The song of the day for Friday, January 19. 2024, is “A Sleepin’ Bee.”
About This Song
“A Sleepin’ Bee” was written by Harold Arlen and Truman Capote for the 1954 musical House of Flowers, based on the Truman Capote novella. Set in Haiti, the production featured a trio of steel drummers (more precisely known as pannists) from Trinidad.
About This Version
Tony Bennett recorded “A Sleepin’ Bee” on October 28, 1959, for the album Tony Sings For Two, which was released in 1961.
Tony Bennett talks about the album in his autobiography, The Good Life:
I always wanted to be unpredictable. So for my next project, I decided to go in the opposite direction from the big orchestral albums I’d been doing lately and cut an intimate piano-vocal album with Ralph Sharon. We booked time at the studio and pored through music books, trying one tune after another. The arrangements were spontaneous, and we finished each song in one or two takes. In one afternoon we laid down sixteen tunes—which must be some kind of record—twelve of which made it onto the album, which became 1961’s Tony Sings For Two. Mitch Miller showed up at the start of these sessions, furious that I was really going through with it. When he saw that there was no dissuading me, he turned to Frank Laico and said, “I’m leaving. I can’t support this.” Tony Sings For Two turned out to be one of my finest records ever.
“A Sleepin’ Bee,” as well as Tony Sings For Two, is available on Apple Music.
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