Without a song
Without a Song is a pop song written by Vincent Youmans (music), Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu (lyrics) and released in 1929. The song later became a popular jazz standard .
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The songwriting team Youmans, Rose and Eliscu wrote Without a Song for the musical Great Day , for which they also contributed the theme song , Happy Because I'm in Love and More Than You Know . Without a Song lyrics are "a powerful and emotional affirmation of the power of music in our lives;" Lois Deppe and Russell Wooding's Jubilee Singers featured the song in the musical Great Day , which premiered on October 17, 1929 at New York's Cosmopolitan Theater would have.
First recordings and later cover versions
Without a Song was the b-side of Paul Whiteman's number-one hit Great Day ; the band vocalist was Bing Crosby . Other musicians who covered the song from late 1929 included Roger Wolfe Kahn (Brunswick) in the USA and Spike Hughes (Decca) in London . Although the song was still covered frequently in later years, it did not succeed in climbing the US charts again.
The discographer Tom Lord lists a total of 281 (as of 2016) cover versions in the field of jazz , of which the recordings by Billy Eckstine , Bill Evans ( You Must Believe in Spring , 1977), Freddie Hubbard ( The Hub of Hubbard ), Fats Navarro / Budd Johnson , Frank Sinatra / Tommy Dorsey , Sonny Rollins , Diane Schuur , Jimmy Scott , Cedar Walton and Dinah Washington are noteworthy. Even Tony Bennett , Mario Lanza , Ray Charles , the folk singer Gary Shearston , the actor Eddie Albert (1958) and the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland and the Cleveland Singers (1965) coverten the song.