Pushing on a String; Big Enchilada; Play It Again, Sam

George Thompson gt1 at NYU.EDU
Tue Apr 24 23:28:12 UTC 2001


Barry posts the following:
> --------------------------------------------------------
> IT AIN'T WHATCHA GOT, BUT WHATCHA DO WITH IT
>
>   From NEW YORK magazine in the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, pages 28-
> 29 ad for Helen Harper sweaters:
>
> "It ain't whatcha got but whatcha do with it."
>     HELEN HARPER

There was a moderately popular song during the Swing Era called "Taint
What You Do, It's The Way That You Do It."  Some quick checking shows
that Mildred Bailey recorded it in February of 1939 -- and wasn't
necessarily the first -- and that it was written by "S Oliver and T
Young", no doubt Sy Oliver and (probably) Trummy Young.

GAT


George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.



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