" Blues in the Night"-- Sinatra style & a current female version . Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer combined on a now classic blue number for a film that used , as its title, the name of the song itself. The film tells the story of an itinerant band of jazz musicians who land in jail. They hear a black inmate singing a mournful song explaining why he has the blues in the night. When the film was released, it became big hit and remains today as a favorite of jazz musicians, folk and pop singers.
Frank Sinatra sings it in a more restrained fashion than normally heard. It can be done as a wailing, angry lament as demonstrated in an alternative to Sinatra's sad lament.
Katie Melua, a young. contemporary singer proves that song like Blues in the Night can be popular almost 70 years after it was written. Her version features a rocking rhythm and a soulful harmonica , an instrument closely associated with the blues tradition. I'm sure both Arlen and Mercer would have liked her version.
The song is versatile because it can make either a woman or a man the cause of the singer's sadness and anger depending on the gender of who does the singing.
SINATRA VERSION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFtfpyVHpsc
KATIE MELUA VERSION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GInlcSrvpL8
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