This gem of a song, “That Old Black Magic,” written by composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Johnny Mercer for the 1942 film Star-Spangled Rhythm was played behind the opening credits and sung by relative unknown Johnny Johnston. Susan Sackett in Hollywood Sings! An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Academy Award-Nominated Songs says, “In a routine that centered mostly around a dance number performed by ballerina Vera Zorina (choreographed by her then-husband, the legendary George Balanchine) Johnston introduced the song.”

The movie was a “feel good” musical intended to entertain troops. With little plot, the movie featured Paramount Studio contract players such as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Veronica Lake, Paulette Goddard, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Dick Powell and more. The film also introduced another memorable song from the duo of composer Harold Arlen and lyricist Johnny Mercer, “Hit the Road to Dreamland.”

Max Wilk in They’re Playing Our Song: Conversations with America’s Classic Songwriters tells a behind-the-scenes story of how Mercer got the idea for his lyric from Cole Porter’s “You Do Something to Me.” “That one came from one of the early Cole Porter songs I heard when I first came to New York,” Mercer says. “...It had a phrase in it--‘do do that voo-doo that you do so well.’...Anyway, that thing about voodoo must have stuck with me, because I paraphrased it in ‘Old Black Magic.’”

“That Old Black Magic” enjoyed several trips to the charts over an eighteen year period. The Miller aggregation took it to number one for a week in 1943, and it remained on the list for another 18 weeks. Two other band versions charted that same year, one by boogie woogie pianist Freddie Slack that hovered at #10 and the other by Horace Heidt, pianist and radio/TV personality, who took it to #11:

• Glenn Miller and His Orchestra (1943, Skip Nelson and the Modernaires, vocal)
• Freddie Slack and His Orchestra (1943, Margaret Whiting, vocal)
• Horace Heidt and His Orchestra (1943, instrumental)
• Sammy Davis, Jr. (1955, # 13)
• Louis Prima and Keely Smith (1958, #18)
• Bobby Rydell (1961, #21)

The song was nominated for a Best Song Oscar in 1943; however, Jerome Kern’s “The Last Time I Saw Paris” with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II won. Kern thought the Arlen/Mercer song should have won because it was created specifically for a film while his song was interpolated into The Fleet’s In. According to David Ewen in his book Great Men of American Popular Song, Kern felt strongly enough that he urged the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to change the rules, which they did. Subsequently, only songs composed expressly for the screen would be eligible.

In 1959 the Grammy awards were started by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Several categories were established to represent different branches of the industry. The Louis Prima/Keely Smith version of “That Old Black Magic” was voted the Best Performance by a Vocal Group.

Perhaps more than anyone else, singer, night club performer, and Broadway/film star Billy Daniels brought attention to “That Old Black Magic” which he sang in the 1950 movie When You’re Smiling. His up tempo reading of the torch song became his signature song. Others who have performed the song on film include Bing Crosby in Here Come the Waves (1944), Frank Sinatra in Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop (1956).

Spike Jones and His City Slickers, a profoundly goofy band popular in the ‘40s, desecrated many of the most popular songs of the day to the great amusement of their fans. “Chloe,” “Cocktails for Two,” “Holiday for Strings,” and “That Old Black Magic” were among the songs receiving the Jones touch of madness that included animal sounds, special effects such as breaking glass or jarring bursts from whistles or pistols. Their costumed, on-stage antics were worthy of the best circus clowns. And once a song had been through a Jones arrangement, it was uncertain if it could be taken seriously thereafter.

Fortunately, Arlen’s dramatic and bluesy melody and the exotic nature of Mercer’s lyrics have enabled “That Old Black Magic” to survive Jones’ nutty arrangement. In his book Listening to Classic American Popular Songs Allen Forte points out how well Mercer’s lyrics fit the melody. “The poetic devices flow with the music and even seem often to drive it. The key phrase ‘black magic’ inspires the elevator and tide metaphors and the more immediate physical responses expressed by ‘icy fingers,’ aflame,’ and ‘burning,’ while the unforgettable images of motion, ‘down and down’ and ‘round and round’ perfectly match the melodic contours with which they are associated.” Forte elaborates on how the rhythm of the repeated notes in the song suggests incantation, a perfect fit with Mercer’s “witchcraft” theme. As Philip Furia says in The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America’s Great Lyricists, “Arlen’s music is rife with repeated notes and octave drops, and Mercer’s phrasing makes the lyric mime the musical motion....”

Mercer himself recorded a delightful rendition of the song as did vocalists Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Shirley Horn, and most recently Holly Cole. Jazz instrumentalists who have recorded “That Old Black Magic” include Dizzy Gillespie, Erroll Garner, Lionel Hampton, Dave Brubeck, and even expatriate harmonica player Larry Adler (who preferred to call his instrument a mouth organ).