Billie Holiday—”You Showed Me The Way” (1937)

On Thursday February 18th, 1937 -- one day before Ella was awarded the key to the city of Yonkers -- rival singer Billie Holiday stepped into the Brunswick recording studio at 1776 Broadway in New York with pianist Teddy Wilson. This recording session, produced by John Hammond, included a song composed by tenor player Teddy McRae, drummer Chick Webb and trombonist Benny Green. The lyrics were by another singer, Ella Fitzgerald, and the song was called “You Showed Me The Way.”

Teddy Wilson and his Orchestra: Henry Red Allen-cornet; Cecil Scott-clarinet; Prince Robinson-tenor sax; Teddy Wilson-piano; Jimmy McLin-guitar; John Kirby-double bass; Cozy Cole-drums; and 21 year old Billie Holiday-vocals. The record was also released on the Vocalion label. It became one of the classic Billie Holiday recordings of that period.

“The melody is run-of-the-mill popular song writing,” says Ella biographer Sid Colin, “but Ella’s lyric, while following the Tin Pan Alley love song conventions of the day, does reveal a keen ear for the choice of ‘singable’ words.”

Ella Fitzgerald was still not out of her teens when she began writing songs and she was very proud that her idol was singing HER song. When Ella finally reached the age that she could visit a club, and Billie appeared at some 52nd street venue, Ella visited as often as she could. But she still was too shy to talk to Billie Holiday in person, even though she was the lyricist of one of Billie’s recordings.

Colin observes that Ella’s songwriting can be seen as “a measure of her new found confidence, notably vis-à-vis her fellow musicians.” Picking out the tunes with one finger on the piano, Ella would continued to write songs. Such as in 1940, when Ella wrote the words to Duke Ellington’s melody “In A Mellotone.”