Some of These Days

Last updated
"Some of These Days"
SomeOfTheseDays1910cover.jpg
1910 sheet music cover
Song by Sophie Tucker
Published1910
Genre Jazz standard
Songwriter(s) Shelton Brooks

"Some of These Days" is a popular song, written and composed by Shelton Brooks, published in 1910, and associated with the performer Sophie Tucker.

Contents

Background

Shelton Brooks and "Some of These Days" was brought to Sophie Tucker's attention in 1910 by her maid, who insisted she meet Brooks and hear the song. [1] Tucker instantly recognized its hit potential, performed and recorded many versions throughout the years, and eventually it became her signature song—including landing movie appearances to perform it.

Tucker first recorded the song along with others on wax cylinder format in 1910–11. In 1926, on 78 RPM record format and backed by Ted Lewis and his band, Tucker recorded her classic, million-selling 1926 version, which stayed in the #1 position on the charts for five weeks beginning November 23, 1926, and re-affirmed her lasting association with the song. [2]

"Some of These Days" has been recorded by many other artists, including Ethel Waters, Louis Armstrong, Coco Briaval, Elkie Brooks, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Diahann Carroll, Brenda Lee, Danny Aiello, Judy Garland, Matt Forbes, The Hot Sardines, Susan Maughan, The McGuire Sisters, the Original Dixieland Jass Band, Sue Raney, Serena Ryder, Sidney Bechet, [3] Leon Redbone, Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, and Erica Lewis with the band Tuba Skinny.

Some of These Days recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1911 on wax cylinder

Appearances in film

"Some of These Days" made the first of many movie soundtrack appearances in Lights of New York (1928), the first "all talking" motion picture, being one of several songs played by the house band of the nightclub where the film is set. Sophie Tucker herself sang "Some of These Days" in character as a nightclub singer in the 1929 film Honky Tonk with reprise performances (as herself) in Broadway Melody of 1938 and Follow the Boys (1944).

Other films to feature the song include Scarface and Three on a Match (both 1932), both featuring actress Ann Dvorak dancing to the song: in Scarface the song is played in a nightclub by Gus Arnheim's band while in Three on a Match Dvorak dances while actor Harry Seymour plays "Some of These Days" on a piano.

In Rose-Marie (1936), Jeanette MacDonald attempts a lyric soprano rendition in a Klondike café whose regular vocalist (Gilda Gray) upstages McDonald with an earthy performance of the song. "Some of These Days" was also featured in the 1939 release Only Angels Have Wings in which Jean Arthur plays the song on the piano in a cantina.

Other soundtrack appearances of the song include:

Appearances in fiction

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sidney Bechet</span> American jazz musician (1897–1959)

Sidney Joseph Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim. Bechet spent much of his later life in France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bobby Darin</span> American musician and actor (1936–1973)

Bobby Darin was an American musician, songwriter, and actor. He performed jazz, pop, rock and roll, folk, swing, and country music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cab Calloway</span> American jazz singer (1907–1994)

Cabell Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years.

Shelton Brooks was a Canadian-born American composer and performer of popular music and jazz. He was known for his ragtime and vaudeville style, and wrote some of the biggest hits of the first third of the 20th century; including "Some of These Days" and "At the Darktown Strutters' Ball". He composed "Some of These Days" at the Pekin Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Tucker</span> Ukrainian-born American show business personality (1886–1966)

Sophie Tucker was an American singer, comedian, actress, and radio personality. Known for her powerful delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. She was known by the nickname "the Last of the Red-Hot Mamas".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cotton Club</span> Jazz club in New York City

The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940). The club operated during the United States' era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation. Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club, but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Lillie Delk Christian, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the Will Vodery choir, The Mills Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, Billie Holiday, Midge Williams, Lena Horne, and dancers such as Katherine Dunham, Bill Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers, Charles 'Honi' Coles, Leonard Reed, Stepin Fetchit, the Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, Jeni Le Gon and Earl Snakehips Tucker.

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song co-written by American musician Cab Calloway and first recorded in 1931 by Calloway and his big band orchestra, selling over a million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is famous for its nonsensical ad libbed lyrics, also known as scat singing. In performances, Calloway would have the audience and the band members participate by repeating each scat phrase in a form of a call and response, eventually making it too fast and complicated for the audience to replicate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oh My Darling, Clementine</span> 1884 American western folk ballad

"Oh, My Darling Clementine" is a traditional American, tragic but sometimes comic, Western folk ballad in trochaic meter usually credited to Percy Montross (1884), although it is sometimes credited to Barker Bradford.

<i>Broadway Melody of 1938</i> 1937 film by Roy Del Ruth

Broadway Melody of 1938 is a 1937 American musical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film is essentially a backstage musical revue, featuring high-budget sets and cinematography in the MGM musical tradition. The film stars Eleanor Powell and Robert Taylor and features Buddy Ebsen, George Murphy, Judy Garland, Sophie Tucker, Raymond Walburn, Robert Benchley and Binnie Barnes.

