Shine (originally titled That's Why They Call Me Shine) is a popular song with lyrics by Cecil Mack and Tin Pan Alley songwriter Lew Brown and music by Ford Dabney. It was published in 1910 by Gotham-Attucks and used by Ada Walker in His Honor the Barber, an African-American road show.
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It was later recorded by jazz and jazz influenced artists such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Harry James, and Frankie Laine, usually without the explanatory introduction. It also featured as one of the songs sung by Sam (Dooley Wilson) and the band at Rick's Cafe in the movie Casablanca. According to Perry Bradford, himself a songster and publisher, the song was written about an actual man named Shine who was with George Walker when they were badly beaten during the New York City race riot of 1900.
Bing Crosby recorded the song with The Mills Brothers in 1932, issued on Brunswick Records 11376=A, a 78 rpm record.
As a member of The Hoboken Four, Frank Sinatra sang this song in 1935 on Major Bowes Amateur Hour.
John William Sublett (aka John W. Bubbles) animates "Shine" brilliantly in a song-and-dance number in the 1943 movie Cabin in the Sky.
Albert Nicholas, clarinet, with The Big Chief Jazz Band recorded it in Oslo on August 29, 1955. Released on the 78 rpm record Philips P 53037 H.
Anne Murray included this song on her 1976 Capitol Records album, Keeping In Touch.
Ry Cooder recorded the song complete with introduction in 1978.
Spanish vocal quartet Los Rosillo, recorded a Spanish version, with the original spoken intro, in their debut album in 1988.
Louis Armstrong version
The song was performed in a film short Rhapsody in Black and Blue by Armstrong. A 1931 recording by Armstrong with his Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra is a subset of the complete lyric of the 1910 version and the expanded later version, with added scat singing and long instrumental ending:
SHINE (That's Why They Call Me Shine) (Cecil Mack, Lew Brown)
Ry Cooder version with original introduction
On his 1978 album Jazz, Ry Cooder performed the song in a "52nd Street" small band setting, with the introductory verse that explains what the song is all about. He noted that it had been written in 1910 near the end of the "Coon song era", and described it as a unique comment on the black face sensibilities of that genre.