| "Blueberry Hill" | |
|---|---|
 1940 sheet music | |
| Song | |
| Published | 1940 by Chappell & Company, New York |
| Genre | |
| Composer(s) | Vincent Rose |
| Lyricist(s) | |
"Blueberry Hill" is a popular American song published in 1940 and first recorded and released by Sammy Kaye in 1940 on RCA Victor. It is best remembered for its 1950s rock and roll version by Fats Domino.
Glenn Miller peaked at no. 2 on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1940 with his recording on RCA Bluebird Records featuring Ray Eberle on vocals.
The music for "Blueberry Hill" was composed by Vincent Rose and the lyrics by Larry Stock and Al Lewis. [1] The song was turned down by another publisher until being bought and published in 1940 by Chappell & Company. [2] The song was recorded over ten times that year.
Sammy Kaye initially recorded and released the first recording of the song on RCA Victor Records with vocals by Tommy Ryan on May 31, 1940. [3] [4]
The first hit version and the most successful in 1940 was by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, which reached number 2 on the US charts featuring Ray Eberle on vocals. [5] It was recorded in Chicago on May 13, 1940 and released on RCA Bluebird Records as catalog number B-10768-A. It was released by EMI in the UK on the His Master's Voice (HMV) label as catalog numbers BD 5632 and MH 92.
Louis Armstrong's 1949 recording on Decca Records with Gordon Jenkins charted in the Billboard Top 40, reaching number 29. This recording would inspire Fats Domino to create the later cover in 1956.
| "Blueberry Hill" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Fats Domino | ||||
| from the EP This Is Fats Domino! | ||||
| B-side | "Honey Chile" | |||
| Released | 1956 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 2:14 | |||
| Label | Imperial | |||
| Composer(s) | Vincent Rose | |||
| Lyricist(s) | ||||
| Fats Domino singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Blueberry Hill" was an international hit in 1956 for Fats Domino and has become a rock and roll standard. It reached number two for three weeks on the Billboard Top 40 charts, becoming his biggest pop hit, and spent eight non-consecutive weeks at number one on the R&B Best Sellers chart. [6] The version by Fats Domino was also ranked number 82 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. [7] [8]
Antoine Dominique Domino Jr., known as Fats Domino, was an American singer-songwriter and pianist. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orleans to a French Creole family, Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single "The Fat Man" is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies. Domino continued to work with the song's co-writer Dave Bartholomew, contributing his distinctive rolling piano style to Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" (1952) and scoring a string of mainstream hits beginning with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955). Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955, five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold.
David Louis Bartholomew was an American musician, bandleader, composer, arranger, and record producer. He was prominent in the music of New Orleans throughout the second half of the 20th century. Originally a trumpeter, he was active in many musical genres, including rhythm and blues, big band, swing music, rock and roll, New Orleans jazz, and Dixieland. In his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he was cited as a key figure in the transition from jump blues and swing to R&B and as "one of the Crescent City's greatest musicians and a true pioneer in the rock and roll revolution".
Sammy Kaye was an American bandleader and songwriter, whose tag line, "Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye", became one of the most famous of the Big Band Era. The expression springs from his first hit single in 1937, "Swing and Sway". He was the first to record and release the standard "Blueberry Hill" in 1940. During World War II, he co-wrote and recorded the anthemic "Remember Pearl Harbor". He was the first to record and release the no. 1 song "Daddy" in 1941. His signature tune was "Harbor Lights", a number-one hit in 1950.
"You Always Hurt the One You Love" is a pop standard with lyrics by Allan Roberts and music by Doris Fisher. First recorded by the Mills Brothers, whose recording reached the top of the Billboard charts in 1944, it was also a hit for Sammy Kaye in 1945.
"Wheel of Fortune" is a popular song written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss and published in 1951. It is best remembered in the 1952 hit version by Kay Starr.
"Echoes" is a popular song. It was written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss, and published in 1950.
"That Old Black Magic" is a 1942 popular song written by Harold Arlen (music), with the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. They wrote it for the 1942 film Star Spangled Rhythm, when it was first sung by Johnny Johnston and danced by Vera Zorina. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1943 but lost out to "You'll Never Know".
