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The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

October 24, 2019 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: Some Other Spring

The song of the day for Friday, October 25, 2019, is “Some Other Spring.”

About This Song

“Some Other Spring” was written in 1939 by Irene Kitchings and Arthur Herzog, Jr. The song was a favorite of Billie Holiday. It was composed by her friend Irene Kitchings, wife of bandleader Teddy Wilson.

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded “Some Other Spring” in 1996 for his album Tony Bennett On Holiday, released in 1997.

“Some Other Spring,” as well as Tony Bennett On Holiday, is available from iTunes.

We’ve got Billie’s recording of “Some Other Time” from 1956.

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: Arthur Herzog Jr., Billie Holiday, Irene Kitchens, Tony Bennett, Tony Bennett On Holiday

March 20, 2016 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: Some Other Spring

The song of the day for Sunday, March 20, 2016 is “Some Other Spring.”

About This Song

In honor of the first day of Spring for 2016, our song of the day is “Some Other Spring.” First recorded by Billie Holiday, this song was written in 1939 by her friend Irene Kitchings, wife of bandleader Teddy Wilson, with whom she made her first recordings. The lyrics are by Arthur Herzog, Jr.

About This Version

Tony Bennett recorded “Some Other Time” in 1996 for his album of Billie Holiday songs, Tony Bennett On Holiday. The arrangement is by Jorge Calandrelli.

Some Other Spring

Listen to Some Other Spring on Spotify. Tony Bennett · Song · 1997.


“Some Other Spring,” as well as Tony Bennett On Holiday, is available from iTunes.

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: Arthur Herzog Jr., Irene Wilson Kitchings, Tony Bennett On Holiday

April 27, 2015 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: Some Other Spring

The song of the day for Monday, April 27, 2015 is “Some Other Spring.”

About This Song

Today’s song, “Some Other Spring” was written especially for Billie Holiday in 1939, with music by Arthur Herzog, Jr. and lyrics by Lady Day’s friend Irene Wilson Kitchings, wife of Teddy Wilson.

About This Version

I love this sad love song. Bennett sings it with a very nice gentleness that I do love.

Some Other Spring

Listen to Some Other Spring on Spotify. Tony Bennett · Song · 1997.


“Some Other Spring,” as well as Tony Bennett On Holiday, is available from iTunes.

About Billie Holiday’s Version

Today we’ll feature Miss Holiday’s first recording of this song, from July 5, 1939 (MX W24877-A), released on the Vocalian/OKeh 5021, with “Them There Eyes” on the flip side. The musicians on the album were Sonny White(piano), Tab Smith (soprano and alto sax), Kenneth Hollon and Stanley Payne (tenor sax), Hot Lips Page (trumpet), Bernard Addison (guitar), John Williams (bass) and Eddie Dougherty (drums).

Some Other Spring

Listen to Some Other Spring on Spotify. Billie Holiday · Song · 2010.


“Some Other Spring,” as well as The Essential Billie Holiday, is available from iTunes.

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: Arthur Herzog Jr., Irene Wilson Kitchings, Tony Bennett On Holiday

January 21, 2015 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: God Bless The Child

The song of the day for Wednesday, January 21, 2015 is “God Bless The Child.”

About This Song

“God Bless The Child” was written in 1939 by Billie Holiday, with Arthur Herzog, Jr. The lyric came about as Billie was describing an argument with her mother, saying “God bless the child who’s got his own.” And thus was born one of Holiday’s great songs. She recorded it first in 1941 on the Okeh label; this recording features Roy Eldridge on trumpet.

About This Version

Tony Bennett has recorded this song several times. Today’s version is from one of my favorite of his later albums: Here’s To The Ladies (1995), where he sings songs associated with the great female singers, from Barbra Streisand to Billie Holiday to Margaret Whiting and more. It’s a wonderful album of standards.

About Today

We’ve been thinking a lot about Billie Holiday this week. The website Politico published an essay by Johann Hari, who has written a book on the American war on drugs and explains how that war began with a cruel and vicious plan to use Billie Holiday as the picture of what happens to people who use drugs. The essay is called The Hunting of Billie Holiday. It’s strong stuff, but well worth reading.

The first paragraph will give you an idea of the hatred and invective of a certain Harry Anslinger, who hatched this plan:

Jazz was the opposite of everything Harry Anslinger believed in. It is improvised, relaxed, free-form. It follows its own rhythm. Worst of all, it is a mongrel music made up of European, Caribbean and African echoes, all mating on American shores. To Anslinger, this was musical anarchy and evidence of a recurrence of the primitive impulses that lurk in black people, waiting to emerge. “It sounded,” his internal memos said, “like the jungles in the dead of night.” Another memo warned that “unbelievably ancient indecent rites of the East Indies are resurrected” in this black man’s music. The lives of the jazzmen, he said, “reek of filth.”

God Bless the Child

Listen to God Bless the Child on Spotify. Tony Bennett · Song · 1995.


“God Bless The Child,” as well as Here’s To The Ladies, is available from iTunes.

Filed Under: Song of the Day, Uncategorized Tagged With: Arthur Herzog Jr., Billie Holiday, Here's To The Ladies

April 7, 2013 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: God Bless The Child

Billie Holiday was born on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To celebrate her on the day of her birth, the song of the day for today is God Bless The Child.

Lady Day

About This Song

God Bless The Child was written in 1939 by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr. Holiday recorded it on the Okey label in 1942. It’s been recorded by  singers of jazz, blues, rock and popular music, including Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day, Frankie Laine, Stevie Wonder, Blood Sweat and Tears, Lou Rawls, Ella Fitzgerald, and DeeDee Bridgewater.

About This Version

Billie Holiday was one of the artists that the young Tony Bennett  admired. In his autobiography, The Good Life, he writes about seeing her in the last part of the 1940s after returning from the war in Europe.  In 1997, Tony Bennett released his tribute album to Billie, Bennett on Holiday.  God Bless The Child is the last song on the album: it’s a well-crafted duet using Holiday’s original (I believe) recording with Bennett. The song was very well produced  (by Phil Ramone) and recorded; the result sounds as natural as if they were in the studio together.

Happy birthday to Lady Day, one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. You’ll never be forgotten.

http://open.spotify.com/track/6v2DbCEOjbO4VrNkFACL4k
God Bless The Child, as well as the Bennett on Holiday album, is available from iTunes.

Here’s Billie singing They Can’t Take That Away From Me by George and Ira Gershwin.

http://open.spotify.com/track/50b0UZfQDQXzm8fgu0aeZB
 

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: Arthur Herzog Jr., Billie Holiday, Lady Day

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