June 18
I SHOULD CARE DAY
If you care about anything at all, there’s a song written by Sammy Cahn for you to relate to. Sammy Cahn, the Tin Pan Alley legend, was born Samuel Cohen on this day in 1913 in New York City.
As a youngster, little Sammy wanted to grow up to be a famous vaudeville fiddler. How lucky we are that he stopped thinking about this in his teenage years. That’s when he met pianist, Saul Chaplin. Sammy wrote the words and Saul wrote the music to their first hit, Rhythm is Our Business for bandleader, Jimmie Lunceford. Then Until the Real Thing Comes Along for Andy Kirk and the jazz classic, Shoe Shine Boy, performed by Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, the Mills Brothers, even Bing Crosby. The Andrews Sisters were lucky to know Sammy, too. It was his adaptation of the Yiddish song, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön that became their signature.
Frank Sinatra’s many signature titles were Sammy Cahn’s words, too (with Jimmy Van Heusen’s music): All the Way (won an Oscar in 1957), My Kind of Town, and Grammy Award-winning September of My Years. As part of the personal song-writing team for Mr. Sinatra, Sammy also wrote Love and Marriage, The Second Time Around, High Hopes (another Oscar winner in 1959) and The Tender Trap.
If you still haven’t found a song that makes you care, try these additional Oscar winners by Sammy Cahn: Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) and Call Me Irresponsible (1963). We could cover the entire page with the 22 other songs that were nominated but didn’t win the gold statue!
Want to know more? Pick up the autobiography of the talented Sammy Cahn, written in 1974, I Should Care.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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