Jimmy Van Heusen, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany

Overview and Commentary: Jimmy Van Heusen (This section remains in progress)

"Van Heusen's birth name was Chester Babcock. He chose Van Heusen, the name of a famous line of men's shirts, because he felt it was a name associated with "old money, elegance and class. What he didn't realize was that the Van Heusen line was the creation of a German-Jewish peddler named Israel Phillips."

Gary Marmorstein quotes Alec Wilder on Van Heusen and then adds his own colorful piece of Van Heusen's early history. Recalling an image of Van Heusen, Wilder said, "'I well remember a thin young man sitting outside an arranger's office, endlessly playing the piano during the the late thirties.'" Marmorstein continues:

In those years Van Heusen worked at Remick Music publishers under the supervision of Mousie Warren, Harry' brother. Van Heusen supplemented his Remick income by playing in the city's prominent whorehouses. (Years later, Van Heusen was one of the few movie-industry figures to appear publicly at the funeral of Polly Adler, New York's most notorious madam.) The whorehouse playing earned him a reputation as a swordsman, but those tunes were the thing that made musicians and producers take notice. (Marmorstein, p. 165) .

As great a melodist as Van Heusen was, he was not a successful writer for Broadway shows. Van Heusen wrote the scores for five Broadway musicals: Swingin' the Dream (1939) ran for twelve performances, even though it included the standard song "Darn That Dream"; Nellie Bly (1946) ran for sixteen performances; Carnival in Flanders (1953) ran for six performances, even though it included a song titled "Rainy Day" which became a standard after Sinatra recorded it in 1959, as "Here's That Rainy Day."; Skyscraper (1956), ran for 23 previews and 248 performances; Walking Happy (1966-67) ran for three previews and 161 performances (Show data from IBDB.org).

from a Jonathan Schwartz radio tribute to Van Heusen broadcast on The Saturday Show, Jan. 28, 2012 in honor of what would have been the songwriter's 99th birthday two days previous.

As mentioned above Van Heusen had written a song titled "Rainy Day" with his long time lyricist partner Johnny Burke in 1953, for the failed Broadway show Carnival in Flanders . After the show closed, Van Heusen stored the song away -- "put it in the trunk" as songwriters like to say. It remained there through the making of several Sinatra albums for which Van Heusen wrote songs without Van Heusen mentioning it to Sinatra. Then one day in 1959, when the singer and the songwriter were working together at Sinatra's house on the title song for the album No One Cares , Sinatra asked Van Husen if he had any new material. Van Heusen, who had finally had sheet music for what had become " Here's that Rainy Day " published, took it out and played it. Sinatra responded, according to Schwartz (who had been told the story by Van Heusen), "Whatcha been doin' with this song?" and Van Heusen replied in his raspy, world-worn voice, and exactly these words: "I pick My Spots." Sinatra recorded it in the studio on May 25, 1959, with the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra, and the song was on its way, after a six year hibernation, to becoming a great American standard.

In passing, Schwartz also mentioned that although Van Heusen (a songwriter he knew well, admired and liked very much) was "a pedestrian piano player, he had a lovely singing voice."

• "I Could Have Told You" written with Carl Sigman and first recorded by Sinatra on Dec. 9, 1953, with a Nelson Riddle arrangement. We are not sure if it was written in '53. This song is not yet in the Cafe Songbook catalog.

• All my Tomorrows
• All the Way
• Aren't You Glad You're You?
• But Beautiful
• Call Me Irresponsible
• Come Fly with Me
• Darn That Dream
• The Day After Forever
• Deep in a Dream
• Here's That Rainy Day
• I thought about You
• Imagination
• It Could Happen to You
• Like Someone in Love
• Moonlight Becomes You
• My Kind of Town (Chicago is)
• Nancy (with the laughing face)
• Oh! You Crazy Moon
• Polka Dots and Moonbeams
• The Second Time Around
• The September of My Years
• Swinging On A Star
• Amazon (publications by and about, recordings, videos, sheet music, etc.);
• Songwriters Hall of Fame (biography and song list);
• Wikipedia article;
• DBOPM (Database Of Popular Music: song list, awards, hit songs, co-writers)
• Discogs.com (songwriting and arranging credits)
• FilmReference.com
• Indiana University Sheet Music Collection (In Harmony): Jimmy Van Heusen
• Internet Broadway Database (Broadway productions and song credits);
• Internet Movie Database (brief biography, filmography, movie song credits)
• iTunes (Van Heusen albums, singles, etc.)
• JimmyanHeusen.com (the Jimmy Van Heusen website including Biog., photo gallery, awards, etc.)
• New York Public Library (catalog entries for books, personal papers, recordings, scores, etc.);
• The New York Times (articles about the songwriter)
• NPR Music (archive of relevant programs often including audio segments) "The Composer Who Tested Fighter Planes And Partied With Sinatra" by Jeff Lunden, January 26, 2013 (100th birthday feature)
• Todd Peaches Jimmy Van Heusen page (lyrics to Van Heusen melodies as sung by various artists, especially Sinatra)
• UCLA / Archive of California (Finding Aid for the Jimmy Van Heusen Collection of Musical Works and Papers 1853-1994, bulk 1939-1972 (At Online Archive of California/UCLA).
• Alec Wilder, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, New York: Oxford University Press, 1972 -- sub-chapter on Van Heusen (pp. 442-451 hard cover Ed.).
• David Ewen. American Songwriters, An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co., 1987 (includes 146 bios of composers and lyricists). -- a wide selection of used copies is available at abebooks.com (entry, pp. 403-408).
• Roy Hemming, The Melody Lingers On: The Great Songwriters and Their Movie
  Musicals, New York: Newmarket Press, 1986 (sub-chapter on Van Heusen).
• Allen Forte, The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950, Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 1995 (sub-chapter on Van Heusen and Johnny Burke).
• Gary Marmorstein. Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers 1900-1975. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997 (several extended sections relevant to Van Heusen.
• William Zinsser. Easy to Remember The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs. Jaffrey, New Hampshire: David R. Godine, 2000 (chapter on Van Heusen, pp. 219-228).
• Warren W. Vaché, The Unsung Songwriters: America's Masters of Melody, The Scarecrow Press, 2000 (brief Bio.; entry pp. 509-510).
• Ken Bloom. The American Songbook, The Singers, The Songwriters and the Songs. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2005 (entry--pp. 190-192).
• David Jenness and Don Velsey, Classic American Popular Song: The Second Half-Century, 1950-2000, New York: Routledge, 2006 (multiple references to Van Heusen).
• 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 (chapter on Van Heusen).
• Thomas S. Hischak. The Oxford Companion to the American Musical: Theatre, Film, and Television. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 (entry--p. 769).

Notes

• Gary Marmorstein Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900-1975 , New York: Schirmer Books, 1997
• Frank Sinatra No One Cares (1959)
• Schwartz also tells the story of how Sinatra came to record "Here's that Rainy Day":
• Jimmy Van Heusen research resources on the web (listed alphabetically by web source):
• Jimmy Van Heusen research resources in print (listed chronologically):

Cite this page: Jimmy Van Heusen, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songwriters/t_u_v/vanheusen_jimmy.html