open.spotify.com/track/4oEagl4qc4RY25lYvv5P1f
Wait Till You See Her, as well as the full Tony Bennett Sings The Rodgers & Hart Songbook, is available from iTunes.

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Song of the Day: Maybe This Time

The song of the day for Thursday, May 16, 2013 is Maybe This Time.

About This Song

Maybe This Time was written for the 1972 film version of Cabaret, which starred Liza Minelli and Joel Grey, did not appear in the original Broadway production. Written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, the song had been written earlier for Kaye Ballard, though I’ve been unable to track down any information that she ever recorded it.

The song became closely identified with Liza Minelli, but many other singers have recorded it as well, including Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis, Steve Lawrence and Englebert Humperdink. It was also featured on the television program Glee.

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded this version in 1972 for With Love; it was his first recording of this song. He recorded it again in 1995 for Here’s To The Ladies. Today’s version was arranged and conducted by Robert Farnon.

Mr. Bennett sings this song at nearly all of his concerts (to my great delight) and he and Lee Musiker have come up with a terrific and powerful show-stopper with their current version of Maybe This Time. If you have access to Bennett’s 2010 iTunes Festival in London EP (see one of my very first posts on this blog: The Best $5.99 You’ll Ever Spend) you can hear what a great number it is. That said, today’s version, sincere and straightforward and very touching, has many charms and I love this recording very much.

This song has become somewhat of an anthem for me. I never tire of hearing it. Especially when it’s sung by Tony Bennett.

http://open.spotify.com/track/626CWE7ZgdKZZuwOVDyqFr
Maybe This Time, as well as the remastered With Love album, is available from iTunes.

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Song of the Day: The Folks That Live On The Hill

The song of the day for Wednesday, May 15, 2013 is The Folks That Live On the Hill.

About This Song

While the partnership of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II probably comes to mind when people first think of Hammerstein, Oscar Hammerstein was nearly 50 before he and Rodgers wrote Oklahoma. Prior to that, he had teamed with composers including Jerome Kern (Showboat in 1927), Vincent Youmans, Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg. Not only a lyric writer, Hammerstein usually wrote the book for the musicals he collaborated on.

220px-High_wide_and_handsome_promo_picture

Today’s song, The Folks That Live On The Hill, was written in 1937 with Jerome Kern for a movie called High, Wide and Handsome, where it was introduced by Irene Dunne. It was recorded that same year by Bing Crosby. Peggy Lee also recorded the song in 1957 on her album The Man I Love.

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded this song on his 1990 autobiographical album Astoria: Portrait of the Artist. The song is quite touching in the context of the arc of the album: the young man returning home after World War II, exploring his past, planning his future and dreaming of what life might bring.

http://open.spotify.com/track/38kABxg7jKSRBo1Yd5V7k5
The Folks That Live On the Hill, as well as the entire Astoria: Portrait of the Artist album, is available from iTunes.