Summertime
Written by George Gershwin

This is the tale of one of the best known songs and melodies in the world ever. In fact Summertime is so well known and so revered across the globe that some experts have acclaimed it as the most covered song in the world. To date there are more than 2600 known cover versions Sarah Vaughn, Sam Cooke, Fun Boy Three and Willie Nelson all recorded versions.

The man behind it George Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz in the mean streets of Manhattan to poor Russian/Jewish immigrants on September 26th 1898. His best work was recorded with his elder brother Ira who regularly supplied the witty urbane lyrics to George’s subtle city slicker melodies. It was a perfect brotherly partnership by all accounts with George providing the artistic spark and Ira putting words to the soundscapes and looking after the money into the bargain. George first began to learn the piano aged 12 and began his professional career in Tin Pan Alley the area of New York where the big music publishers worked. Like many other budding composers of the time he would try to hawk songs he’d written to music publishers. His first big success was when he penned Swannee in 1918 which went on to be covered famously by Al Jolson.

This led onto even greater success with his brother when they turned their hands to musicals in the 1920’s. When George started to become famous however Ira decided to distance himself from the family by taking on another name.

Given the brothers amazing body of work we could have featured any number of great songs but we’re looking at Summertime so we have to focus on the work that many critics have called the first and finest of American operas Porgy And Bess.

In February 1934 George and Ira sat down together with Dubose and Dorothy Heyward to begin a collaboration to bring musical life to Heyward’s novel Porgy which told the impassioned tale of the African-American Gullah culture of South Carolina. In the summer of that same year George spent several weeks on Folly Island off the coast of Charlestown staying in a small beach cottage owned by the Haywards. There he observed the customs of the people even joining in with their spiritual singing and rhythmic shouting. Many believe it was this effort to get to the source of the material that made Porgy and Bess, as the opera came to be called, such a success. Perhaps I should say a success eventually as it didn’t become a full success until after George’s death in 1937. Perhaps it’s story of the downtrodden black community was a bit too hard hitting and original for initial audiences to stomach.

Summertime was the first song Gershwin composed for the project. Like much of his best work it brings together lots of different musical styles black folk music, jazz, blues, popular film music of the 1930’s and of course classical. The play opened in Boston on September 30th 1935 and while it’s subject matter raised a few hackles it also impressed many.

Well despite the obvious quality not everyone was so impressed. One reviewer said it was " a libretto that should never have been accepted on a subject that should never have been chosen by a man who should never have attempted it!" Harsh words indeed…especially when you consider that Porgy and Bess also contained such amazing works as It Ain’t Necessarily So and Bess You Is My woman Now all of which are now considered classics. Gershwin himself was so impressed with the finished work he was quoted at the time as saying "I think the music is so marvellous, I don’t believe I wrote it!"

The nature of the storyline caused a fuss in it’s initial run in Washington when Todd Duncan led the entire cast out on strike in protest against the National Theatre’s segregation policy which insisted African Americans could only attend a "Blacks only" performance. The protesters won and for the first time the National Theatre had an integrated audience.

In the opera Summertime is a lullaby sang by the character Clara to get the baby to sleep it’s sleepy lines of the livin being easy, fish are jumpin and the cotton is high perhaps capture the deep south of America better than any other song before or after. The chorus of Hush little baby don’t you cry is pure negro spiritual, it’s heartfelt and true and it’s that soulful quality that ensures it sounds as good today as the day it was written in 1935, I believe the ultimate version was Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong from 1957.

Written by Ralph McLean