"Love Me or Leave Me" is a popular song written in 1928 by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kahn. The song was introduced in the Broadway musical comedy Whoopee!, which opened in December 1928. Ruth Etting's performance of the song was so popular that she was also given the song to sing in the play Simple Simon, which opened in February 1930.
"Ain't That a Shame" is a song written by Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew. Domino's recording of the song, originally stated as "Ain't It a Shame", released by Imperial Records in 1955, was a hit, eventually selling a million copies. It reached number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 10 on the pop chart. The song is ranked number 438 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
"Who's Sorry Now?" is a popular song with music written by Ted Snyder and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. It was published in 1923 as a waltz. Isham Jones had a hit recording in 1923 with the song arranged as a foxtrot. Later sheet music arrangements, such as the 1946 publication that was a tie-in to the film A Night in Casablanca, were published in 2
2 time. Other popular versions in 1923 were by Marion Harris, Original Memphis Five, Lewis James, and Irving Kaufman.
"The Gypsy" is a popular song written by Billy Reid and published in 1945. The ballad tells the story of a person who visits a Gypsy fortune teller and is reassured that their partner is faithful. Though they both know it to be untrue, the narrator resolves to return, "'Cause I want to believe the Gypsy".
"Laughing on the Outside " is a popular song. The music was written by Bernie Wayne, the lyrics by Ben Raleigh. The song was published in 1946.
"The Nearness of You" is a popular song written in 1937 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Ned Washington. Intended for an unproduced Paramount film titled Romance In The Rough, the studio's publishing division Famous Music reregistered and published the song in 1940. It was first recorded by Chick Bullock and his Orchestra on Vocalion. Despite numerous accounts to the contrary, the song was never scheduled for and does not appear in the 1938 Paramount film Romance in the Dark.
"The Old Lamp-Lighter" is a popular song. The music was written by Nat Simon, the lyrics by Charles Tobias. The song was published in 1946.
"You're the Apple of My Eye" is a song written by Otis Blackwell and initially recorded and released as a single in 1956 by The Four Lovers, the precursor to The Four Seasons. Recorded after they were denied the opportunity to record another Blackwell song, "Don't Be Cruel", "You're the Apple of My Eye" was The Four Lovers' first exposure to U.S. national publicity, reaching the #62 position on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning the quartet an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. One of two Four Lovers singles that RCA Victor Records released simultaneously, it was the quartet's only foray onto the Hot 100 before the formation of The Four Seasons five years later.
"Powder Your Face with Sunshine" is a popular song written by Carmen Lombardo and Stanley Rochinski, and published in 1948. Rochinski wrote the lyrics for "Powder Your Face with Sunshine" while hospitalized due to spinal injuries incurred during World War II. Subsequently, he brought the lyrics to Lombardo who set it to music.
"That's My Desire" is a 1931 popular song with music by Helmy Kresa and lyrics by Carroll Loveday.
"Maybe" is a pop song written by Allan Flynn and Frank Madden that was published in 1940.
Smoke Rings is a compilation album of phonograph records released by Victor Records in 1944 featuring Swing-era recordings of eight bandleaders as a part of their Musical Smart Set series. The set was released in conjunction with Up Swing during the American Federation of Musicians strike and features popular recordings by the various artists.
"I'm a Big Girl Now" is a novelty song written by Al Hoffman, Milton Drake, and Jerry Livingston. It was recorded in 1946 by American bandleader Sammy Kaye with vocals by singer Betty Barclay. Released as a single by RCA Victor, Kaye's recording was a commercial success in the United States, topping The Billboard's Best-Selling Popular Retail Records chart in the issue dated April 27, 1946. It also peaked within the top ten of the magazine's Records Most-Played on the Air, Most-Played Juke Box Records, and Honor Roll of Hits charts.
Richie's trademark became the song "Blueberry Hill" (he would frequently sing the first line — "I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill").
On the first day of Happy Days, Ron Howard pulled my brother aside and said, "I'm really glad to be doing this show, but I'm not very funny." But a few months later he was singing that Blueberry Hill song and marking audiences laugh.(Section quoted written by Penny Marshall.)
...and the most alarming collection of plaid button-downs ever assembled in order to find his thrill on Blueberry Hill.
