Today’s classic song of the day is an unusual one. “Comin’ Home Baby” was written as a jazz instrumental, had lyrics added, then became an unlikely pop hit for a famous jazz singer. Read on, please.
“Comin’ Home Baby” was written, as an instrumental, by jazz bassist Ben Tucker. It was first recorded by the Dave Bailey Quintet on their 1961 album, 2 Feet in the Gutter. Dave Bailey was a drummer and his quartet included Bill Hardman on trumpet, Frank Haynes on tenor sax, Billy Gardner on piano, and the aforementioned Ben Tucker on bass.
Six weeks later, jazz flutist Herbie Mann recorded the song for his live album, Herbie Mann at the Village Gate. Ben Tucker played bass on that version, too. Mr. Mann’s version proved more popular and drew new attention to Mr. Tucker’s song.
Mr. Tucker then decided the tune deserved lyrics, so he persuaded his friend Bob Dorough to put words to his music. (Dorough later became famous for composing the tunes for the Schoolhouse Rock! animated shorts, which many of you I’m sure remember.) Producer Nesuhi Ertegun then presented the tune, with lyrics, to Mel Tormé, a very famous and very popular jazz singer who had previously derided pretty much all of rock and roll music. Mr. Tormé was initially reluctant to record the song, as it was a bit out of his wheelhouse, but got talked into it.
In Mel’s own words:
“It was a minor-key blues tune with trite repetitious lyrics and an ‘answer’ pattern to be sung by the Cookies, a girl trio that had once worked for Ray Charles.”
Mel Tormé (and the Cookies) went into the studio on September 13, 1962, and cut the track, with Bones Howe and Tom Dowd behind the board. Atlantic Records released it the next month and, exceeding everyone’s expectations, it was a hit, going all the way to #36 on the Billboard Hot 100. It actually got to #13 on the UK singles chart and was nominated for two Grammy Awards, Best Male Solo Vocal Performance and Best Rhythm and Blues Performance. (It lost the former to Tony Bennett and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and the latter to Ray Charles and “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” both bona fide classics in their own right.)
That would seem to be all there was to be about “Comin’ Home Baby, until a few years later, when the song was rediscovered by the DJs and patrons of the Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester, England. Mel’s odd little single helped to launch the UK’s Northern Soul scene of the 1970s, where it remains popular today.
And here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, the Velvet Fog himself singing “Comin’ Home Baby” on the January 5, 1964, episode of The Judy Garland Show. Groovy, baby!
