Whispering – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 298

This article is about the 1920s popular song, “Whispering”. For other uses, see Whispering (disambiguation).

“Whispering” is a popular song with lyrics by John Schoenberger and Richard Coburn, and music by Vincent Rose. It was most famously recorded by Paul Whiteman and his Ambassador Orchestra on August 23, 1920 for Victor as 18690-A.^[1] Denver-born ex-army bandleader Whiteman was dubbed “King of Jazz”, an appellation supported largely by a long series of hits beginning in 1920 with his release of “Whispering”, an eleven-week U.S. No. 1 hit, which stayed 20 weeks in the charts and sold in excess of two million copies.^[2] The song charted twice in the sixties. In 1963, Irish singers the Bachelors had a hit with it and then the next year American singers and brother and sister act Nino Tempo and April Stevens had a follow-up hit to “Deep Purple” with the song.

According to AllMusic site, there have been over 700 releases of the song.^[3] The Pasadena Roof Orchestra has covered the song on at least one album (The Best of the Pasadena Roof Orchestra in 1973). George Gershwin made apiano roll of his own arrangement (really a set of variations) for solo piano which is currently available on a commercial recording, as is an arrangement for voices and piano by the Comedian Harmonists. Harry Belafonte recorded the song during the first year of his recording career, in December 1949.

A 2010 search for the song “Whispering” on the commercial internet music site LaLa.com yielded 161 results of recordings with the title “Whispering”. Notable artists included Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Les Paul, Mary Ford, and Oscar Peterson.

The jazz tune “Groovin’ High”, composed by Dizzy Gillespie, is based on the harmonic structure of “Whispering”.

The first recording of the song, as an instrumental, was made on July 1, 1920, by Ray Miller and his Black and White Melody Boys (Okeh 4167-A).