Minnie the Moocher
Photograph by Carl van Vechten , from the Van Vechten Collection of the Library of Congress
Minnie the Moocher (about Minnie the Schnorrerin ) is a jazz song that Cab Calloway wrote and published with Irving Mills in 1929. The song was selected for its scat - choruses known, for example, "Hi-de-hi-de-hi-di-hi!". Cab Calloway let the audience participate by repeating each phrase in the form of a phone call. The choruses were sometimes intoned so complex and fast-paced by Calloway that the audience began to laugh instead of repeating the phrases.
The song is musically and lyrically based on the song "Willie the Weeper", the lyrics of which are provided with many references to the drug environment. The person “Smokey” is described as a “cokey” ( cocaine user ). The line of text "[...] kick the gong around" also comes from the jargon for opium smoking . The following text describes an opium intoxication in which Minnie sees herself rich and as a friend of the Swedish king. Calloway first recorded the song with his Mississourians in 1929, when the similar "Kickin 'the gong around" was created. A longer version of "Minnie" was later released. Calloway recycled the title catchword "Minnie" in several follow-up tracks, such as "Minnie the Moocher's Wedding Day", "Ghost of Smoky Joe", "Kickin 'the Gong Around", "Minnie's a Hepcat Now", "Mister Paganini - Swing for Minnie ”,“ We Go Well Together ”and“ Zah Zuh Zaz ”. 1980 Calloway played "Minnie the Moocher" again for the film Blues Brothers and in 1987 was involved in a version on the album Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon by Kip Hanrahan and Conjure .
"Minnie-the-Moocher" was also used repeatedly in films and TV series. Bette Davis sang the original version of the song in the 1932 film The Hut in the Cotton Field . In the same year Max Fleischer's cartoon "Minnie the Moocher" was made, in the opening sequence of which Cab Calloway and his band can be seen for about 30 seconds. In the comic film that follows, Betty Boop and a walrus appear, who perform the same dance movements as Calloway while singing. Another film interpretation was seen in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Cotton Club in 1984 ; Cab Calloway was played by Larry Marshall in Coppola's homage to the legendary Harlem Cotton Club .
The recorded cover versions of "Minnie the Moocher" are currently in the hundreds. The website COVER.INFO lists almost one and a half dozen well-known versions - including big band versions by Roy Fox and his swing band (1932), Duke Ellington and his band (1962) and the Pasadena Roof Orchestra (1989). Other recordings were made by Götz Alsmann (with his companion band Sentimental Pounders; 1982) and the Italian ska group Ska-J . In autumn 2013, the iTunes Music Store listed several hundred versions in all possible styles - from jazz to easy listening crooning to neoswing and techno , by Peter Herbolzheimer , Robbie Williams , Bobby Darin , the Charlotte Swing Band and Lian , among others Ross .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Robert Dimery (ed.): 1001 Songs You Should Hear Before Life Is Over . Edition Olms, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-283-01153-6 , p. 24
- ↑ COVER.INFO