I can’t give you anything but love - D. Fields, J. McHugh 1928. First performed by Adelaide Hall in a revue that year, and again the same year in a Broadway show at the Liberty Theatre, “Blackbirds of 1928.” A big hit from day one, and known to pretty much everyone and their gerbil nowadays, it ranks as #24 in a list of the 100 most recorded songs from 1890 to 1954. Wiki adds a list of 45 versions under “Notable recorded versions, ” but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. At www.jazzstandards.com, which ranks 1000 titles, it comes in at #162.
As the title suggests, this is a salute to the joys of impoverishment, as love overcomes all. Sounds like there were a lot of poor people even before the 1929 crash; the “roaring 20’s” must have roared past them all. There’s a verse, which a few singers do: Grace Hayes, Annette Hanshaw, Harry Richman, Joe Wilbur, Gene Austin, Ethel Waters, and even the estimable Ms. Hall herself.
On the tenor uke, the best key is G major, but the tessitura is too low for me, so I sound like a foghorn down there. In fact, it’s so low that I discovered I can sing it up an octave(!), but I’ll leave the results of that experiment to your gentle imagination. The solution was to use my baritone (for those interested: Pono, cedar-ebony), which puts it in D. It’s not actually that difficult, apart from the usual problems associated with memorizing the lyrics and having to sing them while playing the chord-melody arrangement as an accompaniment. I look at it as a form of Alzheimer’s prevention. The intro, adapted from the original 1928 sheet music, is a bit fussy, but particularly attractive.
As an experiment, I’m posting the following link to my notation, for anyone interested in going to the next step. An “experiment,” because it may not work. Maybe someone can let me know.
[ Ссылка ]
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