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The Birth of the Blues

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Written: 1926

Music by: Ray Henderson

Words by: B.G. Buddy De Sylva
and Lew Brown

Written for: George White's Scandals (revue, 1926)

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On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook


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Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong

performing

"The Birth of the Blues"

from The Edsel Show (TV)
(1957)

iTunes

A Sinatra / Armstrong duet on Birth of the Blues is
available on the album Classic Duets.

More Performances in the Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet


 

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"The Birth of the Blues"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

About the revue George White's Scandals [1926]
and Introduction of "The Birth of the Blues"

Other songs written for George White's Scandals [1926] currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook: none

 

For a complete listing of songs used in the original production of this revue, see IBDB song list.


George White's Scandals taken together constituted a series of revues appearing on Broadway in most years from 1919 through 1939. Grand revues of this type were modeled on The Ziegfeld Follies and many of the stars of the American musical theater of the early and middle Twentieth Century got their start in them. George White's Scandals featured, in various years, Ray Bolger, Ethel Merman, Ann Miller, Helen Morgan, and Eleanor Powell among many others.

"The Birth of the Blues" was introduced in the 1926 Scandals by Harry Richman, who sang it as part of the first act finale, a "debate" between the blues and the classics that also included a version of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" (with Lyrics, no less), and W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues (1914)." The 1926 Scandals was the longest running of the series (June 14, 1926 - June 18, 1927) and introduced one of the great dance numbers of The Roaring Twenties, "The Black Bottom."

Critics Corner (This section is currently in preparation.)
   
   
   
   
Lyrics Lounge (This section is currently in preparation.)

Click here to read the lyrics for "The Birth of the Blues" as sung by Frank Sinatra
on the album The Columbia Years 1943-1952. (This version includes the verse.)

Many listeners to this song have heard the "new note" that came from the "whippoorwill out on a hill" as having been "pushed . . . through a horn / 'Til it was born / Into a blue note!" instead of what De Sylva and Brown wrote: "'Til it was worn / Into a blue note!" "Worn / Into a blue note" is not only what the lyricists wrote but makes the sense required for understanding the line. A "blue notes" is a note that has been altered by lowering its pitch a touch below the key it's being played in. Jazz and Blues musicians are said to have bent the note or worn it down to create the desired bluesy effect-- hence the use of "worn."

The complete, authoritative lyrics for "The Birth of the Blues'" can be found in:

book cover: "Reading Lyrics" Ed. by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball
Reading Lyrics,
Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.

Click here to read Cafe Songbook lyrics policy.

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Credits

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Credits for Videomakers of custom videos used on this page:

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For further information on Cafe Songbook policies with regard to the above matters, see our "About Cafe Songbook" page (link at top and bottom of every page).

 

This section is currently incomplete.

The Cafe Songbook
Record/Video Cabinet:
Selected Recordings of

"The Birth of the Blues"


(All Record/Video Cabinet entries below
include a music-video
of this page's featured song.
The year given is for when the studio
track was originally laid down
or when the live performance was given.)

Performer/Recording Index
(*indicates accompanying music-video)

  • Performer 1 (year)
  • Performer 2 (year)

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Amazon iTunes

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