Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. (November 19, 1905 - November 26, 1956) … Read Full Bio ↴Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. (November 19, 1905 - November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. Although he was not known for being a notable soloist, his technical skill on the trombone gave him renown amongst other musicians. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey. After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely popular and highly successful band from the late 1930s into the 1950s, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
Thomas Francis Dorsey, Jr., was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the second of four children born to Thomas Francis Dorsey, Sr., and Theresa (née Langton) Dorsey. He and Jimmy, his older brother by slightly less than two years, would become famous as the "Dorsey Brothers". The two younger siblings were Mary and Edward (who died young). Tommy Dorsey initially studied the trumpet with his father, only to later switch to the trombone.
His Father, Thomas F. Dorsey, Sr. died July 13, 1942. Thomas Sr was born in Shenandoah, PA and was a bandleader himself.
At age 15, Jimmy recommended Tommy as the replacement for Russ Morgan in the 1920s territory band "The Scranton Sirens." Tommy and Jimmy worked in several bands, including those of Tal Henry, Rudy Vallee, Vincent Lopez, Nathaniel Shilkret. In 1923, Dorsey followed his brother Jimmy to Detroit to play in Jean Goldkette's band and later returned to New York in 1925 to play with the California Ramblers. In 1927 he joined Paul Whiteman. In 1929, the Dorsey Brothers had their first hit with "Coquette" for OKeh records.
In 1934, the Dorsey Brothers band signed with Decca records, having a hit with "I Believe In Miracles". Future bandleader Glenn Miller was a member of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra in 1934 and 1935, composing "Annie's Cousin Fanny", "Tomorrow's Another Day", "Harlem Chapel Chimes", and "Dese Dem Dose", all recorded for Decca, for the band. Ongoing acrimony between the brothers, however, led to Tommy Dorsey's walking out to form his own band in 1935, just as the orchestra was having a hit with "Every Little Moment." Dorsey's orchestra was known primarily for its renderings of ballads at dance tempos, frequently with singers such as Jack Leonard and Frank Sinatra.
Tommy Dorsey's first band was formed out of the remains of the Joe Haymes band, and so began Dorsey's long-running practice of raiding other bands for talent. If he admired a vocalist, musician, or arranger, he would think nothing of taking over their contracts and careers. Dorsey had a reputation for being a perfectionist. He was volatile and also known to hire and fire (and sometimes rehire) musicians based on his mood. The new band was popular from almost the moment it signed with RCA Victor with "On Treasure Island", the first of four hits for the new band in 1935. After his 1935 recording however, Dorsey's manager cut the "hot jazz" that Dorsey had mixed with his own lyrical style and instead had Dorsey play pop and vocal tunes. Dorsey would keep his Clambake Seven as a Dixieland group that played during performances, too. The Dorsey band had a national radio presence in 1936, first from Dallas and then from Los Angeles. Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra took over comedian Jack Pearl's radio show in 1937.
By 1939, Dorsey was aware of criticism that his band lacked a jazz feeling. He hired arranger Sy Oliver away from the Jimmie Lunceford band. Sy Oliver's arrangements include "On The Sunny Side of the Street" and "T.D.'s Boogie Woogie"; Oliver also composed two of the new band's signature instrumentals, "Well, Git It" and "Opus One". In 1940, Dorsey hired singer Frank Sinatra from bandleader Harry James. Frank Sinatra made eighty recordings from 1940 to 1942 with the Dorsey band. Two of those eighty songs are "In The Blue of Evening" and "This Love of Mine". Frank Sinatra achieved his first great success as a vocalist in the Dorsey band and claimed he learned breath control from watching Dorsey play trombone. In turn, Dorsey said his trombone style was heavily influenced by that of Jack Teagarden. Among Dorsey's staff of arrangers was Axel Stordahl who arranged for Frank Sinatra in his Columbia and Capitol records years. Another member of the Dorsey band was trombonist Nelson Riddle, who later had a partnership as one of Sinatra's arrangers and conductors in the 1950s and afterwards. Another noted Dorsey arranger, who in the 1950s, married and was professionally associated with Dorsey veteran Jo Stafford, was Paul Weston. Bill Finegan, an arranger who left Glenn Miller's civilian band, arranged for the Tommy Dorsey band from 1942 to 1950.
