"Ain't Misbehavin'" is a 1929 song written by Thomas "Fats" Waller, Harry Brooks

Harry Brooks (composer)

Harry Brooks was an American writer of popular songs, jazz pianist and composer in the 1920s through the early 1950s....

 (music) and Andy Razaf (lyrics). Waller recorded the original version that year for Victor Records and also later performed the song in the 1943 film Stormy Weather

Stormy Weather (1943 film)

Stormy Weather is a 1943 American musical film produced and released by 20th Century Fox. The film is one of two major Hollywood musicals produced in 1943 with primarily African-American casts, the other being MGM's Cabin in the Sky, and is considered a time capsule showcasing some of the top...

. It was used in the off-broadway musical Connie's Hot Chocolates. It has been recorded by many other performers over the years, including Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day

Anita O'Day was an American jazz singer.Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer"...

, Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...

, Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

, Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

, Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

, Kay Starr

Kay Starr

Kay Starr is an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz"....

, Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine

Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...

, Art Tatum

Art Tatum

Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...

, Sonny Stitt

Sonny Stitt

Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...

, Sam Cooke, Johnnie Ray

Johnnie Ray

Johnnie Ray was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality.-Early life:John Alvin Ray was born in...

, Sidney Bechet

Sidney Bechet

Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...

, Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

, Elkie Brooks, Bill Haley & His Comets

Bill Haley & His Comets

Bill Haley & His Comets was an American rock and roll band that was founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band, also known by the names Bill Haley and The Comets and Bill Haley's Comets , was the earliest group of white musicians to bring rock and roll to the attention of...

 (who recorded a rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 version in 1957). In 1960 Tommy Bruce

Tommy Bruce

Tommy Bruce was an English rock 'n' roll singer who had most success in the early 1960s.-Life and career:He was born Thomas Charles Bruce, in Stepney, London...

 and the Bruisers had a #3 hit in the UK with their version of the song. Leon Redbone

Leon Redbone

Leon Redbone is a singer and guitarist specializing in interpretations of early 20th-century music, including jazz and blues standards and Tin Pan Alley classics....

 performed the song on Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

in 1976. It served as the title song of the successful 1978 musical Ain't Misbehavin'.

The original 1929 recording of "Ain't Misbehavin'", by Fats Waller

Fats Waller

Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...

 received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1984, and it was one of fifty recordings selected for inclusion in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 in 2004.

In 2001, it was one of 365 Songs of the Century

Songs of the Century

The "Songs of the Century" list is part of an education project by the Recording Industry Association of America , the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. that aims to "promote a better understanding of America’s musical and cultural heritage" in American schools...

 selected by the RIAA.

Hank Williams, Jr. version

Hank Williams Jr. took his version to the top of the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

chart in 1986.

Chart positions

Chart (1986)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	1
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	1