Get all 9 Benoit Viellefon releases available on Bandcamp and save 35%.
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1. |
Lulu's back in town
02:45
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LULU'S BACK IN TOWN - LYRICS
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Music by Harry Warren, lyrics Al Dubin
Published 1935
I gotta get my old tuxedo pressed
Gotta sew a button on my vest
'Cause tonight I've gotta look my best
Lulu's back in town
Gotta get a half a buck somewhere
Gotta shine my shoes and slick my hair
Gotta get myself a boutonniere
Lulu's back in town
You can tell all my pets
All my Harlem coquettes
Mister Otis regrets
That he won't be aroun'
You can tell the mailman not to call
I ain't comin' home until the fall
And I might not get back home at all
Lulu's back in town
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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First performed in the 1935 film Broadway Gondolier, directed by Lloyd Bacon, where it was sung by Dick Powell and The Mills Brothers.
"Lulu's Back in Town" was popularized by Fats Waller in his recording of 8 May 1935 for Victor Records which made the US charts. Others who recorded it include Dick Powell, Mel Tormé, Mills Brothers, Wingy Manone, Chick Bullock, Bob Howard, Teddy Hill, Bert Ambrose, Ted Fiorito, Thelonious Monk, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and Leon Redbone.
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2. |
Swing Gitan
03:14
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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Music by Django Reinhardt
Published december 1940
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3. |
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I CAN'T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE - LYRICS
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Music by Jimmy McHugh, Lyrics by Dorothy Fields
Published december 1928
I can't give you anything but love, baby.
That's the only thing I've plenty of,baby.
Dream awhile, scheme awhile
We're sure to find
Happiness and I guess
All those things you've always pined for.
Gee I'd like to see you looking swell, baby.
Diamond bracelets Woolworth doesn't sell, baby.
Till that lucky day you know darned well, baby.
I can't give you anything but love.
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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"I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby" is an American popular song and jazz standard by Jimmy McHugh (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics). The song was introduced by Adelaide Hall at Les Ambassadeurs Club in New York in January 1928 in Lew Leslie's Blackbird Revue, which opened on Broadway later that year as the highly successful Blackbirds of 1928 (518 performances), wherein it was performed by Adelaide Hall, Aida Ward, and Willard McLean.
Adelaide Hall on the cover of Vu magazine in 1929
In the 100-most recorded songs from 1890 to 1954, "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby" (1928) is No. 24.
Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields had written the score for a revue at Les Ambassadeurs Club on 57th Street, New York, which featured the vocalist Adelaide Hall. However, the producer Lew Leslie believed that they still missed a 'smash' tune. The team pondered for a while before finally playing Leslie "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby". This was the song Leslie had been looking for and he immediately included it in the revue. One advertisement called it "the song success of the Nation."
Blackbird Revue opened on January 4, 1928, with Adelaide Hall singing "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby" solo. Later on, Fields and McHugh wrote a second half for the revue and Leslie expanded the production. With extra songs and extra performers added (including the vocalist Aida Ward), Leslie renamed the revue Blackbirds of 1928 and took the full production for a tryout in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where it appeared at Nixon's Apollo Theatre. On May 9, 1928, Blackbirds of 1928 opened at the Liberty Theatre, Broadway.
The idea behind the song came during a stroll Fields and McHugh were taking one evening down Fifth Avenue; they saw a young couple window-shopping at Tiffany's. McHugh and Fields understood that the couple could not afford to buy jewelry from Tiffany's, but nevertheless they drew closer to them. It was then they heard the man say: "Gee, honey I'd like to get you a sparkler like that, but right now, i can't give you nothin' but love!" Hearing this, McHugh and Fields rushed to a nearby Steinway Tunnel, and within an hour they came up with "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby".
Some controversy surrounds the song's authorship. Andy Razaf's biographer Harry Singer offers circumstantial evidence that suggests Fats Waller might have sold the melody to McHugh in 1926 and that the lyrics were by Andy Razaf. Alternatively, Philip Furia has pointed out that Fields' verse is almost identical to the end of the second verse of Lorenz Hart's and Richard Rodgers' song "Where's That Rainbow?" from Peggy-Ann, the 1926 musical comedy with book by Fields' brother Herbert and produced by their father Lew.
