Rube Bloom
b. 24 April 1902, New York, USA, d. 30 March 1976, New York, USA. Bloom was a pianist, arranger and composer of popular songs from the '20s through to the '50s. He studied the piano from an early age, and began his career as an accompanist to vaudeville performers before joining Ray Miller, who ran one the of best all-white big bands. In the mid to late '20s, Bloom played, and sometimes sang, on recordings with groups such as the Sioux City Six, the Cotton Pickers, the Tennessee Tooters, the Hottentots, Joe Venuti's All Star Rhythm Boys, and Red Nichols’ Redheads, which featured top jazz musicians including Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, Jimmy Dorsey, Miff Mole, Eddie May and Vic Moore. In 1930, he recorded some tracks with his own highly regarded outfit, Rube Bloom And His Bayou Boys, whose personnel included Mannie Klein, Tommy Dorseyand Benny Goodman. One of his first compositions, in 1929, Song Of The Bayou, won a Victor Records song contest. The following year, The Man From The South, with a lyric by Harry Woods, became a hit for Ted Weems. Bloom's first effort for movies was Jumping Jack, written with Herman Ruby and Marvin Smolev, and featured in a group of revue items under the title THE SHOW OF SHOWS (1929). During the '30s, Bloom collaborated with Ted Koehler on The Voice Of The Southland and Stay On The Right Side Of The Road, which was a hit for Ruth Etting. Truckin’ celebrated a Harlem dance craze and was a hit for Fats Waller. Bloom also wrote four numbers for the 1939 COTTON CLUB PARADE: What Goes Up Must Come Down, If I Were Sure Of You, Got No Time and ‘Don't Worry Bout Me—the latter a hit for Hal Kemp in 1939 and revived in an exceptional version by Frank Sinatra in 1954. He also wrote Good For Nothing Joe, which became a favourite in Lena Horne's repertoire. On Lena Horne At the Waldorf Astoria, the singer also gave a memorable, uptempo rendering of another Bloom number, Day In-Day Out which he wrote with the prolific Johnny Mercer. Fools Rush In also had a Mercer lyric, and became a standard. Earlier, in 1936, Bloom and Mercer had written the score for Lew Leslie's revue, BLACKBIRDS OF 1936, which played in London, and starred the Nicholas Brothers, and included songs such as Dixie Isn't Dixie Any More, Jo-Jo The Cannibal Kid, Keep A Twinkle In Your Eye and Your Heart And Mine. During the '40s Bloom's compositions included Take Me, co-written with Mack David which were successful for Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman; three numbers in collaboration with Harry Ruby for the film, WAKE UP AND DREAM (1946), I Wish I Could Tell You, Into The Sun, and Give Me The Simple Life. The latter song became one of Bloom's most popular items, and was interpolated into the score of the Marilyn Monroe/Yves Montand film, LET'S MAKE LOVE (1960). In the same year Frank Sinatra used Bloom's Here's To My Lady as the theme to a television special with a guest list which included Eleanor Roosevelt. 
Two years later the singer updated Bloom's 1939 dance hit, Truckin’, and cashed in on the '60s terpsichorean fad with his recording of Everybody's Twistin’. By then, in the prevailing climate of rock ‘n’ roll, Bloom's output declined. In 1955 he toured abroad, entertaining with a US government sponsored ASCAP group, and wrote several books on piano method. His other compositions included Soliloquy, Spring Fever, Where You Are, It Happens To The Best Of Friends, Out In The Cold Again, Love Is A Merry-Go-Round, Is This Gonna Be My Lucky Summer?, Feelin High And Happy’, I'm In A Happy Frame Of Mind, Floogie Walk, The Ghost Of Smokey Joe, Lost In A Dream, Serenata (a UK hit for Sarah Vaughan), Silhouette, Suite Of Moods and On The Green. His collaborators included Sammy Gallop, Mitchell Parish and Harry Woods. Besides the records he made with those famous jazz musicians, and with his own Bayou Boys in the early days, Bloom also appeared on record with several other artists, such as Ethel Waters, Noble Sissle, Annette Hanshaw, Ruth Etting and Seger Ellis. He also recorded a series of piano solos. He died in March 1976, in New York, USA. In 1991, when Capitol re-released Frank Sinatra's moody Where Are You, which contained a fine Bloom/Gallop ballad, Maybe You'll Be There, four bonus tracks were added to the original 12. One of them was Sinatra's reading of ‘Don't Worry Bout Me, from 37 years ago.