"Oh, Lady, Be Good!": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"Oh, Lady Be Good!"

Wilfred Sheed, The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty,
New York: Random House, 2007 (paper-bound ED. 2008 shown)

Michael Feinstein (with Ian Jackman), The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012.

As has been pointed out on the Cafe Songbook page for "Somebody Loves Me," 1924 was a pivotal year both for the Gershwin brothers as well as for Broadway itself. It was the year George ceased writing songs for revues and ventured completely into the realm of the book musical, what later became known as the musical comedy, the form that dominated American musical theater for the remainder of the century. It was also the year that George and Ira took up writing as a team on a permanent basis. These changes culminated in the writing of the score for the show Lady, Be Good!, which opened on Broadway at the Liberty Theater on December 1, 1924, a date by which the year had seen some forty other musicals open on the Great White (and by 21st century standards, unimaginably busy) Way. Furthermore, George Gershwin's fame had burst forth in 1924 as much from his performances of his Rhapsody in Blue -- both in concert halls and in private salons (where he played it by request seemingly endlessly). And, as Walter Rimler sums up Gershwin in 1924, "His worldwide fame had begun--only to be compounded when, [at the end of that magical year], he had a huge triumph on Broadway -- the musical Lady, Be Good!, which made stars of Fred and Adele Astaire, and for which he and Ira wrote "Fascinating Rhythm," "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" and "The Man I Love," establishing themselves as a composer-lyricist team in the vanguard of those who were about to usher in the golden age of American popular song" (Rimler, p. 6).

This recording of "Oh, Lady Be Good!" by the Carl Fenton Orchestra was made during the same month, Dec. 1924, that the show, Lady Be Good, starring Adele and Fred Astaire, opened on Broadway.

Even though changes taking place in the American musical theater were making it modern in several profound senses, the influence of the past was still deeply felt on Broadway. This was evidenced by the fact that operetta, that throwback to the more romantic and sentimental tastes of the nineteenth century, was the musical theater form that still proved most popular, being led in 1924 by Rudolf Friml's Rose Marie and Sigmund Romberg's The Student Prince. And even most of the shows with a more contemporary flavor still had books that were little more than vehicles to support their songs instead of songs that were integrated into the plot. These even included productions with scores by the likes of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. The Gershwins' Lady, Be Good, whose plot was still, in the words of Wilfred Sheed, "simpleminded" and a long way from what would come later in the decade (Sheed, p. 61), was one of the few shows, and certainly the most successful, that could claim to be on some level a modern musical comedy. Gerald Mast characterizes the qualities that distinguished Lady, Be Good as modern: It was "bright and breezy . . . with topical themes (like bootlegging) and topical settings (from a Long Island mansion to the wild west), small casts, amiable jokes, flippant themes, Astaire dancing, and songs, songs, songs" (Mast, p. 76).

Kathleen Riley in her biography of the Astaires (Fred and Adele) elaborates on the show's contemporary qualities and provides Fred's own sense of the show's modernism.

Lady, Be Good! was no less a milestone than the first performance of Rhapsody in Blue , for it changed the American musical, carrying with it a new sound, a new verve and sophistication, and a new spirit, boldly and authentically twentieth-century. As Fred maintained: "This was no hackneyed ordinary musical comedy. It was slick and tongue in cheek, a definite departure in concept and design" (Riley, p. 98-99) .

Nevertheless, the book for Lady Be Good! would be considered flimsy in comparison to later shows that featured songs that were truly integrated into their stories. Anyone who had time-traveled back from two decades later having seen Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Oklahoma (1943) to attend Lady, Be Good! would feel that the 1924 show was not much more than a conventional revue. It's songs, great as some of them were (as mentioned above, "Oh, Lady Be Good," "Fascinating Rhythm," and, until it was dropped before the Broadway opening, "The Man I Love"), were were intended mainly as a means of providing opportunities for the star performers to do their thing, though they did in most cases at least relate to the plot. The show featured four such stars: comic Walter Catlett, Cliff Edwards (otherwise know as Ukulele Ike, an enormously popular vaudevillian), and, mirabile dictu, Fred and Adele Astaire, who were then still relatively unknown. They were a down-on-their-luck sister and brother in the show as well as sister and borther in life and it was for them that the Gershwins were mainly creating their song and dance numbers. Fred and George had known each other since they were teenagers working at or hanging around the Tin Pan Alley music scene. As far back as that, they had dreamed out loud to each other about how great it would be if some day George created a show that would star Fred and his sister. In fact, Lady, Be Good! fulfilled that dream being the show that truly made them, songwriter and performers alike, stars.

