Don George, songwriter: Reference Sources

Overview and Commentary Don George

Don George is perhaps remembered best either for his lyrics to the pop hit "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or for his collaborations with Duke Ellington on songs like those listed just below -- depending on whom you're talking to. He wrote a "notorious" book about Ellington: Sweet Man, the Real Duke Ellington, was music director for the film Holiday in Brussels, wrote the score for the stage score, Wet Paint, and worked on special material for many performers including Nat King Cole, Patti Page and the Pointer Sisters.

Gottlieb and Kimball include George lyrics for "I Ain't Got Nothin' but the Blues," "I'm Beginning to See the Light," "It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream," "It's Kind of Lonesome out Tonight," and "Tulip or Turnip."

Don George's name comes up often with regard to Ellington's bad luck with lyricists, especially himself and Irving Mills who were incapable of finding vernacular language that could "match his music."

This is made most specific by Philip Furia when he writes about Paul Francis Webster, Bob Russell and Don George as Ellington lyricists. Of George, he says, "Ellington's luck with lyricists hit its peak in 1944, when Don George gave an exuberantly casual setting to the catch-phrase "I'm beginning to see the light" (Furia, p. 261).

In David Jenness' and Don Velsey's discussion of composer Moose Charlap (father of jazz pianist Bill Charlap), they note that one of the cleverest apologies around comes from a 1956 Don George lyric for a Charlap melody:

The girl in my arms meant nothing to me, I was telling her about you. Jenness and Velsey, p. 190, quoting from the Charlap/George song: "I Was Telling Her About You." Listen to Joe Williams sing the song in the Cafe Songbook Music-Video Cabinet, just below.

• I Ain't Got Nothin' but the Blues
• I'm Beginning To See the Light
• Tulip or Turnip

Research Resources: Don George

• DBOPM (Database Of Popular Music: song list; awards; hit songs; co-writers)
• Discogs.com (songwriting and arranging credits)
• Indiana University Sheet Music Collection (In Harmony): songwriter
• Internet Broadway Database (Broadway productions and song credits);
• Internet Movie Database (IMDB) (brief biography, filmography, movie song credits); Go Directly to IMDB Biography of Don George
• New York Public Library (catalog entries for books, personal papers, recordings, scores, etc.);
• wiredforbooks.org: Radio Interview with Don Geroge: Don George reminisces about the times he spent with Duke Ellington during this 1981 interview with Don Swaim.
• ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, New York: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Cattell/Bowker, Fourth edition, 1980 (dates, collaborators, shows/movies, songs, etc., entry p. 180).
• Don George, Sweet Man, the Real Duke Ellington , New York: Putnam, 1983.
• Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball (Eds.), Reading Lyrics, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000 -- entry pp. 430-431.
• Joe Williams: 60sSingers

Notes

• David Jenness and Don Velsey Classic American Popular Song: The Second Half-Century, 1950-2000 New York: Routledge, 2006
• The Definitive Joe Williams
• Track of "I Was Telling Her about You" on video is the same as on album above.
• Don George, Sweet Man: the Real Duke Ellington , New York: Putnam, 1983.

Cite this page: Don George, songwriter: Reference Sources, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songwriters/g_sws/george_don.html