The Peggy Lee Bio-Discography And Videography:
Observations About The Song "Why Don't You Do Right?"
by Iván Santiago-Mercado
Generated on Aug 31, 2011
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I. Contents And Authorship
This page contains an essay about the song "Why Don't You Do Right?" and its connection to singer Peggy Lee. The essay relies on my own research and thoughts on the matter. I am also responsible for the full redaction of the text. (Though the points in the last two sentences might come across as obvious and thus unnecessary, I feel compelled to make them. Despite being well aware that writing on the web is easily and continuously open to re-quoting or "swiping," I still can't help but feeling consternation at the sight of portions of this discography posted, without any attribution, elsewhere in the internet. I have caught a couple of instances in which my text was used almost verbatim, with very minor modifications, yet the users presented the text as if they had written it themselves..)
II. "Weed Smoker's Dream"
On October 2, 1936, the Chicago-based blues group Harlem Hamfats recorded a tune entitled "Weed Smoker's Dream (Why Don't You Do Now?)" for Decca Records. The 78 credits the song to two members of the group: pianist Joe McCoy and trumpet player Herb Morand.
The identity of the vocalist is in question. Some sources state that Joe McCoy not only wrote but also sang the number. Other sources state that Morand was often the group's regular singer -- obviously, not in songs for which he fulfilled his duties as the combo's trumpet player, though. As for 78 itself, here is my transcription of the personnel listing, as is appears on the label of the shellac:
Herb Morand, trumpet; Odell Rand, clar.;
Horace Malcomb, piano; Joe McCoy,
Charles McCoy (Hamfoot Ham) guitar
and mandolin; John Lindsay, bass;
Fred Flynn: drums Hamfoot Ham: vocal
From that listing, it would seem that the man credited with singing the vocal is neither Herb Morand nor Joe McCoy but Joe's brother, mandolin player Charles McCoy, under the pseudonym Harlem Ham. Nevertheless, every other source known to me describes "Harlem Ham" as one of Joe McCoy's various pseudonyms. Hence the 78's credit appears to have misidentified the McCoy brother who used aHarlem Ham as a pseudonym. (None of the sources that I consulted lists singing among Charles' abilities.)
Also somewhat confusing is the tenor of the lyrics. My general impression is that they are uttered by a character who is musing while in a marijuana haze. He might be talking to himself (addressing himself as "you") or he might be talking to someone who is nearby (know only as "you," and perhaps a woman). He seems to be entertaining the possibility of striking it rich either by selling his pot ("stuff") or by having the addressed woman sell her sexual favors ("hot stuff"). Here is my transcription of the lyrics heard on the record (with the caveat that some words in the 78 are hard to hear, and thus open to correction in my transcription):
Sitting on a million
Sitting on it every day,
Can't make no money
Giving your stuff away.
Why don’t you do now
Like the millionaires
Put your stuff on the market
And make a million, too.
Faye is a betting woman,
Bets on every hand.
Trickin’ mother for you
Everywhere she land.
Why don’t you do now
Like the millionaires
Put your stuff on the market
And make a million, too.
May's a good-lookin’ frail
She lives down by the jail
On her back though she got
Hot stuff for sale.
Why don’t you do now
Like the millionaires
Put your stuff on the market
And make a million, too.
The references to "tricking," "jail," and "hot stuff" open the field to the possibility that the women mentioned are prostitutes, and that the weed smoker may be a pimp.
Perhaps listening to other songs from The Harlem Hamfats would help clarify these lyrics. (I have listened to only two or three of their numbers.) It may be that the pseudonym under which the song was recorded (Harlem Ham) points to a specific, fully realized character in the group's song canon.
III. "Why Don't You Do Right?"
At some point between 1936 and 1940, another set of lyrics was attached to the melody that The Harlem Hamfats had recorded as "Weed Smoker's Dream." Fashioned in the traditional woman blues genre, this second incarnation of the song received the title "Why Don't You Do Right? (Get Me Some Money, Too)." Here is my transcription of the lyrics, as they are heard in the earliest recorded version:
You had plenty money in 1922
But you let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right like some other men do
Get out of here and get me some money too.
You're sittin' down wonderin' what it's all about
You ain't got no money, they're going to put you out
Why don't you do right, like some other men do
Get out of here and get me some money too.
If you had prepared twenty years ago
You wouldn't have been drifting from door to door
Why don't you do right, like some other men do
Get out of here and get me some money too.
I fell for your jive and I took you in
Now all you got to offer me is a drink of gin
Why don't you do right, like some other men do
Get out of here and get me some money too.
Were we to interpret the lyrics of "Weed Smoker's Dream" as a man's request on his woman to sell pot (or to sell herself), "Why Don't You Do Right?" could actually be thought of an answer song. The woman would be telling her weed-smoking man to get up and away from his haze, to go out and make the money that he was expecting her to collect.
