Pianist/composer Rube Bloom and lyricist Ted Koehler’s hit number was introduced by vocalist/bandleader Cab Calloway in the Cotton Club Parade of 1939. Hal Kemp’s version hit the charts that same year:
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Veteran Cotton Club show lyricist Ted Koehler was teamed with Rube Bloom for the 1939 Cotton Club Parade. The two had successfully collaborated on the 1935 review, their numbers “Dinah Lou,” “Cotton, ”and “Truckin’” being successfully recorded by the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, Fats Waller (“Truckin’”), and Duke Ellington (“Cotton” and “Truckin’”). On the 1939 revue however, only “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” would make a splash.
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Bloom’s entrance into the popular song form was unusually slow. The majority of his early works are what is now referred to as “novelty” piano, a sort of jazz-influenced outgrowth of ragtime popularized by Zez Confrey and others. Pieces like “Spring Fever,” “Song of the Bayou,” and “Soliloquy” were written as piano solos, although the latter did have recorded success in a band arrangement. One of Bloom’s earliest songs, “Puttin’ It On For Baby” from 1930, had lyrics by Koehler, and their tune “Stay on the Right Side” from 1933 was recorded by Bing Crosby. The 1935 Cotton Club Parade marked the beginning of the most fertile writing period for Bloom, but his entire output was relatively small, less than one hundred compositions including the piano pieces.
“Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” was a popular success almost from day one. Cover versions were recorded by many big bands, beginning with Les Brown’s early big band in February, extended throughout the year with versions by Glenn Miller, Bunny Berigan, Hal Kemp, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. A few other tunes from the show were recorded but didn’t fare as well.
Songwriter Alec Wilder was impressed by Bloom’s work. In his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, he writes glowingly on Bloom’s 1939 piece “Day In, Day Out,” and then comments on “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me.” “The melodic line soared and moved across the page like a lovely brush stroke. It never knotted itself up in cleverness or pretentiousness. And it had, remarkable for any pop song, passion.” Wilder qualifies his enthusiasm a bit for “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me,” saying that the song doesn’t “soar” as does “Day In, Day Out,” but “...[Bloom] certainly created that same kind of hearbreaking intensity and longing.” He ends his section on Bloom with these words: “He certainly set his sights high and he certainly proved that pop songs can be in impeccable taste.”
The 1939 Cotton Club Parade was the last collaboration between Koehler and Bloom. Bloom had begun an association with Johnny Mercer in 1939 with “Day In, Day Out,” which would continue for the next decade-and-a-half, and Koehler’s career, which had been split between New York and Hollywood, would continue on the West Coast working for films.
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