A Musical Interlude...

September 15, 2021 3:26 PM

Skylark, a 1941 popular song with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, music by Hoagy Carmichael and the jazz stylings of Ella Fitzgerald...
posted by jim in austin (11 comments total)

I find Johhny Mercer to be an interesting singer/songwriter who developed many lyrical phrases that are part of so many familiar tunes. It's also amazing to me that he was also a founder of Capital Records and was pivotal in early carrers of so many other greats.
posted by mightshould at 3:52 PM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

Gregory Porter owns this song now, imo.
posted by dobbs at 4:06 PM on September 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

I thought it was more Billly Eckstine. But that was back then.
posted by Rash at 5:32 PM on September 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

Sonny Rollins's unaccompanied solo at the end of this version is maybe my favorite solo ever.
posted by HeroZero at 6:29 PM on September 15, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is basically my favorite song. I particularly like The Real Group's version. I sing this all the time at karaoke; nobody knows it, but it's not that hard to sing!

Also if you take an improv class and do the dueling a capella game where each team has to jump in on the other team's words (like in Pitch Perfect) to sing, use "SKYlark" because a lot of songs say "sky," and then you'll completely win because NOBODY ELSE KNOWS THE LYRICS TO SKYLARK so nobody can guess what's coming and prepare a song.

Slight downside: You must sing the entire song.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:32 PM on September 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

One of the highlights of my life was seeing Ella Fitzgerald in a small nightclub in the late 70s. She apologized for having a cold, and she was not young (obvs), but she still had that beautiful smooth as butter voice, and she jammed with the band like her voice was another instrument. I knew even at the time that I was insanely lucky to be there.
posted by maggiemaggie at 7:00 PM on September 15, 2021 [7 favorites]

Linda Ronstadt on Lush Life
posted by hwestiii at 7:17 PM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

I was just playing various versions of this the other day (geat minds and all that). Wonderful tune.

And don't @ me, but Bette Midler's version is probably the first I ever heard decades ago, and I still don't hate it.
posted by NorthernLite at 8:23 PM on September 15, 2021 [4 favorites]

Linda Ronstadt's version is gorgeous...
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 2:31 AM on September 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

I couldn't find a free-to-listen link, but Kevin Mahogany's rendition on the Ray Brown Trio album "Some of My Best Friends Are ... Singers" (Telarc Jazz) is my favorite.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 6:37 AM on September 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'd been thinking of doing an FPP on this song, because the story of it is great. Carmichael was trying to get a musical about Bix Beiderbecke off the ground, and the tune that became "Skylark" was originally titled "Bix Lix" and was based on an improvisation Carmichael remembered. The musical didn't make it. Carmichael reworked the tune a bit but couldn't figure out words, so he sent it to Mercer.

By all accounts, Carmichael gave the music to Mercer and then waited for months without hearing a word from him. In America's Songs, Philip Furia and Michael Lasser quote Carmichael, re: Mercer: "He is the original 'Don't call me, I'll call you' guy." Six months later, the story goes, Mercer finished the lyrics, called Carmichael, and sang the finished tune over the phone: "Quite some kick to sit back comfy like that at the telephone and listen," Carmichael said.

The (possibly apocryphal) story goes that by the time Mercer finally got back to him with words, Carmichael had forgotten that he'd written the melody, but this seems like one of those anecdotes that's too good to fact check since literally everybody involved seems to have been well served by it.

My old college roommate used to say that there are only three jazz standards: "Skylark, Stardust, and it really doesn't matter what the third one is."
posted by fedward at 9:29 AM on September 16, 2021 [3 favorites]