Kansas Joe McCoy wrote this jazz standard and recorded it with the Harlem Hamfats and then rewrote it five years later. The original song was subtitled 'Why Don’t You Do Now' and the rewrite was titled 'Why Don’t You Do Right?'
http://www.mccoybrotherstribute.com/
http://www.mccoybrotherstribute.com/
Sittin’ on a million
Sittin’ on it every day
Can’t make no money givin’ your
stuff away
Why don’t you do now
like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market
And make a million too
Fay's a betting woman
She bets on every hand
She's a trickin' mother for you every-
where she land
Why don’t you do now
like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market
And make a million too
May's a good-lookin' frail
She lives down by the jail
On her back though she got
hot stuff for sale
Why don’t you do now
like the millionaires do
Put your stuff on the market
And make a million too
'Why Don't You Do Right?' was recorded by Lillian "Lil" Green featuring Big Bill Bronzy on guitar in 1941.
A year later Peggy Lee did a version with Benny Goodman and it made it to number four on the charts and sold over a million copies. Lee confessed, “I was and am a fan of Lil Green, a great old blues singer, and Lil recorded it. I used to play that record over and over in my dressing room, which was next door to Benny’s. Finally he said, ‘You obviously like that song.’ I said ‘Oh, I love it.’ He said ‘Would you like me to have an arrangement made of it?’ I said, ‘I’d love that,’ and he did.”
In 1988, Amy Irving sang this version for Jessica Rabbit in the film 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'
You had plenty money, 1922
You let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too
You're sittin' down and wonderin' what it's all about
You ain't got no money, they will put you out
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too
If you had prepared twenty years ago
You wouldn't be a-wanderin' from door to door
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too
I fell for your jivin' and I took you in
Now all you got to offer me's a drink of gin
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Like some other men do
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