Feeling
a little stir crazy today? Well just get up and take a stroll on the sunny side of the street. Even
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot whose stern visage enforcing social distancing and telling everyone
to just stay home and has become a viral meme sensation says that it’s alright
to go out for a walk for exercise.
Mayor Lightfoot is watching but even she will let you take a walk if you social distance.
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On
the Sunny Side of the Street was a 1930 song composed by Jimmy McHugh
with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Some writer claim that Fats Waller was the actual composer, but sold the rights—not an uncommon thing for cash strapped Black musicians to do, especially in the Depression.
It was introduced on Broadway in Lew Leslie’s International Revue
starring Harry Richman and Gertrude Lawrence. Richman had a hit record that year with the
song but Ted Lewis and His Orchestra had a bigger
one. It became one of the quirky clarinetist/singer’s signature songs.
Ted Lewis with his clarinet and trademark bashed in top hat with his band circa 1930.
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It
quickly became a jazz standard with instrumentals recoded by Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel
Hampton, Erroll Garner, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum,
Lester Young, Earl “Fatha” Hines, and Dave Brubeck. Singers who performed it included Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy
Garland, Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Keely Smith, Nat King Cole,
Jo Stafford with The Pied Pipers, Frank Sinatra, and Willie
Nelson.
The Sentimentalists a/k/a the Clark Sisters were the vocalists on Tommy Dorsey's hit recording.
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Today
we are listening to the most popular
arrangement by Tommy Dorsey and
the Sentimentalists which charted in 1945 reaching the #16.
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