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Don George |
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Basic InformationBorn: August 27, 1909, New York City Died: June 27, 1987 (age 77), New York City Primary songwriting role: lyricist; also composer and author Co-writers: most frequently with Duke Ellington; also with Steve Allen, Acquaviva, Robert Maxwell, Lionel Newman, Nat King Cole, Bee Walker, Peter De Rose, Harry James, Moose Charlap. See also a database of 18 Don George co-writers. |
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Overview and Commentary |
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  Reading Lyrics, Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000. |
Don George is perhaps remembered best either for his lyrics to the pop hit "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or for his collaborations with Duke Ellington on songs like those listed just below -- depending on whom you're talking to. He wrote a "notorious" book about Ellington: Sweet Man, the Real Duke Ellington, was music director for the film Holiday in Brussels, wrote the score for the stage score, Wet Paint, and worked on special material for many performers including Nat King Cole, Patti Page and the Pointer Sisters. Gottlieb and Kimball include George lyrics for "I Ain't Got Nothin' but the Blues," "I'm Beginning to See the Light," "It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream," "It's Kind of Lonesome out Tonight," and "Tulip or Turnip." |
  Philip Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America's Great Lyricists, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. |
Don George's name comes up often with regard to Ellington's bad luck with lyricists, especially himself and Irving Mills who were incapable of finding vernacular language that could "match his music." This is made most specific by Philip Furia when he writes about Paul Francis Webster, Bob Russell and Don George as Ellington lyricists. Of George, he says, "Ellington's luck with lyricists hit its peak in 1944, when Don George gave an exuberantly casual setting to the catch-phrase "I'm beginning to see the light" (Furia, p. 261). |
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In David Jenness' and Don Velsey's discussion of composer Moose Charlap (father of jazz pianist Bill Charlap), they note that one of the cleverest apologies around comes from a 1956 Don George lyric for a Charlap melody:
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Joe Williams sings the Don George/Moose Charlap Song," I Was Telling Her About You" (1956). |
Track of "I Was Telling Her about You" on video |
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Credits(Don George page) |
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