"  Accentuate the Positive-Eliminate the Negative "  Listen to this impassioned " sermon' in song by Harold Arlen and the southern boy lyricist. Johnny Mercer. The woman preacher is Barbara Cook, in her eighties and having overcome many difficulties in her life, still able to inspire audiences not to despair even in the face of dire circumstances.

I often start off my day with this song joined by " Ann of a Thousand Songs" and a coffee laced with Southern Comfort. ( and it is very comforting.)

https://youtu.be/bYim922qC0Y 

"  This Times the Dreams on Me"   Harold Arlen & Johnny Mercer wrote this song for the 1942 movie " Blues in the Night" which also contained the famous song named in the film's title. It is sung so  tenderly by Dick Haymes, a splendid example of the term crooner , a style always appreciated by women listeners. These crooners would deliver songs with loving conviction. restraint and clarity. The tradition began with Bing Crosby, followed by Sinatra, Haymes and other male singers like Tony Bennett plus young singers like Michael Buble continuing in the same artistic tradition.

 https://youtu.be/wq4gYupKyls

Harold Arlen songs and the saga of women mis-treated by mean men"
Three songs by Harold Arlen expose the perfidy often foisted off on women by men who don't treat women in a kindly and respectful manner.

"  The Man that Got Away"  lyrics by Ira Gershwin. explores the sadness of a woman unhappily lamenting the woes over the man that got away.

' Stormy Weather" lyrics by Ted Koehler, was introduced by Ethel Waters in aCotton Club show. So powerful was her performance, that Ethel Waters had to sing 12 encores. In her sadness, she sings "It keeps on rainin' all the time."

"  Blues in the Night" lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Right from the start, she sings " My momma done told me, when I was in pigtails, my momma done told me 'hon, a mans gonna give you the big eye but when the sweet talkin's done, a man is a two-faced, a worrisome thing, who'll leave you to sing the blues in the night."
All three songs are imbued with a blues feeling as they explore  the sadness resulting from male mistreatment. 
The songs are performed by Maureen McGovern, who is blessed with a powerful voice and a 4 octave vocal range plus the dramatic ability to convince an audience that she does feel the pain inherent in each song.

https://youtu.be/uppOeC-YyiI 

Famous Composers Praise Harold Arlen: Scholars of Classic American Song generally agree that there are 6 songwriters who were most influential in shaping what is often called The Great American Songbook. Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin & Richard Rodgers are the first five so noted. The sixth is Harold Arlen who is wholly praised by the five in their own words.

                               In Praise of Harold Arlen 
*   " He is the most original of us all."     GEORGE  GERSHWIN 

*  " He wasn't as well known as some of us but he was more talented than most of us & in a nutshell, no one has written better songs than Harold Arlen."                        IRVING BERLIN

*  " I realized that he was the greatest new talent in years. He has a real valid talent, it is his own and completely original."
                                                                   RICHARD RODGERS

*  " A distinguished personality in music and I have admired him
'       for years,:                                            COLE PORTER    

*  " His songs are almost, without exception, genuine musical creations, not experiments in limitation."  JEROME KERN

Recognizing Arlen's originality is the essence of their praise.

Despite his relative anonymity ( even though his songs are well known) " Harold Arlen accumulated one of the most impressive catalogues in the history of American popular music, not merely lucrative Hit Parade material ( although there are plenty of those)
but evergreen songs that have long outlived their original films and stage presentations."
     Edward Jablonski  Arlen biographer and personal friend.




















                                                                                                                            

                                                  

An Arlen style torch song. " The Faraway Part of Town. 
Composer Andre Previn was a long-time admirer of Harold Arlen whose songs were characterized by inventive harmony and unusual song construction not limited to the standard 32 Bar, AABA song format. This song could have been written by Arlen himself, imbued as it is by Arlen's characteristic blues feeling and "torch song" appeal.. Sung here by Judy Garland, it harkens back to Garland's own emotionally riveting performance of Arlen's " The Man That Got Away" from " A Star is Born."

https://youtu.be/8IvFVxpDGDo 

Two Harold Arlen blues styled songs from ST. Louis Woman, lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Lovely Vanessa Wiliams has a special affinity wih Arlen songs whose singing and piano playing had people assuming he was a black composer. In fact, he was the son of a Jewish cantor,raised in Buffalo and who played piano in speakeasies while still in high school. "Any place I hangs my hat is home" and 'Come Rain or Come Shine " were both sung by Vanessa Williams in a revival of the 1946 musical which has also been recorded by the cast of that revival from NY City Centre. 
NOTE: Anyone who attended Delta Secondary school in Hamilton Ontario would understand my reference to Arlen's great resemblance to Joe Perell, a beloved math teacher who , like Arlen, was always immaculately dressed with both men always wearing a flower in their suit lapels. 

 https://youtu.be/p6c6XQt2IxA

" i Never Has Seen Snow"   Sung by Vanessa Williams, this is more of and art song or aria than a conventional popular song. It is from the Harold Arlen/Truman Capote show House of Flowers. Set in an exotic Haitian setting, the song suggest that Otillie, the beautiful young girl, employed in a bordello run by Pearl Bailey believes that snow which she has never seen could ever be as beautiful as her love is, " as her love is." Vanessa Williams has a real affinity for the Arlen blues-inflected song style. Here she is backed by the Boson Pops and an onstage cellist in an imaginative arrangement by Rob Mathes. Alec Wilder, dedicated song scholar and Arlen devotee has stated that the song " impresses me more than the song arias from " Porgy And Bess."  " Withour prejudice, I respect Gershwin, but I envy Arlen."

https://youtu.be/SYqfL6kygRc