Shoe Shine Boy

One of Cahn and Chaplin’s earliest successes, written for the Cotton Club revue and recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1936. The song helped establish the young songwriting duo’s reputation in New York’s vibrant jazz scene, and getting Armstrong to record it was a significant early coup.

A joyful, rhythmically irresistible number that shows Cahn finding his voice in the swing era — loose, conversational, and impossible to sit still to.