*** Songs My Father Played for Me *** More of My Father's Favorites

1. "It's Magic" from "Romance on the High Seas" starring a young Doris Day. The pictures on the Sheet Music were so intriguing I wanted to see this movie very badly. My mother did get me up one night. We watched it together on the Black & White Motorolla TV. Years later I bought the DVD and was thrilled to see it in colour without commercials. It is a wonderful story, my father played this song for me many times over the years. Have you...?

2. "I've Got You Under My Skin" is a song written by American composer Cole Porter in 1936. It was introduced that year in the Eleanor Powell musical film "Born to Dance" in which it was performed by Virginia Bruce. This piece is in my father's Cole Porter Song Book. I always enjoyed his Cole Porter choices. Great song to sing along. Have you heard this song before?

3. "I'll See You in My Dreams" is a popular song and jazz standard, composed by Isham Jones, with lyrics by Gus Kahn, and published in 1924. The biographical film of the life of Gus Kahn and his wife, is titled "I'll See You in My Dreams" he also wrote "It Had to be You" Have you ...?

4. Straighten Up and Fly Right" is a 1943 song written by Nat King Cole and Irving Mills and performed by The King Cole Trio. It was the trio's most popular single reaching number one on the Harlem Hit Parade for ten nonconsecutive weeks. The single also peaked at number nine on the pop charts. "Straighten Up and Fly Right" also reached number one for six nonconsecutive weeks on the Most Played Jukebox Hillbilly Records. The song was based on a black folk tale that Cole's father had used as a theme for one of his sermons. In the tale, a buzzard takes different animals for a joy ride. When he gets hungry, he throws them off on a dive and eats them for dinner. A monkey who had observed this trick goes for a ride; he wraps his tail around the buzzard's neck and gives the buzzard a big surprise by nearly choking him to death. Nat King Cole adapted a variation on The Signyfying Monkey for his first major smash. I always enjoyed singing this song with my father. Have you heard "Straighten Up and Fly Right" before?

5. It was a number one hit in the U.K. in the 1960s. Then it was a top 20 hit in Italy in the 1970s. Finally, in the 1980s, it charted in the United States, where it had gone nearly unnoticed for two decades. And fifty-three years after it was recorded, Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" was recognized as an iconic standard when its creators were posthumously honored with the Songwriter Hall of Fame's Towering Song Award in June of 2015 in New York City. "What a Wonderful World" was written by the team of jazz producer Bob Thiele (under the pseudonym "George Douglas") and Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee George David Weiss. The original plan in 1967 was for the gravel-voiced, quirky jazz legend Armstrong to release the song as a piece that might quell some of the racial and political unrest in America, given its optimism and celebration of life. But, because of lack of promotion, the record didn't go anywhere in the U.S., though other countries embraced it. Have you heard this song "What a Wonderful World" before?

6. Here I present "Forgotten Dreams" by Leroy Anderson, written in 1954. The music, for me, conjures up summers, visiting parks and my grandmother's house. Very happy memories. One of my favorite pieces in the Leroy Anderson Songbook. My father always played this so well. Have you heard this song "Forgotten Dreams" before?