Arthur Hamilton, the Oscar-nominated songwriter greatest identified for his smoky torch-song traditional “Cry Me a River,” memorably recorded by Julie London, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Cocker and lots of others, has died. He was 98.
His demise was introduced this week by ASCAP and the Society of Composers and Lyricists; particulars weren’t instantly accessible.
Hamilton obtained his Oscar nom for greatest music (shared with composer Riz Ortolani) for “Until Love Touches Your Life” from Madron (1970), carried out by Richard Williams and Jan Daley for the film Western that starred Richard Boone and Leslie Caron.
For Warner Bros.’ Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955), starring and directed by Jack Webb, Hamilton created two wistful songs for Peggy Lee, who performed an alcoholic jazz singer within the musical crime movie — “He Wants Me” and “Sing a Rainbow,” which might evolve right into a kids’s traditional.
“Cry Me a River” was sung by Fitzgerald for the movie however didn’t survive the chopping room flooring. Nevertheless, London — the actress and Webb’s ex-wife — recorded it for her 1955 debut album, “Julie Is Her Title,” and it soared to No. 9 on the Billboard Sizzling 100. (London and Hamilton had gone to the Hollywood Skilled College collectively, and he took her to the senior promenade.)
Carried out from the angle of a jilted lover, the sparse “Cry Me a River” opens with: “Now you say you’re lonely / You cried the entire evening by means of / Nicely, you possibly can cry me a river / Cry me a river / I cried a river over you.”
Fitzgerald launched her model on her 1961 album Clap Fingers, Right here Comes Charlie!, and Cocker carried out his on his 1970 Leon Russell-produced dwell album Mad Canines & Englishmen.
“Cry Me a River” additionally can be recorded by Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Ray Charles, Harry Connick Jr., Susan Boyle, Michael Bublé, Jeff Beck, Diana Krall, Björk and Aerosmith, amongst many others.
“I simply preferred the mix of phrases,” Hamilton informed The Wall Avenue Journal in 2010. “As a substitute of ‘Eat your coronary heart out’ or ‘I’ll get even with you,’ it appeared like a very good, good retort to any person who had damage your emotions or damaged your coronary heart.
“Its basic use as a put-down phrase has continued to please and amaze me. At any time when my spouse and I are watching a movie or TV present and the phrase is used, we snicker and gently punch one another.”
“Cry Me a River” singer Julie London in 1957.
Courtesy Everett Assortment
Arthur Hamilton Stern was born in Seattle on Oct. 22, 1926. His father, Jack Stern, was a songwriter and orchestrator who labored on movies together with His Evening Out (1935), Jane Withers’ Little Miss No person (1936) and Sweetheart of the Navy (1937). His mom, Grace Hamilton, wrote lyrics for her husband’s songs.
He got here to Los Angeles together with his dad and mom when he was an toddler, discovered to play piano and in 1949 wrote a dwell stage musical, What a Day, for native station KTTV. He then spent a pair years working for a music publishing firm.
Hamilton stated he was impressed by legendary cabaret performer Bobby Brief. “I informed individuals many instances, ‘I by no means went to varsity, I went to Bobby Brief,’ ” he famous in 2016 on an episode of The Paul Leslie Hour podcast.
Bobby Darin recorded “He Wants Me” as “She Wants Me” in 1959 for his second album — the one with “Mack the Knife” and “Past the Sea” on it — and Hamilton’s résumé additionally included “Rain Generally,” “One Look” and “The Greatest I Ever Was.”
He earned Emmy noms in 1993 and ’94 for his tunes “Good Issues Develop” and “One thing Is Out There” from the respective TV films Blind Spot and The Corpse Had a Acquainted Face.
London’s model of “Cry Me a River,” backed solely by Barney Kessel on guitar and Ray Leatherwood on bass and launched on the newly based Liberty Information label, grew to become her signature music. It was inducted into the Library of Congress’ Nationwide Recording Registry in 2015.
“So totally does London’s picture, persona and, in fact, her voice convey and embody the world of smoky nightclubs and intimate levels, that each would-be chanteuse, at any time when they take to the stage to sing out a music, are (whether or not they understand it or not, whether or not they credit score her or not) each channeling and paying homage to Miss Julie London,” the Library of Congress’ Cary O’Dell wrote.
Hamilton served because the second president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists from 1985-87 and was a music department governor on the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Scientists and a member of the ASCAP Basis Board.
