I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues

For the Sir Roland Hanna and Carrie Smith album, see I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues.

"I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" is a popular song with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Ted Koehler, published in 1932 for the Broadway show Earl Carroll's Vanities (1932).^[1] The song has become a jazz and blues standard. Popular recordings in 1933 and 1934 were those by Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman.^[2]

Notable recordings

• Ethel Merman (September 29, 1932) (her first solo date and the first recording of the song, backed by Nat Shilkret's orchestra)
• Cab Calloway & His Orchestra (November 30, 1932 - Brunswick 6460).^[3]
• Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra (January 26, 1933, Bluebird 5173).^[4]
• Lee Wiley & The Dorsey Brothers (March 7, 1933)
• Benny Goodman & His Orchestra (Jack Teagarden, trombone, vocals, October 18, 1933, Columbia 2835D).^[5]
• Louis Armstrong (1937)
• Billie Holiday (recorded on April 20, 1939, Commodore 527A).^[6]
• Jack Teagarden & His Orchestra (1939)
• Lena Horne (1941)
• Billie Holiday - Velvet Mood (1955)^[7]
• Art Tatum - Still More of the Greatest Piano of Them All (1955)^[8]
• Louis Armstrong - I've Got the World on a String (1957)^[9]
• Judy Garland - Alone (1957)^[10]
• Julie London - About the Blues (1957)
• Billy Eckstine - Billy Eckstine's Imagination (1958)
• Sam Cooke - Tribute to the Lady (1959)
• Eileen Farrell - I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues (1960)^[11]
• Frank Sinatra - Sinatra Sings of Love and Things (1962)^[12]
• Judy Holliday & Gerry Mulligan - Holliday with Mulligan (1980)^[13]
• Sarah Vaughan & the Count Basie Orchestra - Send in the Clowns (1981)^[14]