MIDNIGHT SUN

Created on 02/10/2002
Latest update on 02/08/2022

Artist: Lionel Hampton
Author: Sonny Burke/Lionel Hampton
Label: Decca
Year: 1947

Jazz instrumental.

Covers:

1954:

June Christy [with Johnny Mercer lyrics]

1955:

Bobby Troup [on an entire album of Johnny Mercer songs]

1956:

Jimmy Smith

1956:

Bob Dorough

1956:

Ella Fitzgerald

1957:

Julie London

1963:

Sarah Vaughan

1967:

Willie Bobo

1967:

Nancy Wilson

1973:

Frank Zappa [melody quoted in Don't Eat The Yellow Snow and in Nanook Rubs It on lp Apostrophe]

1980:

Lou Donaldson

1985:

Toots Thielemans

1990:

Ryuichi Sakamoto

1992:

Herb Alpert [on cd Midnight Sun]

1997:

Diana Krall [in film Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil]

2001:

Gary Burton

2003:

Holly Cole

2004:

Al Jarreau

2008:

Dianne Reeves

2011:

Dee Dee Bridgewater

2014:

Freda Payne

Where Johnny Mercer excelled, rhyming "red and ruby chalice" with "alabaster palace" and "aurora borealis". He heard the Hampton instrumental on his car radio, stopped at the next gas station, made a phone call to the radio station asking what it was and requesting a rerun. That's when he started rhyming words over it.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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