Download Instrumental    Everybody loves you when things are going swimmingly. You’ve got plenty of money that you don’t mind throwing around for the benefit of your “friends”. But let any of that change for the worse and those friends abandon you like rats on a sinking ship.  That’s the message behind the song “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”.  It’s a tune about having the world at your feet one day, and the next day being “down and out”.

It was written in 1923 by Jimmy Cox at the height of the so-called “roaring twenties” – a time of prosperity and devil-may-care attitudes.  Oddly enough, the song wasn’t recorded and released until October of 1929 by Bessie Smith – just days before the stock market crash that caused ‘The Great Depression”.  How apropos is that?

I call this one a “smile production” number because if you perform this song, you’re going to make a production out of it and it’s gonna make people smile and nod their heads approvingly.  You may have lulled your crowd into knowing what song you’re going to do next during the first two sets – a definite faux pas.  Two fast ones then a slow one, then two fast ones.  It’s a trap we all fall into.  But start your third set with this baby and make it a production – Bette Midler style – and you’ll have your audience wondering what in the world you’re going to do next.  Now you can go back to one slow, two fast, etc.

Here’s the arrangement:  you’ll sing the first two verses (piano part), let the clarinet take a solo, then come back in for the finale (when in this instrumental the trumpet takes over).  Make it fun and unexpected.  Keep your crowd in suspense.  Then come back in your 4th set and do a polka (just kidding).

[Jazz/Swing List]