The band featured a number of future famous instrumentalists, singers and arrangers in the 1930s and '40s, including trumpeters Zeke Zarchy, Bunny Berigan, Ziggy Elman, Carl "Doc" Severinsen, and Charlie Shavers, pianists Milt Raskin, Jess Stacy, clarinetists Buddy DeFranco, Johnny Mince, and Peanuts Hucko. Others who played with Dorsey were drummers Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Dave Tough saxophonist Tommy Reed, and singers Frank Sinatra, Jack Leonard, Edythe Wright, Jo Stafford with The Pied Pipers, Dick Haymes and Connie Haines. In 1944, Dorsey hired The Sentimentalists who replaced The Pied Pipers. Dorsey also performed with singer Connee Boswell Dorsey hired ex-bandleader and drummer Gene Krupa after Krupa's arrest and scandal for marijuana possession in 1943. In 1942 Artie Shaw broke up his band and Dorsey hired the Shaw string section. As George Simon in Metronome magazine notes at the time, "They're used in the foreground and background (note some of the lovely obbligatos) for vocal effects and for Tommy's trombone."
As Dorsey became successful, he made business decisions in the music industry. He loaned Glenn Miller money to launch Miller's successful band of 1938, but Dorsey saw the loan as an investment, entitling him to a percentage of Miller's income. When Miller balked at this, the angry Dorsey got even by sponsoring a new band led by Bob Chester, and hiring arrangers who deliberately copied Miller's style and sound. Dorsey branched out in the mid-1940s and owned two music publishing companies, Sun and Embassy. After opening at the Los Angeles ballroom, The Hollywood Palladium, on the Palladium's first night, Dorsey's relations with the ballroom soured and he opened a competing ballroom, The Casino Gardens circa 1944. Dorsey also owned for a short time a trade magazine called The Bandstand.
Tommy Dorsey disbanded his own orchestra at the end of 1946. Dorsey might have broken up his own band permanently following World War II, as many big bands did due to the shift in music economics following the war, but Tommy Dorsey's album for RCA, "All Time Hits" placed in the top ten records in February 1947. In addition, "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?", a single recorded by Dorsey, became a top-ten hit in March 1947. Both of these successes made it possible for Dorsey to re-organize a big band in early 1947. The Dorsey brothers were also reconciling. The biographical film of 1947, The Fabulous Dorseys describes sketchy details of how the brothers got their start from-the-bottom-up into the jazz era of one-nighters, the early days of radio in its infancy stages, and the onward march when both brothers ended up with Paul Whiteman before 1935 when The Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra split into two. In the early 1950s, Tommy Dorsey moved from RCA Victor back to the Decca record label.
Jimmy Dorsey broke up his own big band in 1953. Tommy invited him to join up as a feature attraction and a short while later, Tommy renamed the band the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra featuring Jimmy Dorsey. In 1953, the Dorseys focused their attention on television. On December 26, 1953, the brothers appeared with their orchestra on Jackie Gleason's CBS television show, which was preserved on kinescope and later released on home video by Gleason. The brothers took the unit on tour and onto their own television show, Stage Show, from 1955 to 1956. On numerous episodes, they introduced future noted rock musician Elvis Presley to national television audiences, prior to Presley's better known appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Married life
Dorsey's married life was varied and, at times, lurid. His first wife was 16-year-old Mildred Kraft, with whom he eloped in 1922, when he was 17. They had two children, Patricia and Tom (nicknamed "Skipper"). They divorced in 1943 after Dorsey's affair with his former singer Edythe Wright. He then wed movie actress Pat Dane in 1943, and they were divorced in 1947, but not before he gained headlines for striking actor Jon Hall when Hall embraced Dorsey's wife. Finally, Dorsey married Jane Carl New on March 27, 1948, in Atlanta, Georgia. She had been a dancer at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. Tommy and Jane Dorsey had two children, Catherine Susan and Steve.
On November 26, 1956, Tommy Dorsey died at age 51 in his Greenwich, Connecticut, home. He had eaten a heavy meal and began choking in his sleep. Dorsey began taking sleeping pills regularly at this time; therefore, he was so sedated that he was unable to awaken and died from choking. Jimmy Dorsey led his brother's band until his own death from lung cancer the following year. At that point, trombonist Warren Covington assumed leadership of the band with Jane Dorsey's blessing as she owned the rights to her late husband's band and name. Billed as the "Tommy Dorsey Orchestra Starring Warren Covington", they topped the charts in 1958 with "Tea For Two Cha-Cha". After Covington led the band for a short period, Sam Donahue led it starting in 1961, continuing until the late 1960s. Buddy Morrow conducted the Tommy Dorsey orchestra until his death on September 27, 2010. Jane Dorsey died of natural causes at the age of 79, in Miami, Florida in 2003. Tommy and Jane Dorsey are interred together in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
Number one hits
Tommy Dorsey had a run of 286 Billboard chart hits. The Dorsey band had seventeen number one hits with his orchestra in the 1930s and 1940s including: "On Treasure Island", "The Music Goes 'Round and Around", "You", "Marie" (written by Irving Berlin), "Satan Takes a Holiday", "The Big Apple", "Once in a While", "The Dipsy Doodle", "Our Love", "All the Things You Are", "Indian Summer", and "Dolores". He had two more number one hits in 1935 when he was a member of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra: "Lullaby of Broadway" (written by Harry Warren), number one for two weeks, and "Chasing Shadows", number one for three weeks. His biggest hit was "I'll Never Smile Again", featuring Frank Sinatra on vocals, which was number one for twelve weeks on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1940. "In the Blue of Evening" was number 1 on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1943.
