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Arlen: Stormy Weather

Before moving to the West Coast to work in pictures, Harold Arlen's job at the Cotton Club nightclub in Harlem frequently led him to write songs for top African-American performers.

"Stormy Weather," one of Arlen's best-known songs, was originally written for the Cotton Club in 1933, but it was still popular enough ten years later to become the title song for a film musical.

In the film "Stormy Weather," this bluesy torch-song is sung by the luminous Lena Horne, who plays the off-again, on-again love interest of tap-dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

While in some ways the film was a fictionalized retelling of Robinson's rise to stardom, it's more immediate purpose was as a vehicle for some jaw-dropping song-and-dance acts.

Music Heard On This Episode

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