Washington and Lee Swing

The Washington and Lee Swing is the official fight song of Washington & Lee University. Before it morphed into a swing, Dixieland and bluegrass standard, "The Washington and Lee Swing" was one of the most well known — and widely borrowed — football marches ever written, according to Robert Lissauer's "Encyclopedia of Popular Music in America." Schools and colleges from Tulane to Slippery Rock copied it (sometimes with attribution). It was written in 1910 by Mark W. Sheafe, '06, Clarence A. (Tod) Robbins, '11, and Thornton W. Allen, '13. It has been recorded by virtually [http://wlubookstore.collegestoreonline.com/ePOS/form=robots/item.html&item_number=M102&store=425&design=425# every important jazz and swing musician] , including Glenn Miller (with Tex Beneke on vocals), Louis Armstrong, Kay Kyser, Hal Kemp and the Dukes of Dixieland. "The Swing" was a trademark of the New Orleans showman Pete Fountain. The trumpeter Red Nichols played it (and Danny Kaye pretended to play it) in the 1959 movie [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052809/ "The Five Pennies.] " ( [http://www.bizpubs.com/swing.mp3 Here] is an audio excerpt from a 1944 recording by Jan Garber, a prominent dance-band leader of the era. [http://www.wtv-zone.com/REMEMBERTHEN/midis15/washingtonandleeswing.midi Here] is a download file (MIDI) of the school song from D & D's Music Hall.

The "Swing" was parodied in " [http://www.bizpubs.com/dummy.mp3 The Dummy Song] " by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson. [who also wrote "Birth of the Blues," "Bye Bye Blackbird," "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries." "You're the Cream in My Coffee" and "Keep Your Skirts Down, Mary Ann")] "Dummy" was recorded by NRBQ, [http://www.napster.com/search/results.html?type=Track&query=dummy+song Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima] and Glenn Miller's vocal jazz group, the Modernaires, among many others, and was used in the movie "You've Got Mail."

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