Show Boat was sublime last evening. "Show me dat stream called de river Jordan / Dat’s de ol’ stream dat I long to cross." When the male chorus sings these lines, you feel that unreachable heaven looms as a worker’s dream of liberation from "the white man boss" and that the Jewish songwriters and Black singers have (almost) fused their identities.
Churchill ended a speech in parliament in 1940 with a peroration comparing history to the mighty Mississippi that keeps rolling along. It would have been nice to sit next to him in the car back to Ten Downing Street, during which ride the Prime Minister sang "Ol’ Man River."
No one has ever praised and many have ridiculed Sinatra’s tuxedo-clad rendition of "Ol Man River" with a huge orchestra at the end of Till the Clouds Roll By, the 1946 bio-pic devoted to Jerome Kern. Listen to it, casting prejudice aside. Sinatra does the long liaison between the end of the release ("and you land in jail") and the final chorus ("ah gits weary") better than anyone I’ve ever heard.
DL