Unsung Jewish Composers and Lyricists of the Great American Songbook - Ervin Drake and "It Was a Very Good Year"

It's well known that many of the songs that comprise the collection known as The Great American Song Book were written by Jewish composers and lyricists, mostly in the decades between 1930 and 1965, but also going back to the turn of the 20th century.

 

The most prolific of these writers are responsible for the great majority of songs. Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin lead the long list of songwriters and their songs number in the hundreds.

But there are many others that were written by composers and lyricists that you very likely never heard of. These songwriters wrote lots of pop songs to stand alone and as parts of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Most of the songs are long forgotten, but a few of them have become popular standards, and are sung as much today as in the years they were written.

In this series, which will run in Jewish Humor Central on a weekly basis, we will focus on one songwriter at a time, and feature a video performance of their most popular song.

Today we're featuring Ervin Drake, who was born in New York City as Ervin Maurice Druckman. He attended Townsend Harris High School and the City College of New York. One of his best known songs is I Believe which was made popular by Frankie Laine.

He wrote the words and music for It Was a Very Good Year in 1961, when a publisher friend told him that Bob Shane of the Kingston Trio would be in the publisher's office the next morning, and the publisher asked Drake to write a song for Shane to sing solo. 

 

In 1965, Frank Sinatra heard the song on his car radio as he was driving home in the desert and immediately pulled over in the middle of the night to a gas station and pay phone. Sinatra called Gordon Jenkins and told him he wanted him to make an arrangement with plenty of strings and maybe an interesting instrument like the oboe could be used as well. 

When he arrived back in L.A. he recorded it for his career comeback album September of My Years. The Sinatra recording was a Top 30 single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, and made No.1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. 

 

Here's the rare studio recording of Sinatra singing Jenkins' arrangement of It Was a Very Good Year. 

 

Enjoy!

 

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