“Blue Skies” – By Irving Berlin.

This song was introduced by stage singer Belle Baker in the 1926 Rodgers and Hart Zigfield musical Betsy. Belle didn’t like the solo piece Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart had composed for her, so she went to her friend Irving Berlin to see if he had something suitable. He had just completed “Blue Skies” which he dedicated to his newborn daughter, Mary Ellin. Belle loved the song and it was inserted into the musical without Rodgers’ and Hart’s permission! On opening night she received 24 encores, but unfortunately the show closed after only a month.
This song was one of the most popular tunes of 1926, with many recorded versions. It was featured in the movie The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson. This movie has the distinction of being the first “talkie,” a motion picture with a sound track. It made the movies again in 1938 in Alexander’s Ragtime Band, a biopic about Mr. Berlin; again in 1946 in Blue Skies starring Bing Crosby; then again in 1954's White Christmas, starring Bing and named for another Irving Berlin song. Fletcher Henderson arranged the song for the Benny Goodman Orchestra and it was performed at their historic 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. There are hundreds of recorded versions of “Blue Skies.”
For more about Irving Berlin, see “How Deep Is the Ocean?”