Hit the Road to Dreamland

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Hit the Road to Dreamland is a pop song written by Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) and released in 1942.

background

The songwriting team Arlen / Mercer wrote Hit the Road to Dreamland for Paramount - musical film version Star Spangled Rhythm , where the song in a moving train by Dick Powell , Mary Martin and the Golden Gate Quartet was presented. It was two songs by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer from Star Spangled Rhythm that met with success, Hit the Road to Dreamland and That Old Black Magic .

First recordings and later cover versions

Johnny Mercer and the Mellowaires recorded the song, accompanied by the Freddie Slack Orchestra, on July 31, 1942 for Capitol Records . The single hit # 16 on the US charts. Slack's orchestra was also involved in the recording of the Margaret Whiting & Meadowlarks song (1943). The musicians who covered the song from the 1940s onward included Tommy Dorsey , the Sauter Finegan Orchestra , Pearl Bailey , Les Brown Orchestra (vocals by Jo Ann Greer ), Diahann Carroll , Cleo Laine , Tony Perkins / Marty Paich , Sarah Vaughan , Don Rendell , Mark Murphy , Mel Tormé , Tal Farlow , Marlene VerPlanck , Rosemary Clooney , Dave McKenna , Meredith D'Ambrosio , Jane Monheit and Susannah McCorkle .

The discographer Tom Lord lists a total of 33 (as of 2015) cover versions in the field of jazz . Also Patti Clayton & The Four Vagabonds , Dinah Shore (1943), Bing Crosby & Trudy Erwin , Jerry Lewis , Warren Barker (1959), Connie Stevens , Dean Martin and Dr. John recorded the song. Hit the Road to Dreamland found u. a. Used in the soundtrack of the film LA Confidential (1997).

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b Michael Lasser: America's Songs II: Songs from the 1890s to the Post-War Years . 2014, p. 181
  2. ^ Stanley Green Hollywood Musicals Year by Year . 1999, page 117
  3. ^ David A. Jasen: A Century of American Popular Music . 2013, p. 76.
  4. ↑ a b Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online)
  5. ^ Karl B. Johnson Dean Martin: a collecting guide to his recording . 1998, page 45