The Ravens - Ol' Man River

Описание: Released in June of 1947.
"Ol' Man River" is a show tune from the 1927 musical Show Boat with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote the song in 1925. The song contrasts the struggles and hardships of Black Americans with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River. It is sung from the point of view of a black stevedore on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show. The song is meant to be performed in a slow tempo; it is sung complete once in the musical's lengthy first scene by the stevedore "Joe" who travels with the boat, and, in the stage version, is heard four more times in brief reprises. Joe serves as a sort of musical one-man Greek chorus, and the song, when reprised, comments on the action, as if saying, "This has happened, but the river keeps rolling on anyway."

The song is notable for several aspects: the lyrical pentatonic-scale melody, the subjects of toil and social class, the metaphor to the Mississippi, and as a bass solo (rare in musicals, solos for baritones or tenors being more common).

Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra had a hit recording of the song in early 1928, in a much faster tempo than Kern and Hammerstein intended, featuring Bing Crosby on vocals and Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. A second version was recorded on March 1, with Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orchestra and bass singer Paul Robeson on vocals, sung in a dance tempo. The latter was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2006, and a 1936 rendition by Robeson also finished No. 24 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs 2004 survey of top tunes in American cinema. Its musical composition entered the public domain on January 1, 2023.

"Ol' Man River" was first performed in the original stage production of Show Boat on December 27, 1927, by Jules Bledsoe, who also sang it in the part-talkie 1929 film, although that film version had little to do with the stage musical. Bledsoe also recorded the song years later. The first known recording of the song was by "Kenn" Sisson and His Orchestra, recorded on December 27, 1927, with Irving Kaufman on vocals.