Harold Arlen, 'Come Rain or Come Shine'
A One-Hour Musical Celebration of Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen, 'Come Rain or Come Shine'
Top Ten Harold Arlen Songs
10. 'The Man That Got Away,' performed by Judy Garland
9. 'Come Rain or Come Shine,' performed by Joe Williams and Count Basie
8. 'Last Night When We Were Young,' performed by Frank Sinatra
7. 'It's Only a Paper Moon,' performed by Nat King Cole
6. 'One for My Baby (And One More For The Road),' performed by Frank Sinatra
5. 'Blues in the Night,' performed by Dinah Shore
4. 'Get Happy,' performed by Judy Garland
3. 'Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive,' performed by Johnny Mercer
2. 'Stormy Weather,' performed by Harold Arlen
1. 'Over the Rainbow,' performed by Judy Garland
Composer Harold Arlen. The Harold Arlen Centennial hide caption
Song Credits
Nos. 5, 6, 7 & 8 used courtesy of:
Nos. 1, 3, 4 & 10 used courtesy of:
No. 9 used courtesy of:
No. 2, a private recording of Arlen, used courtesy of the Harold Arlen estate.
Michael Feinstein discusses and performs the early Arlen song, 'Fancy Meeting You.'
In 1984, the Smithsonian Institution compiled a boxed set of CDs called The American Popular Song. The set included favorites from Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers and George Gershwin -- but contained more songs by Harold Arlen than any other composer.
The son of a celebrated cantor from New York, Arlen was one of America's greatest songwriters. During a career that spanned from the jazz age of the 1920s well into the 1970s, he wrote music for numerous Cotton Club revues, Broadway musicals and Hollywood movies, including The Wizard of Oz and A Star Is Born. Arlen's catalogue of more than 400 songs includes such classics as "Over the Rainbow," "Stormy Weather," "Between the Devil And the Deep Blue Sea" and "Get Happy."
"He wasn't as well known as some of us," said Irving Berlin of Arlen after his death in 1986, "but he was a better songwriter than most of us." To mark the centennial of Arlen's birth, Feb. 15, NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg hosts an hour-long special surveying his life and music.
Produced by Jeff Lunden.