The song of the day for Thursday, December 1, 2016 is “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”
About This Song
Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” in 1933 for the movie Moulin Rouge, where it was sung by Constance Bennett. Although numerous artists have recorded “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (including Bing Crosby 1944), this song is very strongly identified with Tony Bennett. In fact, his demo record of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” was heard by Mitch Miller and got Bennett his recording contract with Columbia Records.
About This Version
It seems appropriate that we kick off our songwriter of the month songs with the Warren song that started Tony Bennett’s career. Today we feature his 1950 recording, from his first Columbia recording session in April, 1950. The single was released in May, 1950. The arrangement is by Marty Manning.
“The Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” as well as The Columbia Singles, Vol. 1, is available from iTunes.
About Today
Because virtually all of the Harry Warren songs we’ll be featuring this month were written for film, I thought it would be fun to include, when available, film clips of the songs as they were performed. Here’s the clip from Moulin Rouge: