"Black Coffee" is a song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

. The music was written by Sonny Burke

Sonny Burke

Sonny Burke was a big band leader. In 1937, he graduated from Duke University where he had formed and led the jazz big band known as the Duke Ambassadors....

, the lyrics by Paul Francis Webster

Paul Francis Webster

Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...

. The song was published in 1948

1948 in music

-Events:*May 20 - The Second International Congress of Composers and Music Critics 1948 opens in Prague.*June 5 - Opening of the first Aldeburgh Festival, founded by Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier and Peter Pears....

. Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...

 charted with this song in 1949 on Columbia. Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...

 first released her version in 1953. It was included in the soundtrack for the 1960 Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

 feature Let No Man Write My Epitaph, recorded on Verve

Verve Records

Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...

 by Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

, also in 1960.

Cover versions

Other versions of "Black Coffee" were performed by:

• Ray Charles
  Ray Charles
  Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
  
   on his album The Great Ray Charles
  The Great Ray Charles
  The Great Ray Charles is Ray Charles' second album for Atlantic Records, released in 1957. Later CD re-issues often include as a bonus, six of eight tracks from The Genius After Hours.-Original LP release:Side A#"The Ray" – 4:00...
  
  (1957)
• Elkie Brooks on her album Round Midnight
• Earl Grant
  Earl Grant
  Earl Grant was an American easy listening pianist, Hammond organist, and vocalist popular in the 1950s and 1960s.-Career:...
  
   on his albums Midnight Sun (1962) and In Motion (1968)
• Rosemary Clooney
  Rosemary Clooney
  Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...
  
   on her album Love (1963)
• Petula Clark
  Petula Clark
  Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
  
   on her album The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener
  The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener (album)
  The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener is the ninth album released by Petula Clark in the United States. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 17, 1968 and remained on the charts for 23 weeks, peaking at #93. It fared better in the United Kingdom, where it reached #37...
  
  (1968)
• The Pointer Sisters on the album That's a Plenty
  That's a Plenty
  That's a Plenty is the second album released by Oakland family girl group the Pointer Sisters in 1974 on the Blue Thumb label.-History:Mixing the Pointers' brand of soul with rollicking blues numbers and jazz covers, the album also included the country-flavored "Fairytale." The song became their...
  
  (1974)
• Janis Siegel on the album At home
  At Home
  At Home, an album by Cherish the Ladies, was released in 1999 on the RCA label.-Track listing:# "The Limerick Lassies Set: Limerick Lassies/The Bird Feeder/The Bank of Ireland/Grampa's Ceili Band" – 4:58# "Matt Hyland" – 5:35...
  
  (1987)
• k.d. lang
  K.D. Lang
  Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC , known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress...
  
   on the album Shadowland (1988)
• Sinéad O'Connor
  Sinéad O'Connor
  Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....
  
   on the album Am I Not Your Girl?
  Am I Not Your Girl?
  Am I Not Your Girl? is the third album by Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor and the follow-up to the hugely successful I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. It is a collection of covers of mostly jazz standards, which Sinead describes as "the songs I grew up listening to [and] that made me want to be a...
  
  (1992)
• Martina Topley-Bird
  Martina Topley-Bird
  Martina Topley-Bird is a British vocalist and songwriter who first gained fame as the featured female vocalist on trip hop pioneer Tricky's debut album, Maxinquaye...
  
   and Tricky
  Tricky
  Tricky is an English musician and actor. As a producer and a musician, he is noted for a dark, rich and layered sound and a whispering sprechgesang lyrical style. Culturally, Tricky encourages an intertwining of societies, particularly in his musical fusion of rock and hip hop, high art and pop...
  
   on the album Nearly God
  Nearly God
  -Album name, recording history, collaborators:The album's title comes from an interview where Tricky was asked "So how does it feel to be God... well, nearly God."...
  
  (1996)
• Nana Mouskouri
  Nana Mouskouri
  Nana Mouskouri , born Ioánna Moúschouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a Greek singer who has sold about 300 million records worldwide in a career spanning over five decades, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She was known as Nána to her friends and...
  
   on her live album Nana Swings (2003)
• Marianne Faithfull
  Marianne Faithfull
  Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
  
   for her album Easy Come, Easy Go
  Easy Come, Easy Go (Marianne Faithfull album)
  Easy Come, Easy Go is a studio album of cover versions by English singer-songwriter Marianne Faithfull, which was released in the EU on 10 November 2008. The album is produced by Hal Willner and features guest appearances from a variety of musicians...
  
  (2008)