PETER MINTUN: I Can't Get Started (Vernon Duke-Ira Gershwin)

"I Can't Get Started" was the first song copyrighted (December 15, 1935) for "Ziegfeld Follies of 1936." Before the show opened in New York (Winter Garden, January 30, 1936) it played two weeks in Boston (Boston Opera House, January 6), where Bob Hope sang (according to the printed program) "I Can't Get Started With You" to Judy Canova and the ensemble. When the show opened in Philadelphia (January 14, Forrest Theatre), Canova continued the rôle of the "girl" who paid so little attention to Hope that all she could say was "Good night!" and call for a taxi while he made overtures to her. By the time the show opened in New York, Canova's rôle was given to Eve Arden, who continued in the rôle-of-very-few-words until it was taken over (September 21, 1936) by the actress-of-very-few-clothes, Gypsy Rose Lee, who was serenaded by Bobby Clark (in his first rôle without his partner Paul McCullough) . In the second week of April, 1937, yet another cast change occurred: Gypsy Rose Lee was replaced by Marian Martin, who also did a strip number. On April 13, 1936 a recording of "I Can't Get Started" was made by trumpeter-and-sometimes-singer Bunny Berigan. Even though this was issued (on the bargain-priced 10" diameter Vocalion label, number 3225) at a time when phonograph record sales were just coming out of their Great Depression "slump," it remains today an elusive recording. Berigan wasn't the first to record the song (the smooth crooner "Red" McKenzie made a Decca record of it 10 days before Berigan). One of the most popular records of the following year was Bunny Berigan's special 12" RCA-Victor record (number 36208) of "I Can't Get Started," recorded August 7, 1937, more than a year after his first recording of the song. It proved to be so popular, an edited version (then an uncommon practice in the recording business) was issued as a 10" record (Victor 25728 and later 20-1500), and subsequently it was pressed during World War II on the 12" "V-Disc" label, for the entertainment of the military. If Bunny Berigan were alive today, he could rightly claim to have been the person who made the song popular, beginning in 1937. Without his record, "I Can't Get Started" might have remained as forgotten as other published songs from the show, such as "That Moment of Moments" or "Words Without Music." (To the delight of Ira Gershwin and Vernon Duke, pianist Eddy Duchin, who led a very popular society orchestra, recorded those two songs for RCA-Victor.)