The song of the day for Wednesday, March 6, 2013 is Keep Smiling at Trouble.

About This Song

The lyrics for Keep Smiling At Trouble (Trouble’s a Bubble) were written by Al Jolson and Buddy DeSylva with music by Lewis Gensler. The first recordings I could locate information about was made in 1924 by Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians as well as Al Jolson’s own recording. Kat Starr recorded it with Count Basie (I’d love to hear that!) as well as Bunny Berigan (of I Can’t Get Started fame).

About This Version

Tony Bennett featured this song in his 1964 Live At The Sahara show. While this recording is available in The Tony Bennett Complete Collection, it isn’t available digitally at this time. Today’s recording is from his 1963 This Is All I Ask, which was arranged and conducted by Ralph Sharon and produced by Ernie Altschuler.

http://open.spotify.com/track/7xcWqpzuKjL6pvCC4GoPwc
Keep Smiling At Trouble, as well as the full This Is All I Ask album, is available from iTunes.

As an extra treat — and who doesn’t want a treat on the middle of the work week — here’s Al Jolson singing Keep Smiling At Trouble. This “video” features some nice still photographs of Jolson.