The Man I Love (song)
Encyclopedia
"The Man I Love" is a popular standard, with music by George Gershwin
and lyrics by his brother Ira
. Originally part of the 1924 score for the Gershwin government satire Lady, Be Good as "The Girl I Love", the song was deleted from the show as well as from both the 1927 anti-war satire Strike Up the Band (where it first appeared as "The Man I Love") and 1928 Ziegfeld hit Rosalie after tryouts. As with many standards of the era, it has become more famous as an independent popular song than as one from a Broadway musical.
Popular torch singer Helen Morgan
first made the song into a big success.
The best-known recording over the years of the crooner Vaughn De Leath
(1894–1943) was perhaps the version of "The Man I Love
" she sang with Paul Whiteman's Concert Orchestra for Columbia.[]
Billie Holiday
, Sarah Vaughan
, and Lena Horne
recorded versions of this song, as did Ella Fitzgerald
for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook
(1959). On this version, Ira Gershwin commented, "I didn't realize our songs were so good until Ella sang them". Hazel O'Connor
recorded a version for her Smile album in 1984.
The singer and actress Peg La Centra doubles Ida Lupino
in the movie The Man I Love
when Ida Lupino's character Petey Brown sings The Man I Love
Liza Minnelli
(who is Ira Gershwin's god-daughter) performed the song in the 1977 film New York, New York
.
Cher
recorded the song for her album Bittersweet White Light
(1973).
Diane Schuur
recorded the song for her album In Tribute (1992).
Barbra Streisand
recorded the song for her album Back to Broadway
(1993).
In 1995, Tony Bennett
recorded the song for his MTV Unplugged
performance with lyrics revised by Ira Gershwin
as "The Girl I Love".
In 2000, the song was recorded by Omara Portuondo
in the album Bueno Vista Social Club presents: Omara Portuondo, under the title El Hombre que yo Amé (The Man I Love).
In 2006, Israeli musician Ivri Lider
recorded a version of the song as a part of the soundtrack from the movie The Bubble
.
In 2008, Malian musician Rokia Traoré
recorded the song for her album Tchamanché. She had previously performed it in 2005 as a duet with Dianne Reeves
.
In April 2011, Edna Goren, the First Lady of Jazz in Israel, performed the song in a jazz concert at "Club Hed" in Tel Aviv, with new Hebrew lyrics by Chaim Keinan.
Django Reinhardt also played a version of this song. As Omara Portuondo , who named it "El Hombre Que Yo Amé"
The song also appeared on Vassilikos
's first solo album Vintage
.
and harmonica
player Larry Adler
recorded "The Man I Love" for the 1994 The Glory of Gershwin
album. This collection of 16 Gershwin songs was released in honor of Adler's 80th birthday and produced by George Martin
. Released on July 18, 1994 the single climbed to number 22 in the UK Singles Chart
. It was the second Kate Bush single to be released in the UK on a label other than EMI
.
The B-Side of the 7" single was an edited version of Adler and Martin's rendition of "Rhapsody in Blue
". The CD single contained both the 7" edit and the full-length album version of the song.
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and lyrics by his brother Ira
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
. Originally part of the 1924 score for the Gershwin government satire Lady, Be Good as "The Girl I Love", the song was deleted from the show as well as from both the 1927 anti-war satire Strike Up the Band (where it first appeared as "The Man I Love") and 1928 Ziegfeld hit Rosalie after tryouts. As with many standards of the era, it has become more famous as an independent popular song than as one from a Broadway musical.
Popular torch singer Helen Morgan
Helen Morgan
Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s...
first made the song into a big success.
The best-known recording over the years of the crooner Vaughn De Leath
Vaughn De Leath
Vaughn De Leath was an American female singer who gained popularity in the 1920s, earning the sobriquets "The Original Radio Girl" and "First Lady of Radio." Although popular in the 1920s, De Leath is little known today....
(1894–1943) was perhaps the version of "The Man I Love
The Man I Love
The Man I Love may refer to:*"The Man I Love" , a popular song by George Gershwin, from the musical Lady Be Good*The Man I Love , a 1957 album by Peggy Lee*The Man I Love , a 1929 film directed by William A. Wellman...
" she sang with Paul Whiteman's Concert Orchestra for Columbia.[]
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...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, and Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
recorded versions of this song, as did 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...
for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook is a 1959 five album set by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, focusing on the songs of George and Ira Gershwin. It was recorded with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, marking the first time that Ella and Riddle had worked together...
(1959). On this version, Ira Gershwin commented, "I didn't realize our songs were so good until Ella sang them". Hazel O'Connor
Hazel O'Connor
Hazel O'Connor is an English singer-songwriter and actress. She is the daughter of a soldier from Galway who settled in England after World War II to work in a car plant...
recorded a version for her Smile album in 1984.
