I'm Just Wild About Harry
Encyclopedia
Noble Sissle
Noble Sissle was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright.-Early life:...
and music by Eubie Blake
Eubie Blake
James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...
for the Broadway show Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along is the first major successful African American musical. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, the musical premiered on Broadway in 1921.-Plot:...
. "I'm Just Wild About Harry" was the most popular number of the production, which was the first financially successful Broadway play to have African-American writers and an all African-American cast. The song broke what had been a taboo against musical and stage depictions of romantic love between African-Americans.
Originally written as a waltz, Blake rewrote the number as a foxtrot at the singer's request. The result was a simple, direct, joyous, and infectious tune enhanced onstage by improvisational dancing. In 1948 Harry S Truman selected "I'm Just Wild About Harry" as his campaign song for the United States presidential election of 1948
United States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
. Its success in politics led to a popular revival.
Background
Both "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and the show Shuffle Along broke racial taboos. During the early twentieth century African-Americans were excluded from most mainstream theater in the United States: white VaudevilleVaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
refused to book more than one African-American act on a bill and for over a decade no Broadway show used African-American performers at all. Blake and Sissle met F. E. Miller
F. E. Miller
Flournoy Earkin Miller was an African American composer, singer, writer, and actor who appeared in vaudeville with Aubrey Lyles as Miller and Lyles....
and Aubrey Lyles
Aubrey Lyles
Aubrey Lyles was an African American songwriter, lyricist, and vaudeville performer, appearing with F. E. Miller as Miller and Lyles...
for the first time at a fundraising benefit for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
in 1920. Vaudeville's exclusionary practices limited bills to one African-American act per night, so as a result the two leading African-American acting teams knew of each other only by reputation. The four performers agreed that the only feasible way for African-Americans to return to Broadway with dignity would be musical comedy. Miller proposed they collaborate.
The resulting show adapted plot and characters from Miller and Aubrey's Vaudeville comic sketches with music by Blake and Sissle. Although the music of Shuffle Along was new to the public, only three compositions were actually written for the production: "I'm Just Wild About Harry", "Bandana Days", and "Love Will Find A Way". The other songs used in the show were material that Blake and Sissle had tried unsuccessfully to sell to Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
. "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find A Way" in particular were politically risky for the era.
The title and chorus of the musical's most famous number challenge that taboo: I'm just wild about Harry and he's just wild about me is a clear statement of mutual romantic interest. Sissle and Blake risked the public's rejection by shedding most of the racial stereotypes that had been the norm for theatrical performances.
Creation
"I'm Just Wild About Harry" underwent a complete rewrite during rehearsals and was nearly cut from the show. Blake's original version of the song was a Viennese waltzViennese Waltz
Viennese Waltz is the genre of a ballroom dance. At least three different meanings are recognized. In the historically first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in ballroom dancing, danced to the music of Viennese Waltz.What is now called...
, but according to the authors of America's Songs, performer Lottie Gee encouraged rewriting the number as an up-tempo one-step. Blake disliked the suggestion and feared it would ruin his waltz but capitulated after Sissle agreed with Gee.
Audiences did not respond well to the revised version during early performances. Blake was on the verge of dropping the number from the show when a dancer took ill and had to be replaced. The understudy was a singer who did not know the steps, so when he was unable to follow the routine he ignored it and improvised. America's Songs quotes Sissle's recollection of how the performance saved the song: "He dropped out of line and with a jive smile and a high-stepping routine of his own, he stopped the show cold."
Structure
Alec Wilder and James T. Maher call "I'm Just Wild About Harry" a "strong, direct, simple song, the principal device of which is a strong fourth beat tied to the down beat". The song moves in short melodic bursts characteristic of the era: lighthearted but rhythmic.The tightly rhymed lyrics comprise a straightforward set of comparisons that border on comic exaggeration.
- The heavenly blisses
- Of his kisses
- Fill me with ecstasy.
- He's sweet just like chocolate candy
- And just like honey from the bee.
Yet Furia and Lasser describe the song's overall impact as an infectious delight.
Within the context of the play, the number occurs early in the second act when the leading lady declares her love for the leading man. Her father is the wealthiest man in town, which poses obstacles to the match. The overall plot concerns a mayoral race in all-black Jimtown where two dishonest grocery store owners vie for political office. One of the corrupt grocers wins the race shortly afterward and appoints the other chief of police. Harry leads the community protest that returns the two grocers to their store, and wins the girl.
Reception
Shuffle Along was a significant theatrical success that "ended more than a decade of systematic exclusion of blacks from the Broadway stage". The show opened in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at Daly's Sixty-third Street Music Hall on May 23, 1921 and ran 504 performances. The venue was actually a converted lecture hall that lacked a proper stage or orchestra pit. The show overcame financial straits and a poor location to become "the first all-black musical to enjoy a long run and be treated as more than an oddity."
"I'm Just Wild About Harry" was the most popular number of the show. Blake conducted the show's orchestra and recorded the song for the Victor label. Noble Sissle's 1937 recording for the Victory label altered the original tone considerably in order to showcase the talents of clarinettist Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
. Other early recordings include Bennie Krueger and Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
. Alice Faye
Alice Faye
Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian...
sang the piece with Louis Prima
Louis Prima
Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...
's band in the 1939 film Rose of Washington Square
Rose of Washington Square
Rose of Washington Square is a 1939 American musical drama film. Set in 1920s New York City, it focuses on singer Rose Sargent and her turbulent relationship with con artist Barton DeWitt Clinton, whose criminal activities threaten her professional success in the Ziegfeld Follies.Although the names...
.
In 1948 "I'm Just Wild About Harry" underwent a revival when Harry S. Truman selected it as his campaign song for the presidency of the United States. The next year Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
performed it in the film Jolson Sings Again
Jolson Sings Again
Jolson Sings Again is the 1949 film sequel to The Jolson Story, both of which cover the life of singer Al Jolson.-Synopsis:In this follow-up to The Jolson Story, we pick up the singer's career just as he has returned to the stage after a premature retirement. But his wife has left him and the...
and the song became a jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
. This return to popularity briefly reunited Blake and Sissle for the first time since 1933. In 1955, the song again appeared in the Warner Brothers cartoon short One Froggy Evening
One Froggy Evening
One Froggy Evening is an approximately seven-minute long Technicolor animated short film written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones, with musical direction by Milt Franklyn.The short makes the debut of Michigan J...
as one of the songs sung by Michigan J. Frog
Michigan J. Frog
Michigan J. Frog is an animated cartoon character who debuted in the Looney Tunes cartoon One Froggy Evening , written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones...
during his dance routine. Writing about American popular songs in 1972, Wilder and Maher call "I'm Just Wild About Harry" the only enduringly popular song from Shuffle Along.