Songs written by Tommy Dorsey
1929: "You Can't Cheat A Cheater" with Phil Napoleon and Frank Signorelli
1932: "Three Moods"
1937: "The Morning After"
1938: "Chris and His Gang" with Fletcher and Horace Henderson; Tommy Dorsey wrote the song "Peckin' With Penguins" for a 1938 Frank Tashlin-directed Porky Pig cartoon, "Porky's Spring Planting" for the studio Warner Bros.
1939: "To You", "This Is No Dream", "You Taught Me to Love Again", "In The Middle Of A Dream", "Night In Sudan"
1945: "Fluid Jive" and "Fried Chicken"
1946: "Nip and Tuck"
1947: "Trombonology"
Co-wrote "Bunch of Beats", "Mid Riff", and "Candied Yams" with Fred Norman.
Honors and posthumous recognition
In 1982, the 1940 Victor recording "I'll Never Smile Again" was the first of a trio of Tommy Dorsey recordings to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. His theme song, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" was inducted in 1998, along with his recording of "Marie" written by Irving Berlin in 1928.[85] In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey commemorative postage stamp.
Discography
1961: The One And Only Tommy Dorsey (RCA Camden)
1966: Tommy Dorsey's Dance Party (Vocalion)
1976: Tommy Dorsey (1937 - 1941) (AMIGA)
The Essence of Tommy Dorsey (1935-1949 recordings under RCA, reissued under Phantom Sound & Vision)
This is Tommy Dorsey, Volume 1 (1935-1944 recordings under RCA, reissued by Collectibles)
1988: All-Time Greatest Dorsey/Sinatra Hits, Vol. 1-4 (RCA)
1982: The Dorsey/Sinatra Sessions (RCA)
1990: Yes, Indeed! (Bluebird/RCA)
1991: Music Goes Round and Round (Bluebird/RCA)
1994: Stop, Look and Listen (1994) (ASV/Living Era Records)
1999: The V-Disc Recordings (Collectors' Choice Music)
1999: 1937, Vol. 3
2001: This Is Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra, Vol. 1 (Collectables Records)
2004: 1939, Vol. 3
2004: Tommy Dorsey: The Early Jazz Sides: 1932 - 1937 (Jazz Legends)
2004: It's D'Lovely 1947-1950 (Hep Records)
V-Disc Recordings
Blue Skies, No. 1B, October, 1943, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers
Well Get It, No. 86A, December, 1943
April in Paris, No. 134, 1944
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, No. 150B, March, 1944
Hawaiian War Chant and March of the Toys, No. 195B, May, 1944
Paramount on Parade, No. 206, 1944
Minor Goes A'Muggin' and Losers Weepers, No. 220A, 1944
Not So Quiet Please, No. 220B, 1944, with Gene Krupa
Wagon Wheels, No. 222A, 1944
T.D. Chant, No. 222B, with Gene Krupa and Buddy DeFranco
Tess's Torch Song and Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet, No. 227A, 1944, with Georgia Gibbs
Irresistible You and I Never Knew, No. 227B, with Bob Allen and The Sentimentalists
Small Fry, No. 269A, 1944, with Bing Crosby
Milenberg Joys, No. 273B, 1944
Sweet and Lovely and The Lamp is Low, No. 320A (Army), November, 1944
Melody in A and Chicago, No. 322A, 1944
Over the Rainbow and I May Be Wrong But I Think You're Wonderful, No. 335A, December, 1944, with Judy Garland
For All We Know and The Lady in Red, No. 347A (Army), January, 1945
Nobody's Baby and Three Little Words, No. 362A, 1945
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, No. 391A, March, 1945
More Than You Know, No. 451A (Army); No. 231A (Navy), June, 1945, with Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra
Brotherly Jump, No. 451B, June, 1945, with Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra
I'll Never Smile Again, No. 582A (Army), February, 1946, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipe
Boogie Woogie, No. 877A, January, 1949
Marie, No. 890A, Tommy Dorsey and Band, March, 1949
Filmography
Segar Ellis and His Embassy Club Orchestra (1929)needs citation
Alice Bolden and Her Orchestra (1929)
Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra appear in the following films for the studios Paramount, MGM, Samuel Goldwyn, Allied Artists and United Artists:
Las Vegas Nights (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Presenting Lily Mars(1943)
Girl Crazy (1943)
Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
Thrill of a Romance (1945)
The Great Morgan (1946)
The Fabulous Dorseys (1947)
A Song Is Born (1948)
Disc Jockey (1951)
The Dorsey Brothers appear in the 1953 sixteen-minute Universal-International film called The Dorsey Brothers Encore.
