Rockin' Chair (1929 song)
Rockin 'Chair is a ballad, which was written in 1929 by Hoagy Carmichael.
The song
The tune of Rockin 'Chair includes 32 bars and is held in the form of a song A- A1 -BA. Carmichael put the song as a dialogue between father and son; He begins with the lines:
In the third stanza the father of the son replies:
First shots and charts successes
The first recording of Rockin 'Chair was from Louis Armstrong, for Okeh ( 8756 ) with Carmichael took him on 13 December 1929 as second vocalist. [A 1] Rockin' Chair was taken during a session with the Luis Russell Armstrong's Orchestra between the 10 and 13 December 1929, when the band - also grossed the St. Louis Blues and finally the Carmichael composition - starting with I Is not Got Nobody and Dallas Blues. Armstrong invited Carmichael to sing the role of the father, while Armstrong replied the son. The Rockin 'Chair session was one of the early recordings in which a white man and an African American together to sing a duet.
On May 21, 1930 Carmichael took him self for Victor Records (Victor 25494 ) with his orchestra on where Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Bud Freeman, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Jack Teagarden and Joe Venuti played.
The Armstrong version of the song came on August 6, 1932 on position 14 of the American hit parade when the Okeh recording from Columbia Records was re-released along with Sweet Heats on Parade - probably inspired by the success of the Mills Brothers, whose cover version on 14 May 1932 had reached # 4 on the U.S. charts. After the great success took Armstrong Rockin 'Chair during his career still on several occasions; integrating him in his concerts he gave in Europe in 1933. His trombonist Tyree Henry was doing a hat and played the role of father.
Became famous his call and response duets from 1947 to 1951 with his trombonist Jack Teagarden. They built their performances of Rockin 'Chair various jokes one, so in a version of 1951, when Armstrong sings " But I is not got no gin, father" and Teagarden leads them to respond, " Well, I guess I'll take a Seven-Up then ".
Mildred Bailey took him the first time on August 18, 1932 with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, Bunny Berigan, Red Norvo and Matty Malneck as soloists on Bailey made the song to their theme song and was " The Rockin 'Chair Lady" called. On March 23, 1937 Bailey played it again with their orchestra [B 1]; on June 12 came the song in this version ( Vocalion 3553 ) at # 13 on the U.S. charts. After that, the song did not come back into the U.S. charts.
Other recordings
Other versions of the song in the swing era come from Frank Sinatra, Sidney Bechet, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Roy Eldridge, Glen Gray, Red Nichols, Artie Shaw, Fats Waller, Nelson Williams and Garland Wilson. In modern jazz artists such as Ray Bryant, Conte Candoli, Orrin Evans, Joe Pass and Oscar Peterson played an interpretation of the classic.
The recordings that Fats Domino (1951) and Gwen McCrae (1975 ) under the title Rockin 'Chair published, no cover versions of Carmichael songs.