Today is the birthday of Lewis Carroll (AKA Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). Every website in the universe will be writing about that, except for those who will be writing about the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Then again, there’s those people who prefer the American Standard Songbook to “Eine kleine Nachtmusik,” who will no doubt post all sorts of clips of people singing “Ol’ Man River,” given that it’s also Jerome Kern’s birthday.

That must have been one busy day in the obstetrics wing!

Up against such formidable competition, poor Harry Ruby, born January 27, 1895, has to stand over on the side, holding his hat in his hand. Which is too bad, because maybe he isn’t one of the top 5 American Songbook composers, he’s got quite a few entries in there. I listened to a lot of Neverthelesses on YouTube before I found this one. So sweet!

Ruby wrote that song with lyricist Bert Kalmar.

Next up, I have to admit that I tried to find a better rendition of this song, but trying to find someone who does a song better than Louis Armstrong is almost guaranteed to fail:

Oscar Hammerstein II joined Ruby and Kalmar in writing that one.

Ruby and Kalmar had their biggest hit with this next one. I wanted to find a clip of Red Skelton and Fred Astaire singing it (they portrayed the pair in the appropriately titled biopic Three Little Words), but I dug all the way to the bottom of YouTube and it never came up. On the other hand, they did have the Duke Ellington version, which is one of my great favorites, and a version by Chet Atkins that I’d never heard before that will no doubt force me to buy yet another of his albums. Oh, the horror. There’s no video with these, just great musicians.

So, poor Harry Ruby has to share his birthday. But his music is still as good as ever.