1925 recording of "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" by Cliff Edwards (Ukulele Ike) who was a member of the original cast of Lady, Be Good! on Broadway but did not perform the song in the show.

We now know how modern Lady, Be Good! really was, at least for its time, but apparently most contemporary reviewers did not. Gershwin biographer Edward Jablonski captures the essence of what the critics missed:

Though several reviewers made note of the songs they made no mention of the innovative sound, the spare sinewy melodies, the definitely non-operetta rhythms, the wit of the lyrics. A score that scintillated and crackled with the unsentimental contemporaneity . . . of such songs as "Little Jazz Bird," "The Half of It, Dearie, Blues, and of course, "Oh, Lady Be Good" and " Fascinating Rhythm " (Jablonski, pp. 86-87, hardcover Ed.) .

The show's origins can be traced to London during the summer of 1924, where George was putting the final touches on the production of the British show Primrose, for which he had written the score. In London, he met with American producer Alex Aarons, writer Guy Bolton and Fred Astaire about a show they were plannin to mount on Broadway later that year, a show that at that point bore the working title Black-Eyed Susan. On the steamship voyage back to New York, George met millionaire and arts patron Otto Kahn whom he tried to interest in investing in the show. Reportedly, when George played one of his songs then included in the score for Black-Eyed Susan, "The Man I Love," Kahn was so enthusiastic that he immediately put up $10,000; unaware, at the time, that the song would eventually be dropped from the show because coproducer Vinton Freedley had come to think "The Man I Love" slowed the show down. Interestingly, as George Gershwin biographer Howard Pollack informs us, the show Lady Be Good! got its final title from the song "Oh, Lady, Be Good" and not the other way around, which was commonly the case with title songs. When back in New York, Aarons and Freedley heard George and Ira's song "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" while the show title was still called Black-Eyed Susan, and, liking the song so much, decided to switch out Black-Eyed Susan for Lady, Be Good! -- and thus altered the history of American musical theater.

The "lady" referred to in the title of both song and show is Susie Trevor (Adele Astaire) sister of Dick Trevor (Fred Astaire). The plot, which is far too complicated and melodramatic to render in anything close to its entirety, presents a character named Jack who was supposedly murdered in Mexico but somehow shows up in New York trying to inherit a large estate claimed by a Mexican in the name of his sister on the grounds that she had married the murdered character while vacationing south of the border. Watty Watkins, the character played by Walter Catlett, is not only Dick Trevor's lawyer, but has been engaged by the Mexican to collect his sister's share of the inheritance. Watty tries to get Susie Trevor to impersonate the Mexican's sister to help in securing his new client's share. Whether or not Susie complies will determine if the lady will be "good" or not -- where "good" can mean either good or bad depending on which character is using the term. The title song is sung by Catlett/Watkins to Adele/Susie to get her to be "good" to him by complying with his requests, both literal and implied. Susie at first declines despite Catlett's lucrative offer and then suddenly reverses course turning a yacht club party into a riot -- concluding the first act. Don't worry, everything works out and the truly "good" guys and ladies (which include Fred's and Adele's characters) get the inheritance and preserve their virtue. (The best plot summary including placement of songs is found in Michael Feinstein's book The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs -- pp. 52-54). Fred Astaire was crazy about the music in the show right from his first hearing, but years later confirmed a commonly held view of the nature of the story by stating in his autobiography Steps in Time: "What the plot of Lady, Be Good! was I really can't remember, but do know that it was pretty stupid" (Steps in Time, pp. 126-127, hard-cover, Ed.).

As one can tell, even from this abbreviated synopsis of Lady Be Good!, it was not the story that made the show so memorable and important in the history of American musical theater. It was the songs. They with "their originality and excellence, their complexity and sophistication in rhythm, harmony and lyric writing raised musical comedy to new heights. . . ." Writing of the show's title song, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who in 1929, had sculpted a brooding, modernist bust of Geroge Gershwin, commented how the Gershwin brothers had the "rare gift of being able to transfix in such a slender song as "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" the timely yet timeless image of an era, poignant still." (See Kimball and Simon, The Gershwins, p. 39, hard-cover Ed.)

Philip Furia and
Michael Lasser,
America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley, New York: Routledge, 2006.

The Gershwin songs were new and fresh and vital, perfectly attuned to 1924 America. Ragtime and jazz had been introduced to Broadway before, but the Lady, Be Good songs transcended the popular music of honky-tonks and cabarets. George had combined Negro music with his own syncopation. And Ira's lyrics, perfectly cadenced to the complicated music and brilliantly rhymed, gave it a finish of worldly sophistication.

