Great American Songbook Saturday – Don’t Get Around Much Anymore

We go back to the early 40’s for today’s song – “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore“. It is a standard that had music written by the great Duke Ellington. According to Wiki: It was originally an instrumental entitled “Never No Lament”, and in that form was first recorded by Ellington and his orchestra on May 4, 1940. It quickly became a hit after a guy named Bob Russell wrote the “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” lyrics for it in 1942

Two different recordings of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”, one by The Ink Spots and the 1940 instrumental by Ellington’s band, reached No. 1 on the US Billboard R&B chart in 1943. The Duke Ellington version reached No. 8 on the pop chart.

Here is the Duke