IV. Peggy Lee's Acquaintance With "Why Don't You Do Right?"
According to Brian Peerless in his notes for the Columbia LP All The Cats Join In, Peggy Lee first became acquainted with "Why Don't You Do Right?" when trumpeter Jimmy Maxwell gave her a copy of the Victor 78 recording. A bona fide fan of the blues genre, she promptly became fascinated with the number and with Green, of whom Peggy Lee continued to speak admiringly well into her (Lee's) elderly years.
Lee's recording of "Why Don't You Do Right?" evinces her avowed admiration for the Lil Green version to which she so obsessively listened. As Larry Kart mused in a 1983 article about Lee, "the reason her version of the tune was so popular had a lot to do with the honest ease with which Lee borrowed Green's salty, rhythm-and-blues mannerisms and turned them to her own ends." Critic Gunther Schuller has made a similar point, saying that despite the stylistic borrowing, the young Lee "still somehow turn[ed] it into her own unique manner." For her part, Peggy Lee consistently gave credit to Lil Green whenever Lee's recording of "Why Don't You Do Right?" came up for discussion in interviews. Lee also expressed great affection for Green's singing, even if stylistically the influence of the blues singer on the classic pop/jazz singer is hardly discernible beyond the couple of Joe McCoy songs that both recorded. (In the estimation of a fellow fan, Green' influence is also noticeable in another early Peggy Lee master, "Ain't Goin' No Place." However, Lee's version of that number precedes Green's by two years. The Peggy Lee recording was made for Capitol on January 7, 1944. The Lil Green version was waxed for Victor on July 31, 1946.)
V. Lil Green's Recording (And Songwriting?) Of Why Don't You Do Right?
On April 23, 1941, blues singer Lil Green recorded "Why Don't You Do Right? (Get Me Some Money, Too)" for Victor's Bluebird label. Green and her record company promptly found themselves with a hit in their hands -- her second, following on the heels of Green's own composition, Romance In The Dark (1940). "For the next ten years," states Barry Lee Pearson in a short but well-written biographical sketch about the singer, "she enjoyed a successful career touring theaters and clubs and recording for RCA, Aladdin and Atlantic." Unfortunately, pneumonia claimed Green's life in 1954, at the ripe age of 34.
A few secondary accounts credit the lyrics of "Why Don't You Do Right?" to Lil Green. Peggy Lee herself often referred to Lil Green not only as the one who first recorded it but also as the song's author. Nevertheless, this credit lacks corroboration. What's more, the label on her own original 78 identifies McCoy as the sole songwriter. ASCAP and other authoritative sources also list only McCoy as writer of both the lyrics and the music.
It is worth noting that the original song ("Weed Smoker's Dream") was credited to two men, yet only one of those two men received credit for the number as it was recorded by Lil Green ("Why Don't You Do Right?"). That state of affairs suggests to me that McCoy composed the song's melody but did not write the "Weed Smoker's Dream" lyrics. Although the sources give us to understand that he is both the composer and lyricist of "Why Don't You Right?," I for one would not discard the possibility that Lil Green might have had to remain uncredited for one reason or another. Given the lyric's womanly point of view, we might feel inclined to expect a female lyricist, too. (Then again, expectations are reality do not always meet, and Joe McCoy appears to have been a prolific blues writer.)
VI. Benny Goodman's Acquaintance With "Why Don't You Do Right?"
The Goodman-Lee version of "Why Don't You Do Right?" (and its subsequent success) happened as a fluke. In a 1995 interview for Goldmine, Lee explained that she never considered the possibility that Goodman would entertain the idea of recording this number. Hence Goodman's invitation to do so took her by surprise. In various other interviews, Peggy Lee detailed the exact circumstances that prompted the waxing of a piece so uncharacteristic of the bandleader's repertoire. "I used to play that record over and over in my dressing room, which was next door to Benny's," she said in 1984. The shellac received repeated playing not only because Lee "just liked to hear it" but also because she "didn't carry very many records." (She didn't and she couldn't. Touring and traveling on a bus forced band members to limit the weight and quantity of belongings that they brought with them.) Continued Lee, while giving her aforementioned 1984 interview: "Finally he said, You obviously like that song. I said, Oh, I love it. He said. Would you like me to have an arrangement made of it? I said, I'd love that, and he did."
Although the same essential details can be found in other accounts that Lee gave to the press over the years, some of those accounts are more telling than others. Goodman's "dressing room was right next to mine and I drove him mad with it," she good-naturedly confessed during a 1988 interview. This perspective is also echoed in an earlier article for People magazine: "I listened to this blues record by Lil Green all the time and I think it made Benny nervous. He finally agreed to have an arrangement of it done" (1984). Still earlier, in 1969, Lee made the following statement, in which she obliquely alluded to Goodman's humorous absent-mindedness: "I used to play her record over and over backstage at the Paramount. After a week, Benny finally noticed and made some profound remark like, I guess you like that."