Grammy Hall of Fame
Tommy Dorsey was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
Thomas Francis Dorsey, Jr., was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the second of four children born to Thomas Francis Dorsey, Sr., and Theresa (née Langton) Dorsey. He and Jimmy, his older brother by slightly less than two years, would become famous as the "Dorsey Brothers". The two younger siblings were Mary and Edward (who died young). Tommy Dorsey initially studied the trumpet with his father, only to later switch to the trombone.
His Father, Thomas F. Dorsey, Sr. died July 13, 1942. Thomas Sr was born in Shenandoah, PA and was a bandleader himself.
At age 15, Jimmy recommended Tommy as the replacement for Russ Morgan in the 1920s territory band "The Scranton Sirens." Tommy and Jimmy worked in several bands, including those of Tal Henry, Rudy Vallee, Vincent Lopez, Nathaniel Shilkret. In 1923, Dorsey followed his brother Jimmy to Detroit to play in Jean Goldkette's band and later returned to New York in 1925 to play with the California Ramblers. In 1927 he joined Paul Whiteman. In 1929, the Dorsey Brothers had their first hit with "Coquette" for OKeh records.
In 1934, the Dorsey Brothers band signed with Decca records, having a hit with "I Believe In Miracles". Future bandleader Glenn Miller was a member of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra in 1934 and 1935, composing "Annie's Cousin Fanny", "Tomorrow's Another Day", "Harlem Chapel Chimes", and "Dese Dem Dose", all recorded for Decca, for the band. Ongoing acrimony between the brothers, however, led to Tommy Dorsey's walking out to form his own band in 1935, just as the orchestra was having a hit with "Every Little Moment." Dorsey's orchestra was known primarily for its renderings of ballads at dance tempos, frequently with singers such as Jack Leonard and Frank Sinatra.
Tommy Dorsey's first band was formed out of the remains of the Joe Haymes band, and so began Dorsey's long-running practice of raiding other bands for talent. If he admired a vocalist, musician, or arranger, he would think nothing of taking over their contracts and careers. Dorsey had a reputation for being a perfectionist. He was volatile and also known to hire and fire (and sometimes rehire) musicians based on his mood. The new band was popular from almost the moment it signed with RCA Victor with "On Treasure Island", the first of four hits for the new band in 1935. After his 1935 recording however, Dorsey's manager cut the "hot jazz" that Dorsey had mixed with his own lyrical style and instead had Dorsey play pop and vocal tunes. Dorsey would keep his Clambake Seven as a Dixieland group that played during performances, too. The Dorsey band had a national radio presence in 1936, first from Dallas and then from Los Angeles. Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra took over comedian Jack Pearl's radio show in 1937.
By 1939, Dorsey was aware of criticism that his band lacked a jazz feeling. He hired arranger Sy Oliver away from the Jimmie Lunceford band. Sy Oliver's arrangements include "On The Sunny Side of the Street" and "T.D.'s Boogie Woogie"; Oliver also composed two of the new band's signature instrumentals, "Well, Git It" and "Opus One". In 1940, Dorsey hired singer Frank Sinatra from bandleader Harry James. Frank Sinatra made eighty recordings from 1940 to 1942 with the Dorsey band. Two of those eighty songs are "In The Blue of Evening" and "This Love of Mine". Frank Sinatra achieved his first great success as a vocalist in the Dorsey band and claimed he learned breath control from watching Dorsey play trombone. In turn, Dorsey said his trombone style was heavily influenced by that of Jack Teagarden. Among Dorsey's staff of arrangers was Axel Stordahl who arranged for Frank Sinatra in his Columbia and Capitol records years. Another member of the Dorsey band was trombonist Nelson Riddle, who later had a partnership as one of Sinatra's arrangers and conductors in the 1950s and afterwards. Another noted Dorsey arranger, who in the 1950s, married and was professionally associated with Dorsey veteran Jo Stafford, was Paul Weston. Bill Finegan, an arranger who left Glenn Miller's civilian band, arranged for the Tommy Dorsey band from 1942 to 1950.
