Tom Adair (1913-1988) was an American lyricist whose songs have consistently remained favourites within the jazz standards repertoire. His lyrics range from thoughtful, bittersweet ballads to the sharply witty, unsurprising as he also went on to become a prolific writer of some of the best loved sitcoms of his era on US TV. In 1940, whilst writing for radio and submitting poems to the Saturday Evening Post, Adair’s music career took off when he handed a lyric to composer Matt Dennis in an LA night club. Dennis liked it, wrote the music and Tommy Dorsey recorded it. ‘Will You Still Be Mine?’ was the first of many successful collaborations between Adair and Dennis. In the early stages of Adair’s career he worked for the Water Authority dealing with complaints and whilst at work, he spent much of his time on the phone writing songs with Dennis, who said that ‘Let’s Get Away from It All’ took them about an hour to complete in this way. They followed this with the humorously wry lament ‘Everything Happens to Me’; ‘Violets for Your Furs’, written for and recorded by Billie Holiday and ‘The Night We Called It a Day’.
In 1942 Adair wrote ‘In the Blue of Evening’ with Alfonso D’Artega, another hit for Sinatra and the Dorsey band, he then went on to work with Harold S. Hopper, resulting in the haunting ballad ‘There’s No You’ which was a hit in 1944. In 1949 Adair’s lyrics found their way onto Broadway in the show Along Fifth Avenue with music by Gordon Jenkins. Adair continued to write for reviews and film, in 1956 the title song of the movie Julie achieved an Oscar nomination for himself and Leith Stevens. Another nomination followed in 1960 for the score of Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty but Adair and George Bruns lost the Oscar to Porgy and Bess.
The popularity of Adair’s songs is reflected by the calibre of the artists who have recorded his work. These include Jo Stafford, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Shore, Mark Murphy, Diana Krall, Chet Baker, Helen Merrill and Mel Torme.
Key Songs:
- Angel Eyes
- Everything Happens To Me
- Let’s Get Away From It All
- The Night We Called It A Day
- There’s No You
- Violets For Your Furs
- Will You Still Be Mine