Thomas also quotes the New York Times review of Lady, Be Good, which demonstrates the relative status of Adele and Fred near the beginning of their careers:

When she [Adele] left [New York for London] she was a graceful dancer--and she has returned not only with all her glorious grace but as a first-rate comedienne in her own right. Miss Astaire in the new piece is as charming and entertaining a musical comedy actress as the town has seen on display in many a moon. Fred Astaire too makes a good account of himself.

Deena Rosenberg in her book on the collaboration between George and Ira, elucidates the place the song and show titles came to hold in the culture of The Twenties, both popular and literary:

"Oh, Lady, Be Good!" like the rest of the score it comes from, is at once sassy and vulnerable, innocent and seductive, confident , yet insecure -- suggestive, satisfying and very twenties. The phrase "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" became the "definitive male invocation" of the decade in the words of the British critic Benny Green. It was quickly absorbed into everyday speech as well as more esoteric literary language. Ezra Pound wrote in his #74 of his Pisan Cantos , Oedipus. repotes Remi Magnanimi so Mr. Bullington lay on his back like an ape singing: O sweet and lovely O Lady be good. (p. 104 paper-bound Ed.)

It is difficult to follow the recording history of "Oh, Lady Be Good!" without noting the extent to which jazz musicians of every generation from the time the song was written have taken it up. Ted Gioia in his The Jazz Standards offers about as good an overview of "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" in the jazz repertoire as there is.

Gioia attributes the songs success both to George's "ear for the innovations of jazz" as well as to Ira's for the "new vernacular twists in the spoken language of the day." Gioia's account of the song's performance history acknowledges the big bands "hard-swinging" versions but emphasizes the small combos from the mid-thirties as the basis for the song's eventual mantle of jazz standard. These include Lester Young's performance with Count Basie from 1936 (which includes "one of his most studied and emulated sax solos" and led to his performance with Charlie Parker in 1946), Coleman Hawkins' London recording from 1934, and the Benny Goodman trio version from 1936. (Gioia, pp. 306-308)

Click here to read the lyrics for "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" as sung by Ella Fitzgerald on the album The George and Ira Gershwin Songbook, as well as on the album:
Oh Lady Be Good: Best of the Gershwin Songbook (both contain her 1959 studio version with Nelson Riddle arrangement)

• John Pizzarelli: TBCBankTV
• Carl Fenton Orchestra: bsgs98
• Paul Whiteman: Jim Butler
• Lester Young with Count Basie: JckDupp
• Benny Goodman Trio: Brooklynskipper87
• Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli: edmundusrex
• Charlie Parker: BRIGHTFREE
• Fred Astaire/Oscar Peterson: max26111000
• Ella Fitzgerald (1947): rgsmusicargentina
• Ella Fitzgerald (1959): catman916
• Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth: jykds
• George Wein and His Newport All Stars: erwigfilms
• Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis: lowreed
• Mark O'Connor: Mark O'Connor
• Dee Dee Bridgewater: marchfishka
• Regina Carter: fopstra

Notes

• Other songs written for Lady, Be Good currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook :
• 2. The Man I Love (written for but not used in show)
• For a complete listing of songs used in the original production of this show, see IBDB song list .
• Edward Jablonski Gershwin A Biography, New York: Doubleday, 1987 (paper bound edition shown)
• George Gershwin: His Life and Work Berkeley: Univ. of California Press 2006
• Edward Jablonski and Lawrence D. Stewart, The Gershwin Years - George and Ira , New York: Doubleday, 1958
• The Gershwins Robert Kimball and Alfred Simon, Eds. New York: Atheneum, 1975
• Walter Rimler George Gershwin: An Intimate Portrait Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009
• Gerald Mast. Can't Help Singin' The American Musical on Stage and Screen . Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1987.
• Kathleen Riley The Astaires: Fred & Adele New York: Oxford UP, 2012
• Fred Astaire Steps in Time: An Autobiography New York: Harper & Brothers 1959 (paperback Ed., 2008)
• Bob Thomas, in his biography of Fred Astaire, captures the qualities of the Gershwins' score for Lady, Be Good :
• Rosenberg's full discussion of "Oh, Lady, Be Good!" is revealing and incisive.
• Ted Gioia The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire New York: Oxford University Press, 2012 .
• For the published lyric, see The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin :

Cite this page: "Oh, Lady, Be Good!": Song History, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/o/oh_lady_be_good.html