[Dixielandjazz] Dixielandjazz Digest, Vol 94, Issue 34 Bei Mir Bist du Schoen

[Basso at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/23/2010 3:05:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com writes:

On 23  Oct 2010, at 17:56, James O'Briant wrote:

> Does anyone have a lead  sheet of "Bei Mir Bist du Schein" with the verse
> that they could  share?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Jim O'Briant
> Gilroy,  CA
> Tuba & Leader, The Zinfandel Stompers


In case you didn't know this...
Subject: the origins of "Bei Mir  Bist du Shon"



They called themselves Johnny and George, and they  played the Apollo 
Theatre and any other gigs they could get one hot summer in  the 1930s. Somewhere 
along the way, they managed to get a booking at  Grossinger's up in the 
Catskills. Not bad. Free meals, you make a few bucks and  you're out of New 
York City for a little while, beating all that August heat  that could blow 
down the sidewalks of 125th St. like a blast furnace. One day  Jenny Grossinger 
showed them the music sheets for this Yiddish song called "Bei  Mir Bist du 
Schon," and Johnny and George had a little fun with it, with never a  clue 
that what they had here was going to become one of the biggest hits of  
their time - but not for them. 

So summer's over now, and Johnny and  George are back down at the Apollo, 
and they decide to open with this  Grossinger's song. They sing it straight 
through in Yiddish, but they kick up  the beat and they get it rocking. And 
then they get it rocking more. The crowd  goes wild. Everybody's dancing. The 
Apollo has never heard anything like this.  Two black guys singing a swing 
version of a Yiddish song? In Yiddish?  

Watching all this from the balcony that night were two up-and-coming  
songwriters, Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, and they both knew a sensation when  
they heard one. Who owned the rights to this song? they wondered. And what 
would  they want for them? 

Checking it out, Cahn and Chaplin learned that the  lyrics had been written 
by one Jacob Jacobs, who, with his music-writing partner  Sholom Secunda, 
had composed "Bei Mir Bist du Schon" for a Yiddish production  called "I 
Would If I Could." They'd already tried to sell it to Eddie Cantor,  with no 
luck. When Cahn offered $30, they were happy to accept. This was nothing  
unusual for them. They'd sold hundreds of songs for $30 apiece. 

Cahn and  Chaplin went straight to Tommy Dorsey with their new $30 song, 
urging the  bandleader to play it at the Paramount. Dorsey wasn't interested. 
Why Not? Well,  it was in Yiddish, he explained. 

So Cahn and Chaplin translated the  lyrics into English. 

And then they took the tune to this new group of  girl singers. The Andrews 
Sisters, they called themselves. 

It happened  that the sisters were then recording a Gershwin song called 
"Nice Work if You  Can Get It," and it was decided that "Bei Mir Bist du 
Schon" would work okay as  the B side: 

Of all the boys I've known, and I've known some
Until  I first met you, I was lonesome
And when you came in sight, dear, my heart  grew light
And this old world seemed new to me
... And so I've racked my  brain, hoping to explain
All the things that you do to me
Bei mir bist du  schon, please let me explain
Bei mir bist du schon means you're grand  

The Andrews' record was released a few days after  Christmas 1938. By New 
Year's Eve it was playing over and over again on every  radio station in New 
York City. 

It started when "The Milkman's Matinee"  on WNEW picked it up and played it 
on the all-night show. Soon there were near  riots at the record stores. 
Crowds would line up and the song would be played  out into the street from 
loudspeakers. Traffic would back up for blocks. By the  end of January, "Bei 
Mir Bist du Schon" had sold more than 350,000 copies.  

"Bei Mir Bist du Schon" fever spread across the land. "It's wowing the  
country," reported one New Jersey paper. "They're singing it in Camden,  
Wilkes-Barre, Hamilton, Ohio, and Kenosha, Wis. The cowboys of the West are  
warbling the undulating melody and so are the hillbillies of the South, the  
lumberjacks of the Northwest, the fruit packers of California, the salmon  
canners of Alaska." 

And it was huge hit in Yorkville: "The Nazi  bierstuben patrons yodel it 
religiously, under the impression that it's a  Goebbels-approved German 
chanty." 

I could say Bella Bella, even say  Voonderbar
Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are.  

Over in Germany, Hitler himself was a big fan. Finally, the Third  Reich 
had a tune it could hum to. 

At least until it was discovered that  the thing had been written by two 
Jews from Brooklyn. 

Over the years,  "Bei Mir Bist du Schon" made millions of dollars for a lot 
of singers and record  companies. Finally, in 1961, after standing on the 
sidelines and watching the  royalties ring up over the years for a song that 
they'd made 15 bucks each on,  Secunda and Jacobs got the rights back. 

As for Johnny and George, who  started all the excitement one night at the 
Apollo up in Harlem, it goes  unrecorded whatever became of them, or even 
what their last names were.