1943 HITS ARCHIVE: Why Don’t You Do Right - Benny Goodman (Peggy Lee, vocal)

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Why Don’t You Do Right (McCoy) by Benny Goodman & his Orchestra, vocal by Peggy Lee

Inspired by blues singer Lil Green’s 1941 recording of the tune, Peggy really turned on the personality with this purported million-selling waxing of her greatest Goodman hit. “Why Don’t You Do Right” reached #4 on Billboard’s sales chart, the song having originated in 1936 by The Harlem Hamfats with the title “The Weed Smoker’s Dream.”

More recent generations may know the song from its vocal performance by Amy Irving (dubbing for the animated Jessica Rabbit) in the Bob Zemeckis film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

THE 1943 HITS ARCHIVE - a collection of commercial recordings and songs that proved popular during the calendar year 1943 via sales, sheet music, juke box play, and radio exposure.…plus some others that have gained increased recognition or have been shown to have had an impact during the decades that followed.

Why only 88 titles when the previous three years were over 120? Beginning on August 1st 1942, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) had begun an extended, crippling labor action against the recording industry over royalty payments, often referred to as the “Recording Ban” (see the Wikipedia entry “1942-44 musicians’ strike” for an informative read). Until the signing of new agreements with the union, none of the record companies were permitted to make new commercial recordings using union musicians. Among the industry leaders, by the end of 1943 only the established Decca and recently-formed Capitol labels had settled, while the big Victor and Columbia labels would not give in until late ’44.

Because the labels had built up a bit of a stockpile in anticipation of the shutdown, fresh-sounding material continued to be issued during the early months of the year. But since the popular bands were unable to make any new commercial recordings throughout most or all of 1943 (depending on their label affiliation) and the leading solo vocal stars like Sinatra, Crosby and Haymes were permitted no studio instrumentation to accompany their songs, there was usually no way for consumers to purchase brand new, well-produced recordings of the latest newly-emerging song hits. For some of those tunes, you’ll see a number of vocal tracks here that feature “voice-only” arrangements, plus only the big band recordings that had been made prior to August 1942....some of them reissues from back in the 1930s.

Ref: fallout .
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The three* MusicProf channels are home to The HITS ARCHIVES, YouTube’s most comprehensive collection of U.S. ‘popular music’ recordings from 1925 thru 1975. Discover thousands of original hit versions, conveniently arranged in year-by-year playlists and sorted alphabetically in your choice of either song title or artist name. Simply visit this channel’s home page (here: https://www.youtube.com/@the78prof72 ), scroll down the rows of playlist categories, choose a favorite year, click on “view full playlist,” and then pick out the songs that you want to hear. Enjoy the music!

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