I'll Be Around (1942 song)

"I'll Be Around" is a popular song written by Alec Wilder and published in 1942. It was first recorded by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra in 1942^[1] and the first hit version was by The Mills Brothers in 1943 when it reached No. 17 in the Billboard pop charts. ^[2] The song has become a well-known standard, recorded by many artists.

Background

Wilder said, in an interview with music critic Jay Nordlinger,^[3] that the song came to him in a taxi cab in Baltimore. Just the title. "I spotted [the title] as I was crumpling up the envelope some days later. Since I was near a piano, I wrote a tune, using the title as the first phrase of the melody. I remember it only took about 20 minutes. The lyric took much longer to write."

Recorded versions

• Mildred Bailey (1942)
• Tony Bennett
• Brook Benton (1960)
• Eve Boswell (1951)
• Ruby Braff
• Les Brown and his Band of Renown (1959)
• Cab Calloway and his orchestra (1942)
• Diahann Carroll (1967)
• Don Cherry (1956)
• Rosemary Clooney (1951)
• Randy Crawford (1995)
• Vic Damone (1959)
• Bobby Darin (1960)
• Doris Day (1950)
• Eileen Farrell
• Lena Horne (1944)
• Engelbert Humperdinck (1985)
• Frank Ifield - included in his album Blue Skies (1964)
• Harry James and Helen Ward
• Salena Jones (2002)
• Chaka Khan with Miles Davis, CK (album) (1988) - Arranged by Dave Grusin.
• Rebecca Kilgore (1994)
• Cleo Laine and Dudley Moore (1982)
• Peggy Lee (1962)
• Marian McPartland (1955) - Live at Maybeck Recital Hall (1991), Marian Mcpartland Plays the Music of Alec Wilder (1992)
• Helen Merrill - Merrill at Midnight (1957)
• Johnnie Ray
• George Shearing - The Definitive George Shearing (2002)
• Don Shirley
• Dinah Shore
• Frank Sinatra - (1943) for Columbia Records, In the Wee Small Hours (1955)