Ray Gilbert: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Antonio Carlos Jobim
• Lew Pollack
• Allie Wrubel
• Hoagy Carmichael
• Jett Powers
• Kid Ory

Born:

Sep 5, 1912 in Hartford, CT

Died:

Mar 3, 1976 in Los Angeles, CA

Genres:

Music, Standards & Vocal Music, Classical Music, Traditional Pop Vocal Music

Decades Active:

1940's|1950's|1960's

From the 1940s through the 1960s, lyricist Ray Gilbert wrote songs made famous by pop vocalists and Disney features, and translated many of Antonio Carlos Jobim's songs into English. Some of the many Jobim songs Gilbert translated include "Dindi," "Amor em Paz" ("Once I Loved"), "Samba Torto" ("Pardon My English"), "Por Causa de Você" ("Don't Ever Go Away"), "Esperança Perdida" ("I Was Just One More for You"), and "Inútil Paisagem" ("Useless Landscape"). In addition to Jobim's songs, Gilbert also translated songwriter Osvaldo Farres and "Mexico's Cole Porter," Agustín Lara. Besides his translations, some of Gilbert's most famous songs are "Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue-Bonnet," sung by the Andrews Sisters, "A Ballad in Blue," sung by Andy Russell (both for a 1946 Disney features), "And Roses and Roses" (1965), "The Face I Love" (1966), and "You Belong to My Heart." His songs are heard in the 1940s Disney productions The Three Caballeros (1944), Song of the South (1946), and Make Mine Music, and in the films The Gay Ranchero (1948), Nancy Goes to Rio (1950), and Mr. Imperium (1951). Gilbert's lyrics have also been performed and recorded by Bing Crosby with Xavier Cugat His Orchestra, Jackie Wilson, Julie London, Nat "King" Cole, Perry Como, and many more. Over the years, Gilbert collaborated with several composers, including Hoagy Carmichael (the duo had a hit with 1943's "Drip Drop"), Kid Ory (who co-wrote "Muskrat Ramble"), Jett Powers (teamed up with Gilbert in 1958 on the rocker "Go Girls Go" and its B-side ballad "Teenage Quarrel"), and Lew Pollack.

- Joslyn Layne, All Music Guide