The band featured a number of future famous instrumentalists, singers and arrangers in the 1930s and '40s, including trumpeters Zeke Zarchy, Bunny Berigan, Ziggy Elman, Carl "Doc" Severinsen, and Charlie Shavers, pianists Milt Raskin, Jess Stacy, clarinetists Buddy DeFranco, Johnny Mince, and Peanuts Hucko. Others who played with Dorsey were drummers Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Dave Tough saxophonist Tommy Reed, and singers Frank Sinatra, Jack Leonard, Edythe Wright, Jo Stafford with The Pied Pipers, Dick Haymes and Connie Haines. In 1944, Dorsey hired The Sentimentalists who replaced The Pied Pipers. Dorsey also performed with singer Connee Boswell Dorsey hired ex-bandleader and drummer Gene Krupa after Krupa's arrest and scandal for marijuana possession in 1943. In 1942 Artie Shaw broke up his band and Dorsey hired the Shaw string section. As George Simon in Metronome magazine notes at the time, "They're used in the foreground and background (note some of the lovely obbligatos) for vocal effects and for Tommy's trombone."
As Dorsey became successful, he made business decisions in the music industry. He loaned Glenn Miller money to launch Miller's successful band of 1938, but Dorsey saw the loan as an investment, entitling him to a percentage of Miller's income. When Miller balked at this, the angry Dorsey got even by sponsoring a new band led by Bob Chester, and hiring arrangers who deliberately copied Miller's style and sound. Dorsey branched out in the mid-1940s and owned two music publishing companies, Sun and Embassy. After opening at the Los Angeles ballroom, The Hollywood Palladium, on the Palladium's first night, Dorsey's relations with the ballroom soured and he opened a competing ballroom, The Casino Gardens circa 1944. Dorsey also owned for a short time a trade magazine called The Bandstand.
Tommy Dorsey disbanded his own orchestra at the end of 1946. Dorsey might have broken up his own band permanently following World War II, as many big bands did due to the shift in music economics following the war, but Tommy Dorsey's album for RCA, "All Time Hits" placed in the top ten records in February 1947. In addition, "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?", a single recorded by Dorsey, became a top-ten hit in March 1947. Both of these successes made it possible for Dorsey to re-organize a big band in early 1947. The Dorsey brothers were also reconciling. The biographical film of 1947, The Fabulous Dorseys describes sketchy details of how the brothers got their start from-the-bottom-up into the jazz era of one-nighters, the early days of radio in its infancy stages, and the onward march when both brothers ended up with Paul Whiteman before 1935 when The Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra split into two. In the early 1950s, Tommy Dorsey moved from RCA Victor back to the Decca record label.
Jimmy Dorsey broke up his own big band in 1953. Tommy invited him to join up as a feature attraction and a short while later, Tommy renamed the band the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra featuring Jimmy Dorsey. In 1953, the Dorseys focused their attention on television. On December 26, 1953, the brothers appeared with their orchestra on Jackie Gleason's CBS television show, which was preserved on kinescope and later released on home video by Gleason. The brothers took the unit on tour and onto their own television show, Stage Show, from 1955 to 1956. On numerous episodes, they introduced future noted rock musician Elvis Presley to national television audiences, prior to Presley's better known appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Married life
Dorsey's married life was varied and, at times, lurid. His first wife was 16-year-old Mildred Kraft, with whom he eloped in 1922, when he was 17. They had two children, Patricia and Tom (nicknamed "Skipper"). They divorced in 1943 after Dorsey's affair with his former singer Edythe Wright. He then wed movie actress Pat Dane in 1943, and they were divorced in 1947, but not before he gained headlines for striking actor Jon Hall when Hall embraced Dorsey's wife. Finally, Dorsey married Jane Carl New on March 27, 1948, in Atlanta, Georgia. She had been a dancer at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. Tommy and Jane Dorsey had two children, Catherine Susan and Steve.
On November 26, 1956, Tommy Dorsey died at age 51 in his Greenwich, Connecticut, home. He had eaten a heavy meal and began choking in his sleep. Dorsey began taking sleeping pills regularly at this time; therefore, he was so sedated that he was unable to awaken and died from choking. Jimmy Dorsey led his brother's band until his own death from lung cancer the following year. At that point, trombonist Warren Covington assumed leadership of the band with Jane Dorsey's blessing as she owned the rights to her late husband's band and name. Billed as the "Tommy Dorsey Orchestra Starring Warren Covington", they topped the charts in 1958 with "Tea For Two Cha-Cha". After Covington led the band for a short period, Sam Donahue led it starting in 1961, continuing until the late 1960s. Buddy Morrow conducted the Tommy Dorsey orchestra until his death on September 27, 2010. Jane Dorsey died of natural causes at the age of 79, in Miami, Florida in 2003. Tommy and Jane Dorsey are interred together in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.