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4. |
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I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS - LYRICS
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Music by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn
Published 1924
I'll see you in my dreams
And then I'll hold you in my dreams
Someone took you right out of my arms
Still I feel the thrill of your charms
Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine
They will light my way tonight
I'll see you in my dreams
Yes I will... see you in my dreams
You know I'll... hold you in my dreams
I know that... someone took you right out of my arms
But... still I feel the thrill of your charms
I dream of... lips that once were mine
And those... tender eyes that shine
I know... they'll light my way tonight
When I... see you in my dreams
Yes they will... light my way tonight
Because I'll... see you in my dreams
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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I'll See You in My Dreams" is a popular song, composed by Isham Jones, with lyrics by Gus Kahn, and published in 1924. It was recorded on December 4 that year, by Isham Jones conducting Ray Miller's Orchestra. Released on Brunswick Records, it charted for 16 weeks during 1925, spending seven weeks at number 1 in the United States. Other popular versions in 1925 were by Marion Harris; Paul Whiteman; Ford & Glenn; and Lewis James; with three of these four reaching the Top 10.
The song was sung by Jeanne Crain in Margie (1946) and was chosen as the title song of the 1951 film, I'll See You in My Dreams, a musical biography of Kahn.
Popular recordings of it were made by many leading artists, including Cliff Edwards, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby (recorded November 27, 1947), Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Mario Lanza, Tony Martin, Anita O'Day, The Platters, Ezio Pinza, Sue Raney, Jerry Lee Lewis (1958, instrumental), Andy Williams,[9] and Linda Scott.[10] A "Texas Swing" version of the song was recorded by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.
The song was also recorded by Django Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, and inspired Merle Travis to record it as a guitar instrumental. Many other guitarists, including Chet Atkins and Thom Bresh, followed in Travis's footsteps. Michel Lelong, a French guitarist, published the first tablature of Travis's arrangement for the American publisher/guitarist Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop during the 1980s, following by Thom Bresh (Merle Travis's son) for Homespun Tapes, and Marcel Dadi for Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop.
It was recorded by Mario Lanza on his Coca-Cola Show of 1951-2 and is available on a compilation album mastered from those same shows, and featuring the same title, I'll See You in My Dreams, released by BMG in 1998.
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5. |
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I FALL IN LOVE TOO EASILY - LYRICS
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Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn
Published december 1944
I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever last
My heart should be well schooled
'Cause I've been fooled in the past
But still I fall in love so easily
I fall in love too fast
My heart should be well schooled
'Cause I've been fooled in the past
But still I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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"I Fall in Love Too Easily" is a 1944 song composed by Jule Styne with lyrics by Sammy Cahn. It was introduced by Frank Sinatra in the 1945 film Anchors Aweigh. The film won an Academy Award for its music; "I Fall in Love Too Easily" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, which it lost to Rodgers and Hammerstein's "It Might As Well Be Spring".
Sammy Cahn has said of the conception of the sixteen-bar song: "This song was written one night in Palm Springs. When I sang the last line, Jule Styne looked over at me and said, 'So. That's it.' I knew he felt we could have written on, but I felt I had said all there was to say, and if I had it to do over, I would stop right there again."
Frank Sinatra recorded "I Fall in Love Too Easily" for Columbia on 1 December 1944 in New York, arranged by Axel Stordahl. A cover by the English singer Steve Conway was issued by British Columbia in 1946.
The song has become an often-played jazz standard. It has been recorded by Eugenie Baird with Mel Tormé and the Mel-Tones, Chet Baker, Ray Conniff, Royce Campbell, Johnny Hartman, Keith Jarrett, Shirley Horn, Ralph Towner, Tony Bennett, Anita O'Day, Diane Schuur, Fred Hersch and Katharine Mcphee, among others. Eliane Elias included the song on her 2000 album Everything I Love. Barry Manilow opened his Grammy nominated album "Night Songs" in 2014 with his rendition. Karen Souza recorded the song on her 2017 album Velvet Vault. Melody Gardot included the song in her 2020 album Sunset in the Blue.
