Vocalist Cliff Edwards, known as “Ukulele Ike,” introduced this Clarence Gaskill number on a recording session for the Perfect label in January, 1927. His recording didn’t make the charts, but one by bandleader Roger Wolfe Kahn did:

• Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra (1927, #11)
• Ames Brothers (1953, vocal, #22)

Gaskill’s involvement in the music business is rather unusual. His output is on the small side, and he only wrote music for two Broadway shows, neither of which produced a hit. He did write a few songs with rather unusual titles such as “No Squat, No Stoop, No Squint,” “The Tin Can Song,” and “In the Vallee of Lombardo” (a strange play on words using the names of vocalist Rudy Vallee and bandleader Guy Lombardo). He is credited as composer of what surely must be one of the most surrealistic recordings by Louis Armstrong, the 1933 Victor recording entitled “Laughin’ Louis.” Armstrong and the band play a 32-bar tune with what sounds like improvised lyrics, but there’s a great deal of clowning around leading up to Armstrong’s a cappella improvisation on a theme composed for a 1920s silent film. For many years the title and authorship of this melody was a mystery until jazz historian/bandleader/bassist Vince Giordano discovered the piece was “Love Scene,” written in 1920 by Minnie T. Wright.

Gaskill’s collaboration with Jimmy McHugh produced only one other number, also from 1926, “I Don’t Mind Being All Alone,” recorded by Cliff Edwards. Both writers apparently were working for Jack Mills Music Publishers Inc. at the time. “I Can’t Believe...” was Gaskill’s biggest hit, although he wrote two numbers that became theme songs: the 1931 “Minnie the Moocher” for Cab Calloway and the 1933 “Prisoner of Love” for vocalist Russ Colombo.