Number one hits
Tommy Dorsey had a run of 286 Billboard chart hits. The Dorsey band had seventeen number one hits with his orchestra in the 1930s and 1940s including: "On Treasure Island", "The Music Goes 'Round and Around", "You", "Marie" (written by Irving Berlin), "Satan Takes a Holiday", "The Big Apple", "Once in a While", "The Dipsy Doodle", "Our Love", "All the Things You Are", "Indian Summer", and "Dolores". He had two more number one hits in 1935 when he was a member of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra: "Lullaby of Broadway" (written by Harry Warren), number one for two weeks, and "Chasing Shadows", number one for three weeks. His biggest hit was "I'll Never Smile Again", featuring Frank Sinatra on vocals, which was number one for twelve weeks on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1940. "In the Blue of Evening" was number 1 on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1943.
Songs written by Tommy Dorsey
1929: "You Can't Cheat A Cheater" with Phil Napoleon and Frank Signorelli
1932: "Three Moods"
1937: "The Morning After"
1938: "Chris and His Gang" with Fletcher and Horace Henderson; Tommy Dorsey wrote the song "Peckin' With Penguins" for a 1938 Frank Tashlin-directed Porky Pig cartoon, "Porky's Spring Planting" for the studio Warner Bros.
1939: "To You", "This Is No Dream", "You Taught Me to Love Again", "In The Middle Of A Dream", "Night In Sudan"
1945: "Fluid Jive" and "Fried Chicken"
1946: "Nip and Tuck"
1947: "Trombonology"
Co-wrote "Bunch of Beats", "Mid Riff", and "Candied Yams" with Fred Norman.
Honors and posthumous recognition
In 1982, the 1940 Victor recording "I'll Never Smile Again" was the first of a trio of Tommy Dorsey recordings to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. His theme song, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" was inducted in 1998, along with his recording of "Marie" written by Irving Berlin in 1928.[85] In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey commemorative postage stamp.
Discography
1961: The One And Only Tommy Dorsey (RCA Camden)
1966: Tommy Dorsey's Dance Party (Vocalion)
1976: Tommy Dorsey (1937 - 1941) (AMIGA)
The Essence of Tommy Dorsey (1935-1949 recordings under RCA, reissued under Phantom Sound & Vision)
This is Tommy Dorsey, Volume 1 (1935-1944 recordings under RCA, reissued by Collectibles)
1988: All-Time Greatest Dorsey/Sinatra Hits, Vol. 1-4 (RCA)
1982: The Dorsey/Sinatra Sessions (RCA)
1990: Yes, Indeed! (Bluebird/RCA)
1991: Music Goes Round and Round (Bluebird/RCA)
1994: Stop, Look and Listen (1994) (ASV/Living Era Records)
1999: The V-Disc Recordings (Collectors' Choice Music)
1999: 1937, Vol. 3
2001: This Is Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra, Vol. 1 (Collectables Records)
2004: 1939, Vol. 3
2004: Tommy Dorsey: The Early Jazz Sides: 1932 - 1937 (Jazz Legends)
2004: It's D'Lovely 1947-1950 (Hep Records)
V-Disc Recordings
Blue Skies, No. 1B, October, 1943, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers
Well Get It, No. 86A, December, 1943
April in Paris, No. 134, 1944
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, No. 150B, March, 1944
Hawaiian War Chant and March of the Toys, No. 195B, May, 1944
Paramount on Parade, No. 206, 1944
Minor Goes A'Muggin' and Losers Weepers, No. 220A, 1944
Not So Quiet Please, No. 220B, 1944, with Gene Krupa
Wagon Wheels, No. 222A, 1944
T.D. Chant, No. 222B, with Gene Krupa and Buddy DeFranco
Tess's Torch Song and Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet, No. 227A, 1944, with Georgia Gibbs
Irresistible You and I Never Knew, No. 227B, with Bob Allen and The Sentimentalists
Small Fry, No. 269A, 1944, with Bing Crosby
Milenberg Joys, No. 273B, 1944
Sweet and Lovely and The Lamp is Low, No. 320A (Army), November, 1944
Melody in A and Chicago, No. 322A, 1944
Over the Rainbow and I May Be Wrong But I Think You're Wonderful, No. 335A, December, 1944, with Judy Garland
For All We Know and The Lady in Red, No. 347A (Army), January, 1945
Nobody's Baby and Three Little Words, No. 362A, 1945
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, No. 391A, March, 1945
More Than You Know, No. 451A (Army); No. 231A (Navy), June, 1945, with Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra
Brotherly Jump, No. 451B, June, 1945, with Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra
I'll Never Smile Again, No. 582A (Army), February, 1946, with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipe
Boogie Woogie, No. 877A, January, 1949
Marie, No. 890A, Tommy Dorsey and Band, March, 1949
Filmography
Segar Ellis and His Embassy Club Orchestra (1929)needs citation
Alice Bolden and Her Orchestra (1929)
Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra appear in the following films for the studios Paramount, MGM, Samuel Goldwyn, Allied Artists and United Artists:
Las Vegas Nights (1941)
Ship Ahoy (1942)
Presenting Lily Mars(1943)
Girl Crazy (1943)
Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
Thrill of a Romance (1945)
The Great Morgan (1946)
The Fabulous Dorseys (1947)
A Song Is Born (1948)
Disc Jockey (1951)
The Dorsey Brothers appear in the 1953 sixteen-minute Universal-International film called The Dorsey Brothers Encore.
