Sunday Morning Serenade

ELLA FITZGERALD ~ Miss Otis Regrets

                                                    First Lady of Song                         
                                                    1917 - 1996

This 1956 arrangement by Buddy Bregman of this Cole Porter tune, mixed with the vocal talents of Miss Fitzgerald make for a nice... Sunday Morning Serenade.

Such a peaceful song of a tragic tale.

Miss Otis Regrets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"Miss Otis Regrets" is a song by Cole Porter from 1934. It was first performed on stage by Douglas Byng in Hi Diddle Diddle, which opened October 3, 1934 at the Savoy Theatre, London. However, the song was originally written for Ada "Bricktop" Smith^[1] to perform.

"Miss Otis Regrets" is a song in the blues style, and Porter's wry take on some common lyrical subject matter of the genre, telling the tale of a woman who comes to a bad end after an encounter with a man. But Porter's peculiar twist is that Miss Otis is a polite society lady, and the story of her last evening is told by her servant after Miss Otis has met her demise. In a few compact lines, the servant reveals how, after being seduced and then abandoned, Miss Otis hunted down and shot her seducer, was arrested, taken from the jail by a mob, and hanged. The servant conveys Miss Otis's final, polite, apologetic words to her friends: "Miss Otis regrets she's unable to lunch today."

The song has been recorded by Nat King Cole, Ethel Waters, Édith Piaf ^[2], Nancy Wilson, Jose Feliciano, Linda Ronstadt, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Katy Moffatt, Kirsty MacColl with The Pogues, The Mills Brothers, Labelle, Bette Midler, John Barrowman, Josh White, Bryan Ferry, The Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Shani Rigsbee, Richard Manuel, The Lemonheads, Patricia Barber, Joan Morris, Lonnie Donegan, Marlene Dietrich, Clare Teal, Karel Plíhal and many others.

I thought of Susannah McCorkle as I listened to Ella... I couldn't find a recording of Susannah doing this Cole Porter Song... Maybe she thought Ella's version was already over the top.   I don't know...  I believe Ella could have been just as inspired by Susannah.