Cole Porter, part 1: standards and selected hits 1928-34

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Paris – 1928

Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) (Cole Porter) The song was introduced in the Broadway musical Paris which included five Porter compositions (several others were dropped before the New York opening).

B.A. Rolfe and his Palais D’or Orchestra – 1928.

Bill Wirges and his Orchestra – 1928 — Who? A site called “Dismuke’s Hit of the Week” provides an answer while reviewing a recording, a duet (banjo and piano), by Harry Reser and Bill Wirges:

The pianist, Bill Wirges was a member of Reser’s band (The band even made some records under the pseudonym of Bill Wirges and His Orchestra.)

Lee Morse and her Blue Grass Boys – recorded 7 December 1928

Kim Basinger - in the film The Marrying Man (1991)

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1929

Wake Up and Dream – What Is This Thing Called Love?

Fifty Million Frenchmen – You Do Something to Me

1930

The New Yorkers – Love for Sale

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Gay Divorce – 1932

Fred Astaire with Claire Luce in Gay Divorce (1932), and with Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Gay Divorce — credits and “background” adapted from Wikipedia:

Music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Dwight Taylor, adapted by Kenneth Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein. It was Fred Astaire’s last Broadway show and featured the hit song “Night and Day” in which Astaire danced with co-star Claire Luce. RKO Radio Pictures adapted it into a musical film in 1934, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and renamed The Gay Divorcee.

Astaire’s sister Adele retired from show business and married Lord Charles Cavendish after her last show with Fred, The Band Wagon (1931). When the producers of Gay Divorce asked Fred to star in the show, he deferred an answer until he could spend the summer of 1932 wooing his future wife, Phyllis, in London. He finally agreed, and rehearsals began in September 1932. The show was both Astaire’s last Broadway musical (after which he moved to Hollywood) and also his only stage musical without Adele. Also in the cast were Erik Rhodes and Eric Blore who soon became famous in the early 1930s RKO comedies.

Gay Divorce opened in pre-Broadway tryouts at the Wilbur Theatre, Boston on November 7, 1932 and then moved to the Shubert Theatre, New Haven on November 21, 1932. It opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on November 29, 1932 and transferred to the Shubert Theatre on January 16, 1933 and closed on July 1, 1933 for a total run of 248 performances. Directed by Howard Lindsay with choreography by Barbara Newberry and Carl Randall, and set design by Jo Mielziner, the cast featured Fred Astaire as Guy Holden, Claire Luce as Mimi, Luella Gear as Hortense, G. P. Huntley Jr as Teddy, Betty Starbuck as Barbara Wray, Erik Rhodes as Tonetti, Eric Blore as Waiter, and Roland Bottomley as Pratt.

Hit songs from the show:

After You, Who?

Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra c. 1933

Fred Astaire – I wouldn’t have recognized the voice. Astaire’s vocals usually sound thinner and more fragile on his early recordings.

Jody Watley – 1990

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Night and Day

From Wikipedia:

It is perhaps Porter’s most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook and has been recorded by dozens of artists. Fred Astaire introduced “Night and Day” on stage, and his recording of the song was a #1 hit. He performed it again in the 1934 film version of the show, renamed The Gay Divorcee, and it became one of his signature pieces.

Porter was known to claim that the Islamic call to worship he heard on a trip to Morocco inspired the song.

The song was so associated with Porter that when Hollywood first filmed his life story in 1946, the movie was entitled Night and Day.

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Leo Reisman and his Orchestra, vocal: Fred Astaire — 1932

Richard Tauber – recorded according to the youtube provider “at Abbey Road Studios in London at the time of the release of the film” (Gay Divorcee). The credits on the video itself say it was recorded on 25 October 1933. But there is an error, because the film was released on 12 October 1934.

Fred Astaire sings the song to Ginger Rogers in the RKO film Gay Divorcee (1934)

Maxine Sullivan — 1938

Frank Sinatra

With studio orchestra arranged by Axel Stordahl. Sinatra recorded the song several times, seven dates with eight issued recordings from 1942 to 1977, according to a “complete” list of songs recorded by Frank Sinatra at blue-eyes.com. This one, recorded 19 January 1942, is from the first of these seven sessions. According to the youtube provider, the date was also his first solo recording session for RCA.

In the 1943 film Reveille With Beverly

Sérgio Mendes and Brasil ’66 – from their second album, Equinox – 1967 — video created by artist melegorm.

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Anything Goes – 1934

Visit our separate feature page:

Cole Porter: selections from Anything Goes (1934)

Selected Cole Porter songs from the 1934 Broadway musical Anything Goes. Included are the standards:

I Get a Kick Out of You
Anything Goes
You’re the Top
All Through the Night

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Adios, Argentina - 1934

Don’t Fence Me In – music by Cole Porter and lyrics by Robert Fletcher and Cole Porter

Originally written in 1934 for Adios, Argentina, an unproduced 20th Century Fox film musical, “Don’t Fence Me In” was based on text by a poet and engineer with the Department of Highways in Helena, Montana, Robert (Bob) Fletcher. Cole Porter, who had been asked to write a cowboy song for the 20th Century Fox musical, bought the poem from Fletcher for $250. Porter reworked Fletcher’s poem, and when the song was first published, Porter was credited with sole authorship. Porter had wanted to give Fletcher co-authorship credit, but his publishers did not allow that. After the song became popular, however, Fletcher hired attorneys who negotiated his being given co-authorship credit in subsequent publications. Although it was one of the most popular songs of its time, Porter claimed it was his least favorite of his own compositions.^{[1] – wikipedia}

1934

Roy Rogers and The Sons of the Pioneers in the filmHollywood Canteen (1944)

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters

Songbook