Bunny Berigan - I Can't Get Started (Original Back Intro'd by Chuck Cecil)

Few songs do a better job of evoking an era than this 1937 recording by Bunny Berigan, a song used to that great effect in the Academy Award winning films "Save The Tiger" and "Chinatown". It was written by Vernon Duke and Ira Gershwin.. Bunny was a much acclaimed trumpeter who also had a passable voice as evidenced by his vocal on "I Can't Get Started". At times he worked with the big bands of Hal Kemp and Glenn Miller, was working with Benny Goodman one infamous night at the Palomar Ballroom, and was the horn you heard on Tommy Dorsey's classic recording of "Marie". Between bouts of alcoholism and depression, Bunny even headed his own band, and that's when this recording took place. His poor health as a result of the alcoholism cost him his life at the very young age of 33 in 1942. The host of radio's "Swinging Years", Chuck Cecil, tells you the rest of the story.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bunny Berigan
• I Can't Get Started
• Chuck Cecil
• Big Band

[Avalon400]

Can anyone tell me exactly where these two women on roller scates are? (at 1:20)Looks like my mother and aunt in 1937. Can it be? Where is this? Perhaps on the approach to the Brooklin Bridge?

[Nocaro]

@Avalon400 The picture is a stock photo of life in New York City during the Depression Era. If it is your mother and aunt that would be quite a find for you.

[recovering16]

Did you put this video together yourself, Nocaro? What an amazing job! And your remarks about "Save the Tiger" and "Chinatown", two of my favorite classic movies, were so true.....

[Nocaro]

LOL, thanks for the comments, and, yes, I put them all together myself...some take a little more time than others, but this one wasn't too hard...check out my video on Henry Mancini's "Don't Call It Love", and watch it all the way through for a little surprise at the end...that one took some time.

[recovering16]

I just watched it. Loved the ending - and I won't give it away.

[Nocaro]

LOL, thanks. It just came to me to do that and I don't know why, but it seemed to fit.

[vpo2g2]

If you play this for a woman, and she isn't smitten, dump her.

[ChristophePhilippe]

The greatest record ever.

[MrRemo7777]

@Nocaro I could listen these gems all night! I enjoy a local talent named Dave Bennett.com who plays a clarinet in the style of big bands and of course his idol, Benny Goodman.

Can't wait to get to Heaven and hear them all play together some golden day soon!

[MrRemo7777]

Bunny's number gets better with age. The only horn that got close to the sound was Al Hirt but then he couldn't sing!

They say what goes around, comes around, let's hope big bands, virtuoso musicians and touch dancing return.

I live one mile from the Vanity Ballroom in Detroit, abandoned and vandalized but I can squint my eyes and see Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Jimmy Dorsey, the ghosts are all that remain.

[TheBernie2201]

Greatness is unmistakable.....thanks for posting my friend.

[sladedude44]

tHIS ALWAYS FLOORS ME,GREAT,GREATAND GREEEEAT!

[2agray]

Ohhhhhh gosh my aunt just LOVED this record and would get lost in another world when you played it. That was her heyday.

[mikezeee722]

For all of the information about this classic recording by Bunny Berigan, as well as all of the information about all of his music and his life, check out the new biography of BB "Mr. Trumpet--the Trials, Tribulations and Triumph of Bunny Berigan" by Michael P. Zirpolo. To learn more about the book, go to "Mr. Trumpet," and follow the links.

[wisteria888]

The featured artist is not Lester Young. Bunny Berigan sings and plays trumpet solos during "I Can't Get Started."