AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'
Created on 04/05/2007Latest update on 13/03/2026
Artist: Paul Bass & Margaret Simms
Author: Andy Razaf/Thomas Waller/Harry Brooks
Year: 1929
In all-black revue Connie's Hot Chocolates, first staged at George & Connie Immerman's Connie's Club. The production soon moved to the bigger Windsor Theatre in the Bronx (where Paul was replaced by Cab Calloway), later to Broadway's Hudson Theatre, where Louis Armstrong was added to the pit orchestra. Soon Armstrong played and sang Ain't Misbehavin' mid-stage in a white tuxedo.
Covers:
- 1929:
Charleston Chasers [vocal by Eva Taylor, oldest recording (Columbia), only a week after the opening]
- 1929:
Leo Reisman [n°2 US]
- 1929:
Abe Lyman & His Californians [for Brunswick; on the same day as the Charleston Chasers]
- 1929:
Louis Armstrong [top 10 US; in '44 also in film Atlantic City; see note]
- 1929:
Fats Waller [author as instrumental; top 20 US; sold his publishing in need for quick alimony cash; in '43 also in film Stormy Weather]
- 1929:
Bill Robinson [alias Bojangles, the biggest tapdancer ever; top 10 US]
- 1929:
Ruth Etting [top 20 US]
- 1929:
Gene Austin [top 10 US]
- 1936:
- 1937:
Teddy Wilson [top 10 US]
- 1937:
- 1937:
- 1939:
- 1940:
- 1941:
- 1945:
Anita O'Day [with Nat King Cole's Trio]
- 1948:
Dinah Washington [top 10 R&B]
- 1950:
Sarah Vaughan [with Miles Davis]
- 1955:
- 1956:
- 1956:
- 1957:
- 1957:
- 1958:
- 1964:
- 1968:
- 1974:
Burt Reynolds [in film Lucky Lady]
- 1975:
Leon Redbone [with Joe Venuti]
- 1982:
- 1984:
- 1986:
Hank Williams Jr. [n°1 C&W]
- 1991:
- 2009:
- 2020:
- 2024:
Andy Razaf also cowrote Honeysuckle Rose with Fats Waller (for revue Land Of Coal, Connie's Hot Chocolates' follow-up). He also wrote the lyrics for In The Mood and Stompin' At The Savoy.
