Frosty the Snowman

By Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson
1950

If you'll indulge me with a belated Christmas standard, I'd like to place the (not-too-hot) spotlight on "Frosty the Snowman", mainly due to my two-year-old son's current obsession with both the song and the 1969 Rankin-Bass animated special narrated by Jimmy Durante. Introduced by the great singing cowboy Gene Autry, Frosty was a follow-up to Autry's mega-hit of the previous Christmas, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". In addition to the song, which has become a modern Christmas classic, the snowman's popularity has endured due to a series of animated cartoons based on him, most notably the aforementioned 1969 chestnut, as well as a beloved Little Golden Book edition of the story, also published in 1950. The lyrics supposedly takes place in Armonk, New York, a town which has an annual parade in Frosty's honor to this day.

Lyrics:

Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly happy soul
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
And his eyes made out of coal

Frosty the Snowman
Made the children laugh and play
And were they surprised when
Before their eyes
He came to life that day

There must have been some magic
In that old silk hat they found
For when they placed it on his head
He began to dance around

Frosty the Snowman
Was alive as he could be
And the children say
He could laugh and play
Just the same as you and me

Frosty the Snowman
Knew the sun was hot that day
So he said let's run
And we'll have fun
Now before I melt away

So down to the village
With a broomstick in his hand
Running here and there all around the square
Saying catch me if you can

He led them down the streets of town
Right to the traffic cop
And he only paused a moment when
He heard him holler stop

Frosty the Snowman
Had to hurry on his way
But he waved goodbye
Saying don't you cry
I'll be back again some day

Thumpety thump thump
Thumpety thump thump
Look at Frosty go
Thumpety thump thump
Thumpety thump thump

Over the hills of snow

Recorded By:

Nat King Cole
Perry Como
Guy Lombardo
Jimmy Durante
The Ronettes

Nancy Wilson 1937-2018

The world of popular standards has lost one of the last major vocalists to come along at the tail end of the "golden age" of American vocal pop, the mid 20th century. Nancy Wilson, who often referred to herself as a "song stylist", straddled many different genres over the course of her nearly 60-year career, including R&B (she won her first Grammy in 1965 for Best R&B Recording, with "How Glad I Am"), jazz (her last two Grammys came in 2005 and 2007 for Best Jazz Vocal Album), and even more contemporary forms of pop, funk and soul during the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Coming along just as American popular music was undergoing a drastic sea change in the 1960s, Wilson was something of a throwback to the singers who inspired her as a child, including Nat "King" Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Eckstine.

Born February 20, 1937 in Chillicothe, Ohio, she was already steeped in the Great American Songbook by the time she was a teenager, and won a talent competition at the age of 15 that led to semi-regular television appearances and club tours before she had even graduated high school. Some advice from jazz legend Cannonball Adderley (with whom she would later collaborate on a titanic 1962 album), led to her relocating to New York City, then a hub of the recording world. By the age of 22, she had released her first album for Dot Records, entitled Like in Love. Soon, she would be signed to Capitol Records and releasing multiple albums per year throughout the 1960s, including The Swingin's Mutual (1961) with George Shearing; The Nancy Wilson Show (1965), a collection of recordings from her Emmy-winning variety show; and the timeless But Beautiful (1969).

With a voice that seemed a blend of Dinah Washington and Lena Horne, Wilson was a bit of an anomaly at a time when rock n' roll and Motown sounds were taking over the airwaves. She scored four top 10 albums during the 1960s, and had a huge single hit with "Tell Me the Truth", which led to an acclaimed engagement at the Coconut Grove. Nevertheless, after the 1960s, she struggled to keep the hits coming amidst the changing musical landscape. She tried her hand at some more contemporary genres, sometimes to the frustration of her older fans, including the 1978 album, Life, Love and Harmony. She remained a fixture in small clubs all over the world, and by the 1980s was recording her albums in Japan, where live in-studio recording--the preferred method for Wilson and many other jazz artists--had not yet been totally supplanted by the more compartmentalized and over-produced methods prevalent in the States during the rock era.

A fixture at jazz festivals throughout the 1990s and even into the 21st century, she was also the host of NPR's music series Jazz Profiles. She continued recording for smaller prestige jazz labels like MCG Jazz, releasing her final album, Turned to Blue, in 2006. Just five years later, she performed live for the last time, at Ohio University, not far from the place of her birth. She was hospitalized for lung complications in 2008, and had been battling a long illness when she passed away on Thursday, December 13, 2018 at the age of 81 at her home in Pioneertown, California. She leaves behind three children and five grandchildren. Her husband, the Reverend Wiley Burton, died in 2008 of renal cancer.

The inheritor of a proud tradition of interpreters of popular song which thrived throughout most of the 20th century, Nancy Wilson was an unforgettable performer and a link to a time when melody, lyrics and phrasing still mattered in mainstream American pop. She kept the torch burning well past the time that her kind of music had vanished from the charts. Her loss will be keenly felt, but we still have the music to remember her by.

Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat

By Frank Loesser
1950

With all the recent hullabaloo over the Frank Loesser song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (whose entry you can find here), I thought today I'd spotlight a different Loesser tune, this time from his masterpiece musical, Guys and Dolls. Introduced by the irrepressible Stubby Kaye in the original run of the stage show as well as the 1955 movie, it's a spirited and catchy number that epitomizes the spirit of that classic show. As recently as 1993, this song also charted when recorded in a slowed-down version by ex-Eagle Don Henley, for the soundtrack of the Steve Martin film Leap of Faith.

Lyrics:

I dreamed last night I got on the boat to heaven
And by some chance I had brought my dice along
And there I stood, and I hollered, "Someone fade me"
But the passengers they knew right from wrong

For the people all said
"Sit down, sit down you're rockin' the boat"
The people all said
"Sit down, sit down you're rockin' the boat
And the devil will drag you under
By the sharp lapel of your checkered coat
Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down
Sit down you're rocking the boat"

I sailed away on that little boat to heaven
And by some chance found a bottle in my fist
And there I stood nicely passin' 'round the whiskey
But the passengers were bound to resist

For the people all said
"Beware you're on a heavenly trip"
The people all said
"Beware, beware you'll scuttle the ship
And the devil will drag you under
By the fancy tie 'round your wicked throat
Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down
Sit down you're rockin' the boat"

And as I laughed at those passengers to heaven
A great big wave came and washed me overboard
And as I sank, and I hollered, "Someone save me"
That's the moment I woke up, thank the Lord

And I said to myself
"Sit down, sit down you're rocking the boat"
Said to myself
"Sit down, sit down you're rocking the boat
For the devil will drag you under
With a soul so heavy you'd never float
Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down
Sit down you're rockin' the boat"

Recorded By:

Sammy Davis Jr.
Louis Armstrong
Don Henley
The Four Lads
Rebecca Kilgore & Dave Frishberg

Out of Nowhere

By Johnny Green and Edward Heyman (pictured)
1931

From the same team responsible for "Body and Soul" and "I Cover the Waterfront" came this song, which turned out to be Bing Crosby's first solo #1 hit when he recorded it for Brunswick Records in March 1931. It would continue to be closely associated with Bing, although it eventually became a widely recorded jazz standard. Interestingly, the harmonic progression of this tune can be found in several other compositions, including Gigi Gryce's "Sans Souci" and Alexander Courage's classic theme to the original Star Trek TV series. It is also a favorite of Woody Allen's, popping up in three of his films: 1993's Manhattan Murder Mystery (Coleman Hawkins version), 1997's Deconstructing Harry (Django Reinhardt version) and 1999's Sweet and Lowdown (Dick Hyman version).

Lyrics:

You came to me from out of nowhere 
you took my heart and found it free
Wonderful dreams, wonderful schemes from nowhere
Made every hour sweet as a flower to me

And if you should go back to your nowhere 
Leaving me with a memory
I'll always wait for your return out of nowhere
Hoping you'll bring your love to me

When I least expected, kindly faith directed
You to make each dream of mine come true
And if it's clear or raining, there is no explaining
Things just happened and so did you

You came to me from out of nowhere
You took my heart and you found it free
Wonderful dreams, wonderful schemes from nowhere
Made every hour sweet as a flower to me

Recorded By:

Dave Brubeck
Lena Horne
Ella Fitzgerald
Vic Damone
Art Tatum

Jeepers Creepers

By Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer
1938

One of the catchiest songs of the World War II generation, and a song that remains in the mainstream consciousness to this day, "Jeepers Creepers" was written for the movie, Going Places, in which Louis Armstrong is the trainer of a horse named Jeepers Creepers (an old slang euphemism for Jesus Christ), who can only get the horse under control by playing the song for him. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Song, losing to "Thanks for the Memory". Since then it has been revisited countless times, in Warner Bros. cartoons, and in later films (including Yankee Doodle Dandy, in which a bunch of teens sing it, much to the chagrin of James Cagney's old-fashioned James M. Cohan). It even had an unlikely renaissance in the 2001 horror film of the same name, in which the song heralds the appearance of the murderous creature known as "The Creeper". With its bouncy Warren tune and irresistible Mercer lyrics, it's not tough to see why it has endured so long.

Lyrics:

Oh, jeepers creepers, where'd ya get those peepers?
Jeepers creepers, where'd ya get those eyes?
Oh, gosh all, git up, how'd they get so lit up?
Gosh all, git up, how'd they get that size?

Oh, golly gee, when you turn those heaters on
Woe is me, got to put my cheaters on

Jeepers creepers, where'd ya get those peepers?
Oh, those weepers, how they hypnotize!
Oh, where'd ya get those eyes?

Recorded By:

Johnny Mercer
Frank Sinatra
Al Caiola
Dave Brubeck
Tony Bennett