[Dixielandjazz] A Good Man Is hard To Find

[David Richoux]

Nothing in my collection that I know of, but it is still a bit  
scrambled. I did find this all on the internets:

http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/isam/berlin.html  (writing about  
Spreadin’ Rhythm Around: Black Popular Songwriters, 1880-1930 by  
David A. Jasen and Gene Jones (Schirmer Books, 1998; $29.95))
> One wonders also about their account of “A Good Man Is Hard to  
> Find.” The great music sales, they maintain, were “prompted by  
> Sophie Tucker’s hit recording” (p. 242). Do the authors have  
> information on a hit recording whose very existence seems to have  
> escaped the notice of Tucker herself (as recounted in her  
> autobiography) and of her discographers? If so, why not share it?
>
>

and this:
http://www.mindspring.com/~boba4-a/Oftquote.htm#GOODMAN
> Good man is hard to find
>
> It originated in the song "A Good Man Is Hard to Find (You Always  
> Get the Other Kind)" words and music by Eddie Green, 1917.  It's a  
> blues standard and I've found recordings by Bessie Smith, Viola  
> McCoy, Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Waller, Rosemary Clooney, Eddie  
> Condon, and Les Brown.  The renowned writer Flannery O'Connor also  
> used it as the title of a short story in 1953.  The rephrasing is a  
> widely used penis joke.
>
> Dennis Tallet,  who is better than I at keeping track of source  
> material, adds the following information:
>
> "It's attributed to Mae West by the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase,  
> Saying and Quotation (UK 1997) but found it in my local Borders (I  
> do a lot of my research in places like that.)
>
> 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.' A song by Eddie Green included in the  
> show he wrote, 'Vaudeville' on Broadway in 1927 and belted out on  
> stage by Sophie Tucker, the last of the red hot mommas.
> Ref. Who Wrote That Song, edited by Dick Jacobs,1988."
>

so maybe she sang it but never recorded it?

this is from a Chinese site of english quotations, references unknown:

http://tinyurl.com/4koqmh

> The best-known version of the song was recorded by Sophie Tucker,  
> who adopted it as a signature tune. She was a little more  
> charitable in her delivery of the lyric and sang the second line as  
> "You may get the other kind".
>
> Sophie Tucker was born Sophie Kalish; she changed her name and  
> adopted Tucker as a stage name, following a brief marriage to Louis  
> Tuck. It is interesting to speculate whether she was influenced to  
> use Tucker as that was the style of dress she often wore on stage -  
> see best bib and tucker.

and this on the alternative quote: (A Hard Man is Good to Find)
> The Oxford Dictionary of Comic Quotations attributes this to Mae  
> West (1892 - 1980). It's certainly in her style, although I can't  
> find any source documentation to support the attribution. Which  
> part of the man she preferred to be hard I'll leave to your  
> imagination.
>
> Another artist who could plausibly have coined the quip was Sophie  
> Tucker ( 'The last of the red-hot mammas'), who used a good man is  
> hard to find as her signature tune.

So I tend to agree with Bill that there probably is no recorded  
version of the song by Tucker.

Dave Richoux

On Sep 19, 2008, at 12:04 AM, Bill Haesler wrote:

> Stephen G Barbone wrote [in part]:
>> Besides Bessie Smith and Sophie Tucker, "A Good Man Is Hard To  
>> Find" has been recorded by lots of folks
>
> Dear Steve,
> A good email list to go on with.
> This song was composed by Eddie Green in 1918 but did Sophie Tucker  
> ever record it?
> Was it her theme song, as some 'authorities' say, or another  
> musical urban myth if repeated often enough becomes a fact?
> So far, I have been unable to find any recorded version of this  
> popular song made by Sophie Tucker, nor any reliable reference to  
> back up the 'theme song' claim.
> "Some Of These Days" was HER big hit.
> I have most of Sophie Tucker's records, but not "A Good Man Is Hard  
> To Find".
> I've also combed the song reference books and discographies.
> Nothing.
> Please, someone (Dave Richoux or Fred Spencer) prove me wrong.
> Kind regards,
> Bill.
>
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