from-the-collection-of-michael-feinstein

Curator's Note:

I began collecting when I was five years old. My parents would take me to second-hand stores in Columbus, OH where I could buy old 78 records for a nickel apiece; and even though I could barely read the labels, I would take home as many as my weekly allowance could afford and savor them in my basement lair. Admittedly at that age I was hardly a connoisseur, but even then I loved the sounds of those old songs and was captivated by the emotions and ideas and even the vibrations that emanated so magically from that plain black disk. As I grew older and began making music myself I became increasingly curious about where it came from. Who wrote it? How was it notated and arranged and published and recorded? Who were the people who performed it, and what made them so great?

-Michael Feinstein

Michael Feintstein's American Songbook airs October 6, 13 and 20 on PBS.

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Feinstein's Collection: My Intuition

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“My Intuition” (music by Harry Warren and lyric by Johnny Mercer) sung by Margaret Whiting in an unreleased recording that was given to Michael Feinstein by Harry Warren in 1980.

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Michael Feinstein writes:

Among the musical casualties of the MGM musical film "The Harvey Girls" is a delightful song by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer called "My Intuition." It was recorded and filmed featuring Judy Garland and John Hodiak but was cut before the film's release. The outtake footage of the number exists as does the soundtrack. Harry and Johnny wrote a first rate score for "The Harvey Girls" and won an Academy Award for their song "On The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe."

Both Harry and Johnny were partial to this orphaned musical child, because in 1971 when Johnny performed an evening of his own songs at the New York YMHA, he asked Margaret Whiting to sing it. In 1980, Harry Warren gave me a vintage 1940s acetate copy of a rendition of the same song, again sung by Margaret Whiting, that never saw the light of day. Evidently, when the song was cut from the film, any exploitation of the number ceased and there were no commercial recordings of it offered to the public at the time of the film’s release. Margaret recalled the song clearly when I asked her about it years later and sang the whole thing by heart. She is in fine voice here and the song deserves to live.

PBS ARTS GALLERY

Exhibition Playlist

Feinstein's Collection: My Intuition