A few days ago, I wrote about President Obama's inauguration, mainly the First Dance to the classic song, "At Last." Beyonce Knowles sang the song that Etta James made famous, which I mentioned. But I didn't know anything about the history of the song before Etta recorded it.
Then I got the following note from Rich Kienzle, with some more information:
Were you aware of that song's pre-Etta history? Some people aren't. Etta made
the song a standard, but it had actually dated back to 1941, when two veteran
pop composers, Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, wrote it. The Glenn Miller
Orchestra recorded it that year. Their version, released, in 1942, was sung by
Ray Eberle and became a respectable (not huge) hit record that year that wound
up being sung in the Miller musical film "Orchestra Wives."
So I looked a little more and came up with a couple of related items, inlcuding this one, which expresses the hope that the "At Last" hype might be over, for a while, at last. Here's one interesting tidbit from the article:
The highest the tune ever reached on the Billboard Pop charts was 47, back in
1961, with Etta James' version---the same year Obama was born.
Why didn't Etta sing the song herself? She's not been in good health, as this article reports, but she did watch.
If you've never seen Etta sing the song she made famous, here's a YouTube video of a performance that I would put somewhere in the past few years. Enjoy.
Posted
Jan 26 2009, 01:00 AM
by
Jim White