#Cab Calloway

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Cab Calloway - St. James Infirmary 1933

"St. James Infirmary" is an American blues and jazz standard of anonymous origin that emerged, like many others, from folk traditions. Louis Armstrong brought the song to lasting fame through his 1928 recording, on which Don Redman is named as composer; later releases credit "Joe Primrose", a pseudonym used by musician manager, music promoter and publisher Irving Mills.

By 1930 at least twenty different recordings had been released. In 1933, Cab Calloway's version anchored the classic Betty Boop cartoon Snow White and his instrumental version introduced another that featured Calloway's related hit song "Minnie the Moocher".

"St. James Infirmary" received a total of 75,9% yes votes! Previous Cab Calloway polls: #130 "Minnie the Moocher".

[blacklacerabbit]

Cab Calloway circa 1933 ✨🤍

[omgthatdress]

Cab Calloway

the absolutely insane rizz this man had

[hotvintagepoll]

Cab Calloway (Stormy Weather, Hi De Ho)—TRULY THE SCRUNGLIEST. Nobody ever did it like him, your honor. The music, the dance moves, the hair, the unbridled charisma that comes across just the slightest bit unhinged. If I had to build the pillars of scrungle, they would be as follows: talent, showmanship, sportingness, and absolute commitment to the bit, all of which Cab Calloway has in SPADES. He was a great actor, a great singer, AND a great bandleader. Truly, nobody was doing it like him, before or since.

Oskar Werner (The Ship of Fools, Fahrenheit 451, Jules et Jim)—I can’t even think about Oskar Werner without having the urge to carry him around in my mouth like a mother cat with their kittens. He is beautiful in such a sad, scrungly, bedraggled way, I want to bundle him up in a warm cat bed and snuggle all his troubles away. This guy has an equally sad real-life story to match his sad, scrungly demeanor. He was born in Austria and married a half-Jewish woman, and they had to flee from Nazi persecution to save their lives. He’s told such sad tales of them starving while they hid during the war. Thankfully he was able to eventually find success as an actor, but it was short-lived as he was an alcoholic and died at the young age of sixty-one. The first thing I ever saw him in was Fahrenheit 451, but he is his scrungliest in The Ship of Fools where he plays a character achingly reminiscent of himself.

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Cab Calloway:

Oskar Werner:

[twixnmix]

Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club orchestra on stage at the Trocadero Theatre in Elephant & Castle, London, 1934.

[ando666detonao]

HI-DE-HO! 🎲🎶

[louxosenjoyables]

Cab

[citizenscreen]

Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway in the historic of Broadway production of “Hello, Dolly!” in 1967.

[frogteethblogteeth]

Cab Calloway and his band in a sleeper car, 1933

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Cab Calloway - Minnie the Moocher 1931

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz-scat song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over a million copies and was the biggest chart-topper of that year. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed ("scat") lyrics. In performances, Calloway would have the audience and the band members participate by repeating each scat phrase in a form of call and response, eventually making it too fast and complicated for the audience to replicate. The song is based lyrically on Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon's 1927 version of the early 1900s vaudeville song "Willie the Weeper".

"Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and in 2019 was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress.

In 1978, Calloway recorded a disco version of "Minnie the Moocher" on RCA Records which reached number 91 on the Billboard R&B chart. "Minnie the Moocher" has been covered or simply referenced by many other performers. Its refrain, particularly the call and response, is part of the language of American jazz. At the Cab Calloway School of the Arts, which is named for the singer, students perform "Minnie the Moocher" as a traditional part of talent showcases.

In 1932, Calloway recorded the song for a Fleischer Studios Talkartoon short cartoon, also called Minnie the Moocher, starring Betty Boop and Bimbo, and released on March 11, 1932. Calloway and his band provide most of the short's score and themselves appear in a live-action introduction, playing "Prohibition Blues". The thirty-second live-action segment is the earliest-known film footage of Calloway. In the cartoon, Betty decides to run away from her parents, and Bimbo comes with her. While walking away from home, Betty and Bimbo wind up in a spooky area and hide in a hollow tree. A spectral walrus—whose gyrations were rotoscoped from footage of Calloway dancing—appears to them, and begins to sing "Minnie the Moocher", with many fellow ghosts following along, during which they do scary things like place ghosts on electric chairs who still survive after the shock. After singing the whole number, the ghosts chase Betty and Bimbo all the way back to Betty's home. In 1933 another Betty Boop/Cab Calloway cartoon with "Minnie the Moocher" was The Old Man of the Mountain.

Calloway performed the entire song in the movie Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955), filmed at the Apollo Theater. Much later, in 1980 at age 73, Calloway performed the song in the movie The Blues Brothers. Calloway's character Curtis, a church janitor and the Blues Brothers' mentor, magically transforms the band into a 1930s swing band and sings "Minnie the Moocher" when the crowd becomes impatient at the beginning of the movie's climactic production number.

"Minnie the Moocher" received a total of 71,1% yes votes!

[skippiefritz]

me n the bestie on our way down to St James Infirmary

[anawkwardgalnamedtarazan]

Dice Doin' His Best!

(Ft. Henchman😈🐘)

🎲🕺🎶

🔥🔥🔥🔥

Based on this:

[bug-babie]

Betty Boop: Snow White (1933)

Koko The Clown!

[joeinct]

Cab Calloway, Jan. 12, 1933, Photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1933

[pois0ncandy]

St. James Infirmary Blues

[izel-scribbles]

petition for a second malevolent theme song

"between the devil and the deep blue sea" by cab calloway

i mean just look at the lyrics!!

ITS PERIOD ACCURATE TOO!!! FROM CAB CALLOWAY'S 1931-1933 ALBUM!!! genuinely losing my mind. everyone go listen to it RIGHT NOW

edit bc i was going to put it but somehow forgot (thx to @nyxfaei for reminding me)

THIS IS WHAT KAYNE SAYS TO JOHN IN PART 28!!! "you were stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, and you chose the devil! turncoat!"