<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=3>In a message dated 1/27/03 9:50:11 PM Central Standard Time, nancyink@ulink.net writes:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">OFF-LIST<BR>
Hi, Steve,<BR>
In a conversation with Tommy Loy when he was out here last year, he said that it was written because he was having a clandestine affair with a white woman and was frustrated that he couldn't be out in the open with the truth.<BR>
What say ye, Bob Romans, Bill Gunter, Rebecca, Jim Beebe, Bob Ringwald, or anyone else to whom he may have told this? BTW: Didn't Tommy sing it so well, and with so much heart? Wonderful.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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I never talked with Tommy about it. Fats Waller wrote a lot of songs and many were written with Andy Razoff (spelling) who wrote the lyrics.<BR>
I think that Waller wrote this as a semi-comic song with a deeper under tone. Most if not all of Fats's songs were lighthearted fun songs.<BR>
So, the song can be performed in different ways. I think that the finest and deepest recording of this was Louis Armstrong, in the Symphony Hall concert. This was reissued on CD a couple of years ago.<BR>
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JIm Beebe</FONT></HTML>