"Happy Days Are Here Again" is a 1929 song with music by Milton Ager and lyrics by Jack Yellen. The song is a standard that has been interpreted by various artists. It appeared in the 1930 film Chasing Rainbows and was the campaign song for Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1932 presidential campaign. It is the unofficial anthem of Roosevelt's Democratic Party. Its copyright was renewed in 1956, so it will enter the American public domain on January 1, 2025. Sound recordings from 1929 will follow on January 1, 2030, under the provisions of the Music Modernization Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blanche Calloway</span> American jazz singer, composer and bandleader

Blanche Dorothea Jones Calloway was an American jazz singer, composer, and bandleader. She was the older sister of Cab Calloway and was a successful singer before her brother. With a music career that spanned over fifty years, Calloway was the first woman to lead an all-male orchestra and performed alongside musicians such as Cozy Cole, Chick Webb, and her brother. Her performing style was described as flamboyant and a major influence on her brother's performance style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)</span> 1913 song recorded by Al Jolson

"You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)" is a popular song from 1913 composed by James V. Monaco with lyrics by Joseph McCarthy. It was introduced by Al Jolson in the Broadway revue The Honeymoon Express (1913), and used in the 1973 revival of the musical Irene.

<i>Scarface</i> (soundtrack) 1983 soundtrack album by various artists

Scarface: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album featured on the 1983 American crime film, Scarface, which was directed by Brian De Palma. Composed by Italian producer Giorgio Moroder, the vinyl soundtrack was released on December 9 of the same year through MCA Records. The album features music created by Moroder, who wrote and produced all of the tracks. Scarface counts with the collaboration of multiple singers, including Paul Engemann, Debbie Harry, Amy Holland, Elizabeth Daily, among other artists. The soundtrack received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score at the 41st Golden Globe Awards.

"I'll Be Around" is a popular song written by Alec Wilder and published in 1942. It was first recorded by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra in 1942 and the first hit version was by The Mills Brothers in 1943 when it reached No. 17 in the Billboard pop charts. The song has become a well-known standard, recorded by many artists.

"Stagger Lee", also known as "Stagolee" and other variants, is a popular American folk song about the murder of Billy Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton, in St. Louis, Missouri, at Christmas 1895. The song was first published in 1911 and first recorded in 1923, by Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians, titled "Stack O' Lee Blues". A version by Lloyd Price reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959.

"Nagasaki" is an American jazz song by Harry Warren and Mort Dixon from 1928 and became a popular Tin Pan Alley hit. The silly, bawdy lyrics have only the vaguest relation to the Japanese port city of Nagasaki; part of the humor is realising that the speaker obviously knows very little about the place, and is just making it up. It was one of a series of US novelty songs set in "exotic" locations popular in the era starting with Albert Von Tilzer's 1919 hit "Oh By Jingo!"; "Nagasaki" even makes reference to the genre's prototype in the lyrics. Even more directly the song "On the Isle of Wicki Wacki Woo" was written by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn in 1923.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hard Hearted Hannah (The Vamp of Savannah)</span> 1924 popular song

"Hard Hearted Hannah, the Vamp of Savannah" is a popular song with words by Jack Yellen, Bob Bigelow, and Charles Bates, and music by Milton Ager. The song was published in June 1924 by Ager, Yellen & Bornstein, Inc., New York. "Hard Hearted Hannah" tells in humorous fashion the story of a sadistic "vamp" or femme fatale from Savannah, Georgia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">It's in the Way That You Use It</span> 1987 single by Eric Clapton

"It's in the Way That You Use It" is a song which was written by the English rock musician Eric Clapton in collaboration with The Band's guitarist and composer Robbie Robertson. The song was recorded and performed by Eric Clapton, who released the track under licence of Warner Bros. Records as the second of four singles from his 1986 studio album August in March 1987. The song, which is used as the theme tune to the Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money, was produced by Eric Clapton himself with the help of Tom Dowd, who acted as the assistant producer. The release sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide.

<i>Honky Tonk</i> (1929 film) 1929 film

Honky Tonk is a 1929 American Pre-Code musical film starring Sophie Tucker in her film debut. The film was a flop when released and is now lost, although the Vitaphone soundtrack for the film and for the trailer still exists. Tucker sings a number of songs in the movie, including her theme song "Some of These Days", and "I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas", from which she took her billing as "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzy Williams</span> American singer-songwriter

Susan Dimiti "Suzy" Williams is an American singer-songwriter. She became well known through the musical duo Stormin’ Norman & Suzy. Williams has performed at venues ranging from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Hotel Palmas in the Canary Islands, and on network television and film. She has been reviewed in publications including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, and Los Angeles Magazine. Her singing was referred to in Rolling Stone as a "mixture of Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker, and perhaps a trace of Janis Joplin".

References

  1. Virtual Museum of San Francisco, Sophie Tucker and "Some of These Days" http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist2/days.html
  2. CD liner notes: Chart-Toppers of the Twenties, 1998 ASV Ltd.
  3. "Bechet Discography" – The Sidney Bechet Society http://www.sidneybechet.org/discography/
  4. "Archived copy". www.hbo.com. Archived from the original on 28 April 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. "Archived copy". www.hbo.com:80. Archived from the original on 7 July 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)