Notable Performances
In 1912, William Frawley—who later played Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy—was the first person to perform the song publicly, in the Mozart Cafe in Denver, Colorado. Frawley told this story during a May 3, 1965, appearance on the TV game show I've Got a Secret.
Ernie Burnett, who composed the music, was wounded fighting in the First World War, and he lost his memory together with his identity dog-tags. While recuperating in hospital, a pianist entertained the patients with popular tunes including "Melancholy Baby". Burnett rose from his sickbed and exclaimed: "That's my song!" He had regained his memory.
The song can be heard often throughout the 1939 Warner Brothers gangster movie The Roaring Twenties, where a vocal rendition of the song is performed by co-star Priscilla Lane.
The song was sung by Bing Crosby in the 1941 Oscar-nominated movie Birth of the Blues.
In the 1942 film Johnny Eager, the song was played during the opening and closing credits, as background music throughout, and as dance music by the band at Tony Luce's place. It was not credited.
Judy Garland sang it during the "Born in a Trunk" sequence in the 1954 movie A Star Is Born, after a drunk persistently shouted, "Sing 'Melancholy Baby'!" Similar scenes with hecklers appeared in 1960s American television programs like The Monkees and Hogan's Heroes, although the song was not always sung in response.
Other notable recordings of this tune include Al Bowlly's 1935 recording, Coleman Hawkins in 1938, Charlie Parker with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk in 1950, and Lennie Tristano in 1955 or 1956 on the album Manhattan Studio.
In 1958, William Frawley performed the song again on the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, in the "Lucy Goes to Sun Valley" episode shown on April 14. Frawley, as Fred Mertz, was asked by Ricky to perform "an old-fashioned ballad" for his band's appearance on a TV show. Mertz sang the song in the rehearsal scene for the musical number.
Ella Fitzgerald included this song in her 1960 Verve release Ella Fitzgerald Sings Songs from Let No Man Write My Epitaph.
Barbra Streisand recorded the song for her album The Third Album (1963).
Jazz pianist Michael Weiss recorded the song on his debut album for Criss Cross Jazz, Presenting Michael Weiss.
Read more about this topic: My Melancholy Baby
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