Music isn’t mentioned too often on this site, but I can’t resist talking, for a moment, about two songs that James Thurber was especially fond of.
According to Thurber biographer, Harrison Kinney, “Bye Bye Blackbird” “remained Thurber’s favorite [song] from the day it emerged in in the mid-twenties.”*
Another contender: the less well known “Who.” According to Kinney, “Who” is featured in Thurber & Nugent’s play, “The Male Animal.”
With Kinney’s information in mind, I found versions of the tunes from the 1920s that Thurber may have listened to.
Here’s “Bye Bye Blackbird” by Sam Lanin’s Orchestra with vocal by Arthur Hall. Recorded in NYC, 1926.
and another recording of “…Blackbird” that same year by Irving Kaufman.
Here’s a recording of “Who” by George Olson from 1926.
- *Harrison Kinney, James Thurber: His Life And Times (Henry Holt, 1995), p.512.