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Try a Little Tenderness

Written: 1932

Words and music by: Harry M. Woods,

Jimmy Campbell and Reginald Connelly

Written for: Independent Publication
(not for a Broadway show, revue, movie, etc.)

Page Menu
Main Stage || Record/Video Cabinet || Reading Room || Posted Comments || Credits

On the Main Stage at Cafe Songbook

Jimmy Durante

performing

"Try a Little Tenderness"


live on his television show October 10, 1969. (Recorded on the Durante anthology album
As Time Goes By
,
Warner Brothers Records)

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More Performances of "Try a Little Tenderness"
in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet
(Video credit)



Otis Redding

performing

"Try a Little Tenderness"

Live on television Performance, December 9, 1967, the day before Otis Redding and members of the Bar Kays were in a fatal plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin.
Redding was 26 years old.

Otis Redding recordings of "Try a Little Tenderness"
appear on many albums including
The Very Best of Otis Redding.

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More Performances of "Try a Little Tenderness"
in the Cafe Songbook Record/Video Cabinet

 

Cafe Songbook Reading Room

"Try a Little Tenderness"

Critics Corner || Lyrics Lounge

About the Origins of the Song

 

 

album cover "As Time Goes By The Best of Jimmy Durante

 

 

album cover: The Very Best of Otis Redding

 

 

 

album cover: The Michael Buble Collection




Michael Bublé performing "Try a Little Tenderness" (2005)
(This live performance can be found on the albums Caught in the Act, It's Time as well as on The Michael Bublé Collection.

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No doubt many fans of Soul music associate "Try a Little Tenderness" with the most well known Soul performer of it, Otis Redding. In fact, Michael Bublé says in his on-stage performance of the song in 2005 that it was written and made famous by Redding. Neither claim was correct, as we are certain Michael knows by now. In fact, in the YouTube comments after the video of his 2005 performance, Stella Singleton corrects the record:

"Try a Little Tenderness" is a song written by Jimmy Campbell, Reg Connelly and Harry M. Woods. It was first recorded on December 8, 1932, by the Ray Noble Orchestra (with vocals by Val Rosing). Both Ruth Etting and Bing Crosby recorded it in 1933. I like the Jimmy Durante version.

We like the Durante too and have featured it on the Cafe Songbook Main Stage above along with Redding, partly to illustrate the inherent qualities of the song that enable it to be performed so successfully by two such diverse singers. Interestingly, the Redding performance (as well as many other Soul and R&B recordings) precede both the ones by Durante and Buble, both of which are much more in the tradition of the decades long history of performances that go back to the song's origin in 1932. (see the Cafe Songbook Record and Video Cabinet (right column this page) for a snapshot of that history. More about the history of the song will appear, eventually, in this space.

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Critics Corner
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Lyrics Lounge

(This section is currently in preparation.)

Click here to read Cafe Songbook lyrics policy.

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Visitor Comments

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Posted Comments on "Try a Little Tenderness":

 

From: Ron, July 05, 2018: The lyrics to "Try a Little Tenderness" exemplify the way a song reflects its culture when written and first performed--but not necessarily decades afterward. As gorgeous as the song is, and as often as it was a hit in the past (by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra among others), few vocalists have sung it in this century, surely not in 2018, eighty-six years after Woods, Campbell, and Connelley wrote it . I've never read a discussion of what some contemporary feminists would call its patronizing sexism, a sharply critical attitude prominent decades before today's "Me Too" movement--despite its tender empathy for housewives trying to cope with straitened circumstances: "Women do get weary/ Wearing the same shabby dress." The pay-off to the man for some tenderness in the midst of such privation comes toward the end of the song: "You won't regret it/ Women don't forget it./ Love is their whole happiness." Claims of such simplistic psychological fulfillment and the consequent gratitude earned by "a little tenderness" might have struck most women in 1932 as sensitivity. But the opposite may be true today for feminists, men as well as women.

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Credits

("Try a Little Tenderness" page)

 

Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this page:

Borrowed material (text): The sources of all quoted and paraphrased text are cited. Such content is used under the rules of fair use to further the educational objectives of CafeSongbook.com. CafeSongbook.com makes no claims to rights of any kind in this content or the sources from which it comes.

 

Borrowed material (images): Images of CD, DVD, book and similar product covers are used courtesy of either Amazon.com or iTunes/LinkShare with which CafeSongbook.com maintains an affiliate status. All such images are linked to the source from which they came (i.e. either iTunes/LinkShare or Amazon.com).

 

Any other images that appear on CafeSongbook.com pages are either in the public domain or appear through the specific permission of their owners. Such permission will be acknowledged in this space on the page where the image is used.

 

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

"Try a Little Tenderness"


(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)

1932
Ray Noble and His Orchestra
(vocal by Val Rosing)

album: Notable Noble

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Notes: Recorded December 8, 1932 and released as a single, this is the first recording.
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

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1933
Bing Crosby
album: The Great Songwriters
Harry Wood
s

Amazon

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

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1933
Ruth Etting
album: Ruth Etting at Her Best

Amazon

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

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Year
Artist
album: title

Amazon iTunes

Music-Video

Notes:
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video before starting another.)

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year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
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video before starting another.)

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Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

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Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

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Year
Artist
album: title

Music-Video

Amazon iTunes

Notes:
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)

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