Grammy Hall of Fame
Tommy Dorsey was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
Everything Happens To Me
Tommy Dorsey Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Black cats creep across my path
Until I'm almost mad
I must have roused the Devil's wrath
'Cause all my luck is bad
I make a date for golf
And you can bet your life it rains
I try to give a party
But the guy upstairs complains
I guess I'll go thru life
Just catchin' colds and missin' trains
Everything happens to me
I never miss a thing,
I've had the measles and the mumps
And every time I play an ace
My partner always trumps
I guess I'm just a fool
Who never looks before he jumps
Everything happens to me
At first my heart thought
You could break this jinx for me
That love would turn
The trick to end despair
But now I just can't fool
This head that thinks for me
So I've mortgaged
All my castles in the air
I've telegraphed and phoned
Sent an Air Mail Special, too
You answer was goodbye
There was even postage due
I fell in love just once
And then it had to be with you
Everything happens to me
I've never drawn a sweepstake
Or a bank night at a show
I thought perhaps this time
I'd won but Lady Luck said no
And though it breaks my heart
I'm not surprised to see you go
Everything happens to me
Everything happens to me
Until I'm almost mad
I must have roused the Devil's wrath
'Cause all my luck is bad
I make a date for golf
And you can bet your life it rains
I try to give a party
But the guy upstairs complains
Just catchin' colds and missin' trains
Everything happens to me
I never miss a thing,
I've had the measles and the mumps
And every time I play an ace
My partner always trumps
I guess I'm just a fool
Who never looks before he jumps
Everything happens to me
At first my heart thought
You could break this jinx for me
That love would turn
The trick to end despair
But now I just can't fool
This head that thinks for me
So I've mortgaged
All my castles in the air
I've telegraphed and phoned
Sent an Air Mail Special, too
You answer was goodbye
There was even postage due
I fell in love just once
And then it had to be with you
Everything happens to me
I've never drawn a sweepstake
Or a bank night at a show
I thought perhaps this time
I'd won but Lady Luck said no
And though it breaks my heart
I'm not surprised to see you go
Everything happens to me
Everything happens to me
The lyrics of Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra's song "Everything Happens to Me" tell the story of a person whose luck seems to be continuously bad. The opening lines describe the feeling of being cursed or haunted by bad luck as the singer says that black cats always cross their path, and their luck is constantly bad. The chorus speaks to the theme of the song as the singer muses that no matter what they do, they always seem to encounter obstacles and challenges that prevent success. They can't even catch a break in love, as the person that they fell in love with ended up leaving them.
The second verse underscores the themes of the song as the singer describes their life in more detail, noting that they've never won anything and that even when they do well playing card games, their partners always trump their aces. The chorus repeats, reinforcing the idea that this person just can't seem to catch a break. The bridge of the song has the singer reminiscing about a time when they thought that finding love would change their luck, but now they've given up on that idea and have lost hope.
Overall, the song speaks to a universal feeling of bad luck and the sense that everything is going wrong in one's life. The lyrics are poignant and relatable, and they are amplified by the beautiful and haunting melody that Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra performs.
Line by Line Meaning
Black cats creep across my path
I feel like I'm cursed and that bad things are always happening to me.
Until I'm almost mad
It's really starting to get to me and I'm starting to feel crazy.
I must have roused the Devil's wrath
I might have done something to anger the powers that be.
'Cause all my luck is bad
I can't seem to catch a break and everything seems to go wrong for me.
I make a date for golf
I plan something I enjoy doing.