Miles Davis first recorded the song for Seven Steps to Heaven and it became part of the repertoire of his 1960s quintets with Herbie Hancock and later Chick Corea. In concert, Davis and Corea's duet evolved into an introduction to Wayne Shorter's Sanctuary: an improvisation derived (and abstracted) from the song provides an introduction and interlude to Shorter's composition on the album Bitches Brew.
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6. |
H.C.Q. strut
02:53
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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Music by Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grapelli
Published 1939
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7. |
September song
03:19
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SEPTEMBER SONG - LYRICS
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Music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Maxwell Anderson
Published 1930
When I was a young man courting the girls
I played me a waiting game
If a maid refused me with tossing curls
I'd let the old Earth make a couple of whirls
While I plied her with tears in lieu of pearls
And as time came around she came my way
As time came around, she came
When you meet with the young girls early in the spring
You court them in song and rhyme
They answer with words and a clover ring
But if you could examine the goods they bring
They have little to offer but the songs they sing
And the plentiful waste of time of day
A plentiful waste of time
Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game
Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'll spend with you
These precious days I'll spend with you
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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"September Song" is an American standard popular song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. It was introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical production Knickerbocker Holiday. The song has been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists.
Origins
The song originated from Walter Huston's request that he should have one solo song in Knickerbocker Holiday if he was to play the role of the aged governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant. Anderson and Weill wrote the song in a couple of hours for Huston's gruff voice and limited vocal range.
Knickerbocker Holiday was roughly based on Washington Irving's Knickerbocker's History of New York set in New Amsterdam in 1647. It is a political allegory criticizing the policies of the New Deal through the portrayal of a semi–fascist government of New Amsterdam, with a corrupt governor and councilmen. It also involves a love triangle with a young woman forced to marry the governor Peter Stuyvesant while loving another. The musical closed in April 1939 after a six-month run.
In "September Song", a man now recognizes the "plentiful waste of time" of earlier days, and in the "long, long while from May to December", having reached September, he is looking forward to spending the precious days of autumn with his loved one.
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8. |
Honeysuckle rose
03:09
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HONEYSUCKLE ROSE - LYRICS
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Music by Fats Waller, words by Andy razaf
Published 1929
Every honey bee fills with jealousy
When they see you out with me
Goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose
When you're passin' by, flowers droop and sigh
And I know the reason why
Goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose
Don't buy sugar
You just have to touch my cup
You're my sugar
It's sweeter when you stir it up
When I'm taking sips from your tasty lips
Seems the honey fairly drips
Goodness knows
You're my honeysuckle rose
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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"Honeysuckle Rose" is a 1929 song composed by Thomas "Fats" Waller with lyrics by Andy Razaf. It was introduced in the 1929 Off-Broadway revue "Load of Coal" at Connie's Inn as a soft-shoe dance number. Waller's 1934 recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
During a visit to the West Side of Asbury Park, New Jersey in 1928, Waller wrote the song with Razaf at 119 Atkins Avenue in a home that still stands today.
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9. |
How can you face me now?
02:38
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HOW CAN YOU FACE ME? - LYRICS
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Music by Fats Waller
Published december 1940
How can you face me
After what I've gone through
All on account of you
Tearing my heart in two?
Woman, have you no conscience
How could you be so bold?
Why have you grown so cold
After the lies you told?
No one now seems to be on the level
Since I've found out that my angel was just a dog
Known as the devil
Why does I love ya, hon
Why did you teach me how?
After you broke each vow
How can you face me now?
(talking over solos)
Oh you dirty dog, get out in the street
Get out, get out
How can you face me now?
