There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder

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There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder is a pop song written by Dave Dreyer (music), Billy Rose and Al Jolson (lyrics) and released in 1928.

Al Jolson (right) with US President Calvin Coolidge (1924)

background

The songwriting team Dreyer and Rose wrote There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder for Al Jolson, who featured the song in his second sound film The Singing Fool . This recorded the song on September 20, 1928 (Brunswick 4033-A), coupled with the song Sonny Boy ; of the 78s , the singer sold over a million copies in the United States.

The first verse and chorus of the song reads:

There's a rainbow round my shoulder
And a sky of blue above
How the sun shines bright
The world's all right
'Cause I'm in love.
There's a rainbow round my shoulder
And it fits me like a glove
Let it blow, let it storm, I'll be warm
'Cause I'm in love.

First recordings and later cover versions

Other musicians who covered the song from late 1928 included the McKinney's Cotton Pickers (Victor), the Golden Gate Orchestra (a pseudonym of the California Ramblers ; Edison 52473), an All Star Orchestra (Victor 21667) conducted by Nat Shilkret , with Tommy Dorsey , Andy Sanella and Mike Mosiello as soloists, also the Harmonians (alias Irving Kaufman ; Diva Records 2749-G), Ben Selvin (Columbia 1605), the Dixie Daisies (alias Bob Haring , Cameo 3291), Ted Wallace ( Banner, with Irving Kaufman), Rube Bloom , ( Pathé ), Ted White (alias Fred Rich , Oriole 1387), the bandleader Tom (Gerun) Gerunovitch & His Roof Garden Orchestra (Brunswick 5040), Milton Charles (Columbia 5250), Layton & Johnstone (Columbia 5199) and Johnny Marvin (Victor 21780). Harry Jackson and Lud Glskin , Sam Baskini , Bernard Etté / Kurt Mühlhardt covered him in Berlin and Grégor et ses Grégoriens (Edison) in Paris .

Julian Fuhs recorded the song in a German version ( You are my first love ) for Ultraphone. There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder was also covered by Dean Martin , Frankie Laine and Bobby Darin in later years . The discographer Tom Lord lists a total of 49 (as of 2016) cover versions in the field of jazz , including a. from 1957 by Ted Heath , Acker Bilk , Woody Herman and His Orchestra , Max Collie , the Pasaden Roof Orchestra , the Brian Setzer Orchestra and numerous Dixieland and revival bands.

There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder should not be confused with the folk song Rainbow' Round My Shoulder (1961) by Paul Clayton and Fred Foster.

Web links

  • Inclusion in the catalog of the German National Library: DNB 380342383

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Don Tyler: Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era . Jefferson, North Carolina & London, McFarland, 2007, p. 159
  2. ↑ Russell Sanjek: American Popular Music and Its Business: The First Four Hundred Years . 1988, p. 106
  3. ↑ Quoted in Raymond M. Saunders, Craig Saunders: Blessed . 004, p. 229.
  4. ↑ a b Tom Lord: Jazz discography (online)
  5. ^ Bob Coltman: Paul Clayton and the Folksong Revival . 2008, p. 226.