When Sunny Gets Blue
| "When Sunny Gets Blue" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Johnny Mathis and Ray Conniff and his Orchestra | ||||
| from the album Johnny's Greatest Hits | ||||
| A-side | "Wonderful! Wonderful!" | |||
| Released | 1956 | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Songwriter(s) |
Marvin Fisher Jack Segal | |||
| Johnny Mathis singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"When Sunny Gets Blue" is a song written by Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal, which has become a jazz standard.[1] The song was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis and Ray Conniff and his Orchestra in 1956 and became a big hit.
Notable recordings
- The song was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis and Ray Conniff and his Orchestra in 1956 and was the 'B' side of "Wonderful! Wonderful!" which reached No. 14 in the Billboard charts in 1957.[2] [3] Billboard wrote that the Mathis version was a "relaxed production".[4]
- Nat King Cole - for his album Love Is the Thing (1957). The album, which also featured songs such as "Stardust" and "When I Fall in Love" was cited by Mojo magazine as "one of Cole's most moving albums", and was his best-selling LP, on the charts for eight consecutive weeks.[5]
- June Christy - for her album Fair and Warmer! (1957)
- Anita O'Day - for her album Waiter, Make Mine Blues (1961)
- Sarah Vaughan - for her album Sarah + 2 (1962). John Bush, in his Allmusic review, believed that her rendition of the song was the finest on the album, "a spotlight for her dynamic range".[6]
- Blossom Dearie - for her album May I Come In? (1964)
- Matt Monro - for his album Here's to My Lady (1966)[7]
- Barbra Streisand - for her album Simply Streisand (1967)
- McCoy Tyner - for his album Today and Tomorrow (1963)
Legal case
"When Sunny Gets Blue" begins with the lyrics "When Sunny gets blue, her eyes get grey and cloudy; then the rain begins to fall." In 1984, DJ Rick Dees, a radio personality at Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, recorded a parody of the song for an album, including the lyrics "When Sunny sniffs glue, her eyes get red and bulgy, then her hair begins to fall". Dees sought permission to use the lyrics, but was refused; subsequently, he used 38 bars of the song under the fair use doctrine. In 1986, composers Marvin Fisher and Jack Segal sued Dees for copyright violation and defamation in U.S. District Court for Los Angeles. At the request of the parties involved, the district court issued a summary judgment, finding for Dees.[8] Fisher appealed the case to the U.S Court of Appeals for the 9th District, in Pasadena, California. The appellate court affirmed the judgment of the lower court in Fisher v. Dees 794 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1986), stating that the parody was intended to "criticize" for the purposes of humor, not to "copy", and did not damage the marketability of the original because they were two different markets of music.[9][10] The case has become a landmark one, further refining the doctrine of fair use in U.S. copyright law.
References
- ↑ Johnson, J. Wilfred (5 August 2010). Ella Fitzgerald: An Annotated Discography; Including a Complete Discography of Chick Webb. McFarland. p. 283. ISBN 978-0-7864-5039-8.
- ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits: Eighth Edition. Record Research. p. 405.
- ↑ Overbeck, Wayne; Belmas, Genelle; Shepard, Jason (3 August 2015). Major Principles of Media Law, 2016. Cengage Learning. p. 273. ISBN 978-1-305-68636-6.
- ↑ Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 24 November 1956. p. 44.
- ↑ The Mojo Collection: 4th Edition. Various Mojo Magazine, Canongate Books. 1 November 2007. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-84767-643-6.
- ↑ "AllMusic Review by John Bush". AllMusic. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
- ↑ "Discogs.com". Discogs.com. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
- ↑ http://mcir.usc.edu/cases/1980-1989/Pages/fisherdees.html
- ↑ Sadler, Roger L. (10 March 2005). Electronic Media Law. SAGE. p. 318. ISBN 978-1-4129-0588-6.
- ↑ Vaidhyanathan, Siva (1 August 2001). Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity. NYU Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-8147-8806-6.