"I Cover the Watefront" is a 1933 popular song and 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...

 composed by Johnny Green

Johnny Green

Johnny Green was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, and conductor. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger. His most famous song was one of his earliest, "Body and Soul"...

 with lyrics by Edward Heyman

Edward Heyman

Edward Heyman was an American musician and lyricist, best known for his compositions "Body and Soul", "When I Fall in Love", and "For Sentimental Reasons". He also contributed many songs for films.-Biography:...

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The song was inspired by Max Miller's 1932 best-selling novel I Cover the Waterfront. The song became instantly popular, and many artists covered it in 1933: Annette Hanshaw

Annette Hanshaw

Catherine Annette Hanshaw was born at her parents' residence in New York City on October 18, 1901. [Ed. While Annette sometimes gave her birth date as 1910, nephew Frank W. Hanshaw III confirms 1901 as the date on Annette's birth certificate.]-Biography:...

, Abe Lyman

Abe Lyman

Abe Lyman was a popular bandleader from the 1920s to the 1940s. He made recordings, appeared in films and provided the music for numerous radio shows, including Your Hit Parade....

's California Ambassador Hotel Orchestra, Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...

, Connie Boswell, and Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

, among others. A 1933 motion picture, also inspired by Miller's book and also titled I Cover the Waterfront

I Cover the Waterfront

I Cover the Waterfront is a 1933 film, based on the book of the same name by Max Miller. The film was directed by James Cruze and stars Ben Lyon, Claudette Colbert, Ernest Torrance, and Hobart Cavanaugh.-Synopsis:...

, was re-scored at the last minute to include the tune. Sheet music

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

 publishers later used the film's success by claiming that the song was "[i]nspired by the United Artist Picture of the same name".
Years later, 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...

 recorded this song in her 1979 live album Digital III at Montreux

Digital III at Montreux

Digital III at Montreux is a 1979 live album featuring a compilation of performances by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Joe Pass, and Ray Brown, recorded at the 1979 Montreux Jazz Festival...

 on Pablo records.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

 recorded several covers of the song. One appears on the 1991 compilation The Ultimate Collection and another with Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

 on Hooker's 1991 album Mr. Lucky

Mr. Lucky (Hooker album)

Mr. Lucky is a 1991 album by American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist John Lee Hooker. Produced by Ry Cooder, Roy Rogers and Carlos Santana under the executive production of Mike Kappus, the album assembled a diverse range of notable guest and session musicians, including Keith Richards,...

.

R&B/soul singer/actress Miki Howard

Miki Howard

Alicia Michelle "Miki" Howard is an American R&B/jazz singer and actress who had a string of Top 10 hit songs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Howard's string of hits also included Baby,Be Mine", "Come Share My Love" and "Love Under New Management"...

 portraying Billie Holiday performs the song in the 1992 film Malcolm X

Malcolm X (film)

Malcolm X is a 1992 biographical motion picture about the Muslim-American figure Malcolm X . It was co-written, co-produced, and directed by Spike Lee. It stars Denzel Washington as the titular character. It co-stars Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman, Jr., and Delroy Lindo...

. Laverne Butler

LaVerne Butler

LaVerne L. Butler was a prominent Southern Baptist pastor and college president in Kentucky who was a leader in the "Conservative Resurgence" in his denomination during the 1970s and 1980s.-Background:...

, jazz singer of maxjazz

Maxjazz

MAXJAZZ is an American jazz record label founded in 1999. Its catalog contains sixty-eight vocal and instrumental recordings. MAXJAZZ recordings are generally regarded as a “straight-ahead” acoustic style of jazz...

, performed the song in 1993, in her album "no looking back".