Artist: Charles Walters & June Knight
Author: Cole Porter
Label: Victor
Year: 1935
As the crown prince and the dancer in Broadway musical Jubilee. Cole Porter's favorite song. It sure is about the exotic dance routine, while they perform it in Café Martinique. Porter first witnessed the beguine as a dance in Paris in '33, where he saw people from Martinique dancing. Years later, on an island in New Guinea, he got inspired for the rhythm. His Night And Day also shows exotic roots (see there).
Covers:
Xavier Cugat [vocal: Don Reid]
Artie Shaw [n°1 US]
Fred Astaire & Eleanor Powell [in film Broadway Melody Of 1940]
Charlie Parker [on his lp Cole Porter Songbook]
Ella Fitzgerald [on lp Sings The Cole Porter Songbook]
Louis Prima [melody vaguely used for his Buona Sera; n°1 NL & B (see there)]
Pete Townshend [for his guru Meher Baba because he liked it so much; on his Scoop compilation]
Julio Iglesias [n°1 UK]
Salif Keita [on cd Red Hot + Blue, a Cole Porter tribute doubling as anti-AIDS campaign]
Sheryl Crow [in film De-Lovely]
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)