‘Tender Eyes That Shine . . .’

 by whiteray

One of my favorite things to do when exploring music is to find new versions of very old songs, songs that perhaps my grandparents or their peers sang as someone sat at the parlor piano or – in later years – heard through crackly static at the beginning of the radio age. In 2002, one of them showed up at the Concert For George, a memorial put on by friends of George Harrison, who’d died the previous year. To close that concert – later released on CD and DVD – English singer Joe Brown reprised a song from the 1920s that he’d recorded in 1997, “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” 

Brown late re-recorded the song for his 2011 release, The Ukulele Album, the version I prefer.* Here it is: 

I’ve come to love that old song, which Second Hand Songs tells me was written by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn and first recorded in 1923 by Jones with the Ray Miller Orchestra. That version of the song was one of five that were wildly popular in 1925; according to Joel Whitburn’s A Century of Pop Music, Jones’ version was the No. 3 record for 1925, riding at No. 1 for seven weeks in the spring. Here’s Jones’ version: 

 Other versions popular in that long-ago year, Whitburn tells us in his book Pop Memories, came from Marion Harris (hers went to No. 4), Paul Whitehead (one of the great names in early 20th Century music, whose version went to No. 5), Ford Rush and Glenn Rowell, recording as Ford & Glenn (No. 9), and Lewis James (No. 12). 

More covers followed, of course. While I don’t think that “I’ll See You In My Dreams” is necessarily one of the most-covered songs of all time, it’s nevertheless a song that’s stayed in the public ear: The list of covers at Second Hand Songs – a listing that’s not necessarily comprehensive but which probably provides a good cross-section and starting point – shows versions of the song from every decade since but the 1940s, and I’m not sure if there’s a reason for that gap or not. Add to those versions other covers I’ve found at YouTube not listed at SHS, and the song is clearly one that’s remained popular. 

My friend Larry Grogan, who hangs his hat at the fine blog Funky 16 Corners, recommended the 1930 cover by Ukulele Ike, otherwise known as Cliff Edwards. (Edwards, perhaps better known as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s Pinocchio, covered the song again in 1956 on his album, Ukulele Ike Sings Again.) Another early cover that caught my ear was the 1937 version by Guy Lombardo. And jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt gave the song a whirl in 1939. 

Perhaps the most surprising of the covers I found was the nimble-fingered instrumental version by Jerry Lee Lewis, recorded during a session for Sun Records in 1958; the take was finally issued on a Sun collection LP in 1984 and since then on CD. Other versions I generally like from the 1950s and 1960s included covers by Henri René & His Orchestra (1956), the Mills Brothers (1960), The Ray Conniff Singers (1960), Cliff Richard (1961), the Lettermen (1963) and my man Al Hirt (1968). 

The only version of the song to hit the modern charts was an unsurprisingly bland take from Pat Boone, whose 1962 cover went to No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 in and No. 9 on what is now called the Adult Contemporary chart. 

And finally, one version that I like among the more recent covers is the faux-vintage and slightly rough-edged take from 2005 by folk singer Ingrid Michaelson along with singer (and ukulele player) Joan Moore. 

*Perhaps that’s because of Harrison’s well-known affinity for the stringed instrument; when the Texas Gal and I went to a Paul McCartney concert in 2002, he said that visitors to Harrison’s home were often handed ukuleles and expected to join in. Then McCartney played a ukulele as he performed Harrison’s song “Something.”