The song of the day for Friday. November 21, 2025, is “You Can Depend on Me.”
About This Song
“You Can Depend on Me” was written in 1931 by Charles Carpenter, Louis Dunlap, and Earl “Fatha” Hines. The first recording was by Louis Armstrong in 1931. Other recordings include those by Nat “King” Cole and Brenda Lee.
About This Version
Tony Bennett recorded “You Can Depend on Me” on September 11, 1956, for his second album, Tony, released in 1957.
There was some controversy regarding credits for the arrangements on Tony. Bennett wrote in his autobiography The Good Life:
All the guys—Marion [Evans], Gil [Evans], Neal [Hefti], Don [Costa]—did a tremendous job on the orchestrations for Tony, but you’d never know it from reading the front or back cover of that album. At that time Columbia was heavily pushing Ray Conniff. He was going to be the new Percy Faith, their next big name in instrumental pop music. Ray conducted the sessions, and he did a good job, but it burned me up that none of the others received any credit on the cover. Over the next few months I was embarrassed when I ran into them. They’d always ask me why they didn’t get credit. I felt terrible about it.
“You Can Depend on Me,” as well as Tony, is available on Apple Music.
Here’s the 1931 recording of “You Can Depend on Me” by Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra.
Armstrong recorded “You Can Depend on Me” again in 1951, live at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, released on Satchmo At Pasadena, which has Armstrong singing vocals.