did tom waits ever do a version? feels like he ought to....
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Monday, 16 March 2009 12:26 (fifteen years ago) link
Saw Frank Wess do a bossa version on flute last week that wasn't too shabby.
― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 March 2009 14:00 (fifteen years ago) link
apparently Tom Wopat does a good non-bathetic version in his cabaret act.
btw song is titled "Over the Rainbow"
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 16 March 2009 14:04 (fifteen years ago) link
Isn't there some story that Yip Harburg didn't like it when Harold Arlen first played the melody for him? Said something like "That'll never be a hit!" or "Nobody will want to hear that!" The original melody, that is, I think it got changed along the way to the version we finally got to hear.
― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 March 2009 14:31 (fifteen years ago) link
Don't remeber that one, but...
A time-honored story tells that the song was cut from the film after a preview, because MGM head Louis B. Mayer thought the song "slowed down the picture" and that "our star sings it in a barnyard". Harold Arlen, who was at the preview, and executive producer Arthur Freed lobbied successfully to get the song sequence reinstated.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 16 March 2009 14:34 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah, that too. OK here's the story, it wasn't quite the melody, it was the arrangement: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4805916.stm. Also here http://www.americansongwriter.com/2008/05/american-icons-yip-harburg/#printpreview
― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 March 2009 14:35 (fifteen years ago) link
listening to this eva cassidy bullshit
― Surmounter, Monday, 23 March 2009 13:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Another vote for Bud Powell.
― Jazzbo, Monday, 23 March 2009 14:03 (fifteen years ago) link