Portrait of a Love Letter: March 2011

Je Ne Regrette Rien

I get along without you very well

Of course I do

Except perhaps in Spring

But I should never think of Spring

For that would surely break my heart in two

Nina Simone

In 1939, Hoagy Carmichael composed a melody to a poem called I Get Along Without You Very Well. A few years earlier he’d been handed the poem by a student at Indiana University. It was signed only J.B and the student author remained a mystery for many years. The song then gathered dust until 1952 when Jane Russell and Carmichael performed it in the film Las Vegas Story. After national Radio and Newspaper pleas for the writer to come forward the author was revealed as Jane Brown Thompson… Sadly, she passed away on the night before Dick Powell introduced the song on national radio.

Hoagy Carmichael and Lauren Bacall singing ‘Am I Blue’ in Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not… a song later recorded by everyone from Billie Holliday to Eddie Cochran… This one, by Ray Charles…

Baby please don’t go
Back to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Big Joe Williamson

Goodbye is Too Good a Word…
Artist, activist & muse, Suze Rotolo, appeared arm in arm with her man on the cover of ‘The Freewheelin Bob Dylan’ in May 1963. Rotollo, the inspiration for 'Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright' and 'Tomorrow is a Long Time' amongst others, died at her home on February 24th 2011, following a long-term illness…

She had a smile that could light up a street full of people and was extremely lively, had a particular type of voluptuousness—a Rodin sculpture come to life. She reminded me of a libertine heroine. She was just my type. Bob Dylan

Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin'
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin'
Only if she was lyin' by me
Then I'd lie in my bed once again

Tomorrow is a long time - Bob Dylan
Folksinger Paul Clayton was a close friend and mentor to Bob Dylan. In 1962, Clayton’s song, Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone) and the prolonged absence in Italy of Suze Rotolo were the inspiration for Dylan’s, Don't Think Twice (It's Alright).

When your rooster crows at the break of dawn.
Look out your window and I'll be gone...

On March 30, 1967, Clayton, thought by some, the missing link between Woody Guthrie and Dylan, committed suicide by taking an electric heater into the bathtub with him. Another folksinger Barry Kornfeld stated that Clayton was gay, "that it was sadly, something he couldn’t live with...Paul had a tremendous crush on Dylan. I believe that It Ain't Me, Babe was written for Paul.”
It ain't me babe
No, no, no, it ain't me babe
It ain't me you're lookin' for babe

Your baby doesn't love you anymore
It's over... It's over... It's over...

The Great Roy Orbison – The voice of God… When they need to know about heartbreak, Lefty Wilbury is the ‘to go to guy…' Only the Lonely, In Dreams, Love Hurts, and Blue Bayou being just the tip of the iceberg…
Crying…

Daniel Craig – Licensed to Cry

Co-Star of ‘The Crying Game’ Forest Witaker
Photographed by Sam Taylor Wood as part of her ‘Crying Men’ series.

A top 5 UK hit in 1964, Dave Berry’s, The Crying Game experienced a new lease of life in Neil Jordan’s film of the same name in 1992… Berry’s version was covered on a number of occasions but never bettered. The most gorgeous of guitar solos was played by the legendary Big Jim Sullivan, known as ‘Big Jim’ to distinguish him from fellow session musician ‘Little Jim’ Page who played rhythm guitar on the track and later went on to do quite well in Led Zeppelin.

Big Jim Sullivan worked on more than a thousand hit records in a career spanning three decades, playing on Ferry Across the Mersey, Ichycoo Park, It’s Not Unusual, Make it Easy On Yourself.’ The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, ‘Something in the Air,’ ’Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus’ and Cilla Black’s cover of Anyone Who Had a Heart, to name drop just a few.

Don't Gimme No Lip Child - the flip side to The Crying Game, was a regular part of the set in early Sex Pistols shows… subsequently given a release when they were flogging a dead bass player in 1979…

When Dionne Warwick recorded the original version of 'Anyone Who Had a Heart' at Bell Sound Studios in Manhattan with Bacharach and David in November 1963, 'Walk On By' was recorded in the same session…

Six years later Isaac Hayes walked on by for the Hot Buttered Soul album…