Sammy Cahn

The original guys are Matt Dennis and Tom Adair.

It's quite possible Sammy Kahn stepped in by the 1980s, but I just think it's a devastating, kind of a confessional by the chairman.

All right, here is Eric Comstock.

Black cats creep across my path until I'm almost mad.

Then we went to three songs from a 1939 session.

Two, Saul Chaplin, Sammy Kahn.

Great ones, You're a Lucky Guy and You're Just a No Accountant and By and By.

And then finally from 1938...

So now we're gonna step up once again to our virtual turntable, spin another tremendous tune from Come Swing with Me, Sinatra's sublime 1961 Capitol LP.

This second featured song was written in 1942, music by Jule Styne and words by the inimitable Sammy Cahn.

Introduced in the 1942 film Youth on Parade, this song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, lost out to White Christmas.

So-

So check that out, but not right now.

Anyway, back to the song at hand.

The most popular version of this Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn tune from 1942 was done by Harry James and his Orchestra with Helen Forrest handling the vocals.

Now, this song, and I'm talking about that version by Harry James, it was done the last day before the start of a musicians' strike that ran from 1942 into 1944.

It was his producer, John Hammond Sr. at Columbia, who recommended he go to publisher Lou Levy, who owned both Leeds Music and Duchess Music Corporations.

Levy co-founded these publishing companies in 1935 with lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Saul Chaplin.

You know, Lou Levy is a very interesting character in the sense that I first came across Lou Levy, ironically, with some work I did on Bob Dylan, because again, it's in the book.

But Lou Levy obviously made his name and a lot of his money in the jazz era, the big band era and the so-called Tin Pan Alley period as well.

Okay, interesting.

It's a bit like Sammy Kahn's thing.

Somebody said to Sammy Kahn, what comes first, the music or the lyrics? He said the phone call.

Right, yeah, exactly.

So that's what I heard.

And then we abandoned that concept altogether and came to this party concept.

And so we chose to do this is a Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Kahn tune made popular by Dean Martin.

But we think we gave it a little spin here.

This is Ain't That a Kick in the Head.

We're gonna do a, a song that, uh, was associated with Louis and with Lester Young a little bit later in an instrumental version.

Shoe Shine Boy, by, uh, Saul Chaplin and Sammy Cahn, then at the beginning of their composition career.

And then a really beautiful ballad that does not get, uh, revived too often.

Was I to Blame for Falling in Love with You? A tune by Victor Young and Gus Kahn.

And they did four titles.

Shoe Shine Boy, Saul Chaplin, Sammy Kahn pop song that they turned into a special vehicle for Basie and Prez.

Then two numbers for the majesty of the great vocalist Jimmy Rushing, Evening and Boogie Woogie.

I may be wrong.