The singer and actress Peg La Centra doubles Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino
Ida Lupino was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes...
in the movie The Man I Love
The Man I Love (film)
The Man I Love is a noir film made in 1947, based on the novel Night Shift by Maritta M. Wolff.-Plot:Visiting her two sisters and brother, singer Petey Brown lands a job at small-time-hood Nicky Toresca's nightclub...
when Ida Lupino's character Petey Brown sings The Man I Love
Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
(who is Ira Gershwin's god-daughter) performed the song in the 1977 film New York, New York
New York, New York (film)
New York, New York is a 1977 American musical-drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a musical tribute, featuring new songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb as well as standards, to Scorsese's home town of New York City, and stars Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli as a pair of musicians and...
.
Cher
Cher
Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
recorded the song for her album Bittersweet White Light
Bittersweet White Light
Bittersweet White Light was the ninth studio album by American singer-actress Cher. The album was released on April 1973 by MCA. It was the last solo Cher album produced by then-performing partner and husband Sonny Bono...
(1973).
Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur
Diane Schuur is an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Deedles", she has won two Grammy Awards, headlined many of the world's most prestigious music venues, including Carnegie Hall and The White House and has toured the world performing with such greats as Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, B. B...
recorded the song for her album In Tribute (1992).
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
recorded the song for her album Back to Broadway
Back to Broadway
Back to Broadway is the twenty-sixth studio album by Barbra Streisand, released in 1993. The album is Streisand's second collection of songs from Broadway musicals, after 1985's The Broadway Album, and peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 189,000 copies in that week, and has been...
(1993).
In 1995, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
recorded the song for his MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett
MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett is a live album by Tony Bennett, released in 1994.Backed by his usual Ralph Sharon Trio, Bennett appeared on MTV Unplugged, which despite being a superfluous platform , showcased the Great American Songbook. Rock stars Elvis Costello and k.d...
performance with lyrics revised by Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
as "The Girl I Love".
In 2000, the song was recorded by Omara Portuondo
Omara Portuondo
Omara Portuondo Peláez is a Cuban singer and dancer whose career has spanned over half a century. She was one of the original members of the Cuarteto d'Aida, and has performed with Ignacio Piñeiro, Orquesta Anacaona, Orquesta Aragón, Nat King Cole, Adalberto Álvarez, Los Van Van, the Buena Vista...
in the album Bueno Vista Social Club presents: Omara Portuondo, under the title El Hombre que yo Amé (The Man I Love).
In 2006, Israeli musician Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider
Ivri Lider is an Israeli pop rock singer-songwriter. He is one of the biggest-selling contemporary artists in Israeli music, and has won the Male Singer of the Year honor from major Israeli national and local radio stations since entering the Israeli music scene in the late 1990s...
recorded a version of the song as a part of the soundtrack from the movie The Bubble
The Bubble (2006 film)
The Bubble is a 2006 romantic drama directed by Eytan Fox telling the story of two men who fall in love, one Israeli and one Palestinian...
.
In 2008, Malian musician Rokia Traoré
Rokia Traoré
Rokia Traoré is a Victoires de la Musique award-winning Malian singer, songwriter and guitarist. Born in Mali as a member of the Bambara ethnic group, her father was a diplomat and she travelled widely in her youth. She visited such countries as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, France and Belgium and was...
recorded the song for her album Tchamanché. She had previously performed it in 2005 as a duet with Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves is an American jazz singer. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado.-Early life:Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan to a very musical family. Her father, who died when she was two years old, was also a singer. Her mother, Vada Swanson, played trumpet. A cousin, George Duke, is a...
.
In April 2011, Edna Goren, the First Lady of Jazz in Israel, performed the song in a jazz concert at "Club Hed" in Tel Aviv, with new Hebrew lyrics by Chaim Keinan.
Django Reinhardt also played a version of this song. As Omara Portuondo , who named it "El Hombre Que Yo Amé"
The song also appeared on Vassilikos
Vassilikos
Vassilikos or Vasilikos can refer to:*Vasilikos, Zakynthos, a peninsula on the Greek island of Zakynthos*Vasilikos Power Station on Cyprus*Vassilis Vassilikos, Greek writer and diplomat*Vassilikos, frontman of Greek band Raining Pleasure...
's first solo album Vintage
Vintage
Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product . A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and...
.
Kate Bush and Larry Adler version
Kate BushKate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
and harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
player Larry Adler
Larry Adler
Lawrence "Larry" Cecil Adler was an American musician, widely acknowledged as one of the world's most skilled harmonica players. Composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud and Arthur Benjamin composed works for him...
recorded "The Man I Love" for the 1994 The Glory of Gershwin
The Glory of Gershwin
The Glory Of Gershwin is the title of a 1994 tribute album by various singers in celebration of Larry Adler's 80th birthday. All songs are written by George & Ira Gershwin, Adler's lifelong friends.-Track listing:# Peter Gabriel - Summertime [3:50]...
album. This collection of 16 Gershwin songs was released in honor of Adler's 80th birthday and produced by George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
. Released on July 18, 1994 the single climbed to number 22 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. It was the second Kate Bush single to be released in the UK on a label other than EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
.
The B-Side of the 7" single was an edited version of Adler and Martin's rendition of "Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
". The CD single contained both the 7" edit and the full-length album version of the song.