Blues in the Night


"Blues in the Night" is a popular blues song which has become a pop standard and is generally considered to be part of the Great American Songbook. The music was written by Harold Arlen, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, for a 1941 film begun with the working title Hot Nocturne, but finally released as Blues in the Night. The song is sung in the film by .

Composition

Arlen and Mercer wrote the entire score for the 1941 film Blues in the Night. One requirement was for a blues song to be sung in a jail cell. As usual with Mercer, the composer wrote the music first, then Mercer wrote the words. Arlen later recalled:
When they finished writing the song, Mercer called a friend, singer Margaret Whiting, and asked if they could come over and play it for her. She suggested they come later because she had dinner guests—Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Mel Tormé, and Martha Raye. Instead, Arlen and Mercer went right over. Margaret Whiting remembered what happened then:

Academy Award nomination

In 1942 "Blues in the Night" was one of nine songs nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Observers expected that either "Blues in the Night" or "Chattanooga Choo Choo" would win, so that when "The Last Time I Saw Paris" actually won, neither its composer, Jerome Kern, nor lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II, was present at the ceremony. Kern was so upset at winning with a song that had not been specifically written for a motion picture and that had been published and recorded before the film came out that he petitioned the Motion Picture Academy to change the rules. Since then, a nominated song has to have been written specifically for the motion picture in which it is performed.

Critical comment

Composer Alec Wilder said of this song, "'Blues in the Night' is certainly a landmark in the evolution of American popular music, lyrically as well as musically."
Mercer, being from the South, realized "that Arlen's notes were meant to be sung as a blues slide and that individual syllables would have made the song too formal, too racially white."

Famous phrases from the lyrics

Charting versions

Recorded versions that charted in the United States were by Woody Herman, Dinah Shore, Jimmie Lunceford, Cab Calloway, Artie Shaw, and Rosemary Clooney.
Recorded versions in the United Kingdom were by Shirley Bassey and Helen Shapiro.
The Woody Herman recording was released by Decca Records as catalog number 4030. The record first reached the Billboard magazine charts on January 2, 1942 and lasted 11 weeks on the chart, peaking at #1.
The Dinah Shore recording was released by RCA Bluebird Records as catalog number 11436. The record first reached the Billboard magazine charts on February 13, 1942 and lasted 7 weeks on the chart, peaking at #4.
The Jimmie Lunceford recording was released by Decca Records as catalog number 4125. The record first reached the Billboard magazine charts on January 30, 1942 and lasted 5 weeks on the chart, peaking at #4.
The Cab Calloway recording was released by OKeh Records as catalog number 6422. The record first reached the Billboard magazine charts on March 6, 1942 and lasted 1 week on the chart, at #8.
The Artie Shaw recording was released by RCA Victor Records as catalog number 27609. The record first reached the Billboard magazine charts on November 21, 1941 and lasted 1 week on the chart, at #10.
The Rosemary Clooney recording was released by Columbia Records as catalog number 39813. The record first reached the Billboard magazine charts on September 26, 1952 and lasted 2 weeks on the chart, peaking at #29.

Other notable versions

In addition, the song was recorded at least three times by Jo Stafford. Her previously unreleased 1942 version with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra was included in the 1966 Reader's Digest box set The Glenn Miller Years. On October 15, 1943, she recorded it with Johnny Mercer, the Pied Pipers, and Paul Weston's Orchestra, in a version released as a single and on an album by Capitol Records. On February 20, 1959, she recorded it with The Starlighters in a version released on an album by Columbia Records.
Another version was by Billy Eckstine in his album Once More with Feeling
Dick Monda released a version of the song as a single in 1967.
Carlos Montoya recorded a flamenco version.
In 1995, the rock group Chicago included the song on their "" album. The arrangement by vocalist Bill Champlin features a guitar solo by Aerosmith's Joe Perry.
Ray Charles for his album Ain't It So

Additional recorded versions (and further details on above versions)