And you can bet your life it rains
Of course, it starts to rain and ruins my plans.
I try to give a party
I try to have fun and share it with other people.
But the guy upstairs complains
Someone always has to ruin the fun for me.
I guess I'll go thru life
I feel defeated and resigned to the fact that things will always go wrong.
Just catchin' colds and missin' trains
I am constantly getting sick and never making it to my destination on time.
Everything happens to me
No matter what I do, I always have bad luck.
I never miss a thing,
I am always aware of what's going on around me.
I've had the measles and the mumps
I have had many illnesses in my life.
And every time I play an ace
Even when I do something right, something always goes wrong.
My partner always trumps
Someone else always seems to have an advantage over me.
I guess I'm just a fool
I make foolish decisions and don't think things through.
Who never looks before he jumps
I act impulsively and don't consider the consequences of my actions.
At first my heart thought
I was hopeful and optimistic at the beginning.
You could break this jinx for me
I thought someone or something could help me break my bad luck streak.
That love would turn
I thought that falling in love would somehow fix everything for me.
The trick to end despair
I was looking for a way to end my feeling of hopelessness.
But now I just can't fool
I have come to the realization that I can't trick myself into feeling better.
This head that thinks for me
I always overthink things and can't seem to shut off my thoughts.
So I've mortgaged
I have risked everything I have.
All my castles in the air
All of my hopes and dreams are now gone because I have lost everything.
I've telegraphed and phoned
I have reached out to try to communicate with someone.
Sent an Air Mail Special, too
I even went above and beyond to try to get in touch.
You answer was goodbye
The response I got was that everything was over.
There was even postage due
I paid for everything and still got a negative response.
I fell in love just once
I have only loved one person in my life.
And then it had to be with you
Unfortunately, it was with someone who didn't reciprocate my feelings.
Everything happens to me
No matter what I do or who I love, it seems like everything always goes wrong for me.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: HOAGY CARMICHAEL, JOHNNY MERCER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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@p.o694
Black cats creep across my path
Until I'm almost mad
I must have 'roused the devil's wrath
Cause all my luck is bad
I make a date for golf and you can bet your life it rains
I try to give a party and the guy upstairs complains
I guess I'll go through life
Just catchin' colds and missin' trains
Everything happens to me
I never miss a thing
I've had the measles and the mumps
And every time I play an ace
My partner always trumps
Guess I'm just a fool who never looks before he jumps
@craigsherman2703
Such wonderful records in the 40’s. Good sentimental music which I enjoy so much.
@davideastlee9983
Anyone who thinks they don't like Frank should listen to his fabulous voice here
@Joekool88
Beautiful song! Love Frank Sinatra's voice! Why am I only discovering this now?
@Trombonology
A few years before Hollywood beckoned, and over a decade prior to snagging the coveted gold statuette, Young Blue Eyes proved himself an extremely talented actor: The by all accounts supremely confident and cocky Sinatra was capable of portraying vulnerability and sensitivity as no other male vocalist could. ... Matt Dennis got his gig writing for the Dorsey band through his friendship with Jo Stafford: The Pied Pipers' lead vocalist recommended her old pal from her early days in LA to her boss and the bandleader made composer Dennis and lyricist Tom Adair staff writers for the aggregation. In addition to this great one, the team was responsible for "Let's Get Away From It All," "Little Man With A Candy Cigar," "The Night We Called It A Day," "Violets For Your Furs," and "Will You Still Be Mine" -- all of which the TD orch. got first crack at.
@michaelchapman4955
I caught Matt Dennis playing piano & singing this gold nugget he composed with Tom Adair in a Sunset Strip supper club one evening in the 70s 'was quite a treat'...
@Trombonology
@Michael Chapman Oh, wow ... I envy you that experience!
@michaelchapman4955
I became familiar with all these songs & many other Great Standards at the age of 9 listening to an LA DJ, Paul Compton & His weekly Radio Show, 'Sinatra, Compton & Strings' on a local LA AM Radio Station 'Once upon a time in LA, Hollywood'
@michaelchapman4955
This song I've noted has been recorded in almost every country on the face of the Globe & in recent yrs, by many young musicians & vocalists All over the global map
@philipashbourn1538
Buddy Rich on drums. Great song and great singer.
@michaelchapman4955
Matt Dennis, the composer, as the story goes wrote this song with Tom Adair, the lyricist over a 45-minute phone conversation One evening as They were both on Tommy Dorsey's staff in 1940 & I was able to see Matt Dennis perform His great American songbook gold nugget 'One evening at an LA Sunset Blvd Supper Club back in the '70s which for me was an indelible thrill