External links
- Lyrics
- "Lazybones" - Lead sheet at wikifonia.org
Lazybones or "Lazy Bones" is a Tin Pan Alley song written in 1933, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and music by Hoagy Carmichael.
Mercer was from Savannah, Georgia, and resented the Tin Pan Alley attitude of rejecting Southern regional vernacular in favor of artificial Southern songs written by people who had never been to the South. Alex Wilder attributes much of the popularity of this song to Mercer's perfect regional lyric. [1] He wrote the lyrics to "Lazybones" as a protest against those artificial "Dixies", announcing the song's authenticity at the start with "Long as there is chicken gravy on your rice". [2]
| "Lazybones" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Jonathan King | ||||
| B-side | "I Just Want to Say "Thank You"" | |||
| Released | 1971 | |||
| Genre | Soft rock, easy listening | |||
| Length | 2:10 | |||
| Label | Decca Records 13177 | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael | |||
| Producer(s) | Jonathan King | |||
| Jonathan King singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Official audio | ||||
| "Lazy Bones" on YouTube | ||||
The song has been recorded scores of times over the years. Recordings were released as early as 1933 by Jay Wilbur, Paul Robeson, and 1934 by the Mills Brothers, and as recently as 2018 by Nellie McKay. [3] It has been recorded by a variety of artists in a variety of formats, including country singers such as Hank Snow on the album Old Doc Brown in 1955, [4] R&B artists such as the Supremes on their 1965 album The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop , Leon Redbone on his 1975 album On the Track , and even fictional characters such as the Electric Mayhem band on The Muppet Show in 1977.
Jonathan King's 1971 revival was a top 20 hit in the UK and was played on US soft rock stations, earning a position on Billboard's Easy Listening chart, reached #34. [5] King's version sold over a million copies around the world.[ citation needed ]
John Herndon Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs.
Hoagland Howard Carmichael was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first singer-songwriters in the age of mass media to utilize new communication technologies such as television, microphones, and sound recordings.
Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Originally, it referred to a specific location on West 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the Flower District of Manhattan, as commemorated by a plaque on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth. Several buildings on Tin Pan Alley are protected as New York City designated landmarks, and the section of 28th Street from Fifth to Sixth Avenue is also officially co-named Tin Pan Alley.
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The Great American Songbook is the loosely defined canon of significant 20th-century American jazz standards, popular songs, and show tunes.
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"You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me" is a 1932 popular song with music by Harry Warren and the lyrics by Al Dubin, which became a standard. The lyrics of the song were noted for its references to addiction.
"Someone to Watch Over Me" is a 1926 song composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, assisted by Howard Dietz who penned the title. It was written for the musical Oh, Kay! (1926), with the part originally sung on Broadway by English actress Gertrude Lawrence while holding a rag doll in a sentimental solo scene. The musical ran for more than 200 performances in New York and then saw equivalent acclaim in London in 1927, all with the song as its centerpiece. Lawrence released the song as a medium-tempo single which rose to #2 on the charts in 1927.
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"Down Among the Sheltering Palms" is a popular song.
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"Alabamy Bound" is a Tin Pan Alley tune written in 1924, with music by Ray Henderson and words by Buddy DeSylva and Bud Green. It was popularized by Al Jolson and included in the musical Kid Boots, where it was sung by Eddie Cantor. Successful recordings of the song were released in 1925 by Paul Whiteman, Isham Jones and Fletcher Henderson (instrumentals), as well as Blossom Seeley, whose vocal version reached number 2 on the charts. The song has sold over a million copies of sheet music and has been included in several films over the years.
"On the Swing Shift" is a 1942 song composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Johnny Mercer for the film Star Spangled Rhythm, where it was introduced by Marjorie Reynolds, Betty Jane Rhodes and Dona Drake.
"Filipino Baby" is a country music song written by Bill Cox and Clarke Van Ness. First recorded in 1937, it was based on an earlier song from 1899. The song became a hit in 1946 for three different country artists: Cowboy Copas, T. Texas Tyler, and Ernest Tubb.
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