Begin The Beguine - Artie Shaw Version

Artie Shaw Version

At first, the song gained little popularity, perhaps because of its length and unconventional form. Josephine Baker danced to it in her return to America in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, but neither she nor the song were successful. Two years later, however, bandleader Artie Shaw recorded an arrangement of the song, an extended swing orchestra version, in collaboration with his right-hand arranger and orchestrator, Jerry Gray.

After signing a new recording contract with RCA Victor in the summer of 1938, Shaw chose "Beguine" to be the first of six tunes he would record at his initial recording session on July 24. Until then, Shaw's band had been having a tough time finding an identity and maintaining its existence without having had any popular hits of significance; his previous recording contract with Brunswick had lapsed at the end of 1937 without being renewed.

RCA's pessimism with the whole idea of recording the long tune "that nobody could remember from beginning to end anyway" resulted in it being released on the "B" side of the record "Artie Shaw and His Orchestra", issued by Bluebird Records as catalog number B-7746 B. Shaw's persistence paid off, though, when "Begin the Beguine" became a best-selling record in 1938, peaking at No. 3., skyrocketing Shaw and his band to fame and popularity. The recording became one of the most famous and popular anthems of the entire Swing Era. Subsequent re-releases by RCA Victor (catalog number 20-1551) and other releases on LPs, tapes and CDs have kept the recording readily available continuously ever since its initial release. Later on, when Cole Porter met the by-then famous bandleader, he jokingly remarked to Shaw, "I'm glad to finally meet my collaborator." Shaw reportedly replied, "Does this mean I get half of the royalties?"