No, I didn't go there last night
No, you know I wasn't there, neither
I went to the other place
Yeah, don't you talk back to me, shut up
Well alright, take your dogs on out the street
Yeah, get out, just get up, go on and keep goin'
Yeah
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10. |
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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Music by Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grapelli
Published december 1939
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11. |
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A NIGHTINGALE SUNG IN BERKLEY SQUARE - LYRICS
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Music by Manning Sherwin, Lyrics by Eric Maschwitz
Published december 1940
When two lovers meet in Mayfair, so the legends tell
Songbirds sing and winter turns to spring
Every winding street in Mayfair falls beneath the spell
I know such enchantment can be
'Cause it happened one evening to me
That certain night, the night we met
There was magic abroad in the air
There were angels dining at the Ritz
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
I may be right, I may be wrong
But I'm perfectly willing to swear
That when you turn'd and smiled at me
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
The moon that lingered over London town
Poor puzzled moon, he wore a frown
How could he know we two were so in love
The whole darn world seemed upside down
The streets of town were paved with stars
It was such a romantic affair
And as we kissed and said goodnight
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
Our homeward step was just as light
As the tap-dancing feet of Astaire
And like an echo far away
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
I know, 'cause I was there
That night in Berkeley Square
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ABOUT THIS TRACK
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"A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is a British romantic popular song written in 1939 and published in 1940, with lyrics by Eric Maschwitz and music by Manning Sherwin.
The song makes reference to the nearby luxurious The Ritz Hotel
Berkeley Square is a large leafy square in Mayfair, a part of London. The Ritz Hotel referred to is just outside Mayfair, adjacent to Green Park.
The nightingale, a migrant songbird, is celebrated in literature and music for the beauty of its song. It favours rural habitats, and is unlikely to be heard in Central London.
The song was written in the then-small French fishing village of Le Lavandou—now a favourite resort for British holidaymakers and second-home owners—shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. It is typically sung in the key of D-flat major by male vocalists such as Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.
"When the Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is the title of a short story by Michael Arlen, published in 1923 as part of his collection These Charming People. According to Maschwitz, the title of the song was "stolen" from that of the story. The song had its first performance in the summer of 1939 in a local bar, where the melody was played on piano by Manning Sherwin with the help of the resident saxophonist. Maschwitz sang the words while holding a glass of wine, but nobody seemed impressed. In the spring of 2002, an attempt was made to find the bar where this song was first performed: it was hoped that a blue plaque could be set up. With the help of the local tourist office, elderly residents were questioned, but it proved impossible to identify the venue.
The verse and the additional lyrics to a second chorus were in the song as written, but are rarely sung in recordings (those of Bobby Darin, Mel Torme, Blossom Dearie, Twiggy, Vera Lynn and Rod Stewart being notable exceptions). Twiggy's version was featured in an episode ("Fran's Gotta Have It") of The Nanny.
The song was published in 1940, when it was first performed in the London revue New Faces by Judy Campbell (later the mother of Jane Birkin).[5] In the same year it was also performed by both Ray Noble and then by Vera Lynn. The tune is a recurring theme in the Fritz Lang film Man Hunt (1941). It was notably sung by Elsie Carlisle, an English female singer active both before and during the British dance band era.
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Benoit Viellefon London, UK
Benoit Viellefon is a French singer and guitarist established in the UK. Specialised in 1920's 1930's and 1940's music, Benoit is resident at Ronnie Scotts and other famous clubs. Benoit appears in many Hollywood films, TV and radio productions, festivals, and performed for VIP such as Madonna, the Queen, or the Kremlin. He often tours with his 3 bands: The Orchestra, the Hot Club, the trio. ... more
Benoit Viellefon recommends:
The Alexander Bryson Trio
by Alexander Bryson
Incredible debut album. Check him out!
go to album
Stowaways in Paradise
by The Hula Bluebirds
Martin Wheatley is THE BEST guitar, steel guitar, pedal steel, ukulele player in the UK, and when it comes to 1920-1930-1940's music. He is the authority on the music of this period and a virtuoso!
go to albumIf you like Paris London, you may also like:
Effervescent Swing (Isolation Sessions #2)
by Michael Gamble and his Very Swinging Friends
Some Kind-a-Shake
by Tuba Skinny
supported by 5 fans who also own “Paris London”
I heard this band through a friend of theirs and immediately got EVERYTHING.
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A collection of jazz standards from this Chicago artist recalls the genre’s swing era, with waltzing rhythms and skipping guitars.
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These Boots Are Made for Walking / Ces Bottes Sont Faites Pour Marcher
by Ella Fitzgerald / Muguette
Hazelwood & Sinatra left some big boots to fill - but struttin' and scattin' in style, Ella was clearly up to the task.
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