VII. Recording Of The Goodman-Lee "Why Don't You Do Right?" Version
On July 27, 1942, The Benny Goodman Orchestra and Peggy Lee recorded "Why Don't You Do Right?" for Columbia Records. By that time (a year later), Lil Green's Victor recording of "Why Don't You Do Right?" was no longer current as a hit, but it had certainly remained a favorite of Lee's.
As shown in the sessionography's Benny Goodman page, four takes from the recording session are extant. When heard sequentially, those takes convey a general mood of enthusiasm amidst participating musicians. Also noticeable is Peggy Lee's game experimentation with various vocal approaches to selected words and phrases. To my ears, the overall effect is that of a musical gathering where the players are having a good time, maybe because they have been allowed to perform in more than one strict tempo and style. (I should stress that this is a merely an opinion of mine. We do not know what actually transpired during the session. Besides, the portrait of Goodman at his recording sessions is that of a serious, stern, even controlling taskmaster. But it could still be that this particular master was perceived almost as a throwaway, and that some latitude was given to Lee due to her hand in the finding of the song.)
VIII. Columbia's, Goodman's, And Lee's Various Reasons For Recording "Why Don't You Do Right?"
The Goodman-Lee version was initially perceived as not much more than an indulgence. At recording time (July 27), bandleader and label were probably willing to record just about anything, due to the Petrillo record ban that was about to go into effect (August 1). Lee told to an interviewer that the number was "thrown into the record date. There was a record ban, so they were recording everything they could find in the library. It didn't make anything of an impression on anyone really, until that point, which I think is kind of an interesting thing, considering the success it did have later, fortunately, for all of us."
To an extent, the recording of the number was an amicable concession to Peggy Lee and her tastes in music. Goodman presumably wanted to keep a pleased and inspired canary under his grasp. After all, Lee had accounted for much of the band's success on radio airplay during the previous months, when she had not only placed various numbers in the charts but had also taken one song to the top spot of the best-selling lists ("Somebody Else Is Taking My Place").
Over the months which followed the band's recording of "Why Don't You Do Right?," Lee would notice that Columbia was releasing just about everything else that Goodman had recently waxed. In December 1942, when the master was finally picked for release on 78, Lee assumed that Columbia had just run out of any other suitable alternatives. Contemporaneous reviews in magazines such as Billboard and Gramophone suggest that "Why Don't You Do Right?" was considered the 78's lesser side, too, and that the performance under actual promotion was the instrumental "Six Flats Unfurnished."
IX. Reception Of "Why Don't You Do Right?"
Once "Why Don't You Do Right" was finally chosen for issue on record, the band started to perform it live. Goodman and Lee's earliest extant concert performance of the tune dates from December 2, 1942, at the New Yorker Hotel. (Of course, there might have been earlier performances that remain undocumented.) Enthusiastic response from concert audiences probably led to the decision to film a performance of the number for the then-upcoming movie Stage Door Canteen. The filming took place in December 1942, too. The eventual release of the movie would further boost and extend the record's popularity.
In an article published by Downbeat many years later (1959), George Hoefer asserted that "[w]hen the Goodman band recorded the tune with Peggy’s vocal early [sic] in 1942, no one thought there would be much interest in it outside the trade. And nothing much did happen -– at first. But when the band got to California in the fall of ‘42, Peggy and Benny were amazed to hear that more than 200,000 copies of the record were on order in Southern California alone." (n.b.: Both herein and in a few other sections, Mr. Hoefer's article is slightly off, both chronologically and factually.)
X. The Rewards Of "Why Don't You Do Right?"
Besides the songwriter and his heirs, the people who financially benefitted the most from the success of the recording were Columbia and Goodman. As for Lee, the vocalist received a minimal fee when she recorded the number, and no more. She did not partake in any earnings from the Columbia recording.
Lee's main reward was instead the increase in popularity that the song brought to her. It is estimated that "Why Don't You Do Right" climbed only to #4 in the music charts, and it is also worth noting that Lee had previously had a #1 hit in her role as canary with the Goodman orchestra. Hence the hit record was by no means her first big success, nor would it qualify as her greatest one. But the number gave Lee the opportunity to become both an aural but also a visual presence nationwide for years to come, thanks to the filming of a well-received performance for the aforementioned Stage Door Canteen movie.
"Why Don't You Do Right" ended up becoming a much-requested staple of Lee's repertoire. Besides countless reprises in concert performances (some of them released on albums), she re-recorded the song twice as a solo artist, in styles that were more amenable to her tastes than the earlier, Goodman-dictated version. The first of those recordings was for Capitol, on November 19, 1947, whereas the one one, on September 8, 1992, was for her very last album, on Chesky Records -- and is arguably one of the more interesting interpretations from what might rank as the least appealing of her efforts on record. Furthermore, Lee taped a small combo, jazzy and tasteful video version in 1950. That version has become widely known during the ongoing century, thanks to its rotation in YouTube and similar video sites. The Capitol version has also survived the test of time, becoming an international hit all over again during the early twenty-first century, after it was heavily sampled in a dj mix ("Why Don't You").
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