Written in 1946 by Sammy Cahn (words) and Jule Styne (music), The Things We Did Last Summer had a rough start. Cahn and Styne had promised Frank Sinatra that if he recorded the song for Columbia, they would see to it that no other recording of the ballad would be released before his. But Columbia couldn't ready the Sinatra recordings until October 15. Meanwhile, Jo Stafford liked the song as well and recorded it for Capitol, which planned to release hers on Sept. 1. Sinatra was livid, so Cahn and Styne's publishing company, Mayfair Music, asked Capitol to wait until after mid-October. But Capitol said it received no release restriction letter from Mayfair, and that the best it could do was hold Stafford's record until Sept. 15. Stafford's version peaked at #10 on Billboard's pop charts; Sinatra's never charted. Whether a letter from Mayfair actually went out is anyone's guess. Songwriters loved it when top pop singers battled to record their songs. The more the merrier meant fatter copyright royalties.
Here are my 11 favorite versions of this lyrical fond farewell to a season past:
Here's Jo Stafford...
Here's Nancy Wilson with George Shearing...
Here are the Beach Boys...
Here are the Four Lads with Claude Thornhill...
Here's Fats Navarro...
Here's Beverly Kenney...
Here's Carmen McRae and Sammy Davis Jr....
Here's Bill Holman...
Here's Lou Donaldson with Horace Silver on piano...
Here's Al Cohn...
And here's the Australian Jazz Quartet...
from JazzWax http://ift.tt/2gvEIJ3
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