Sometimes (not very often) the most ravishingly beautiful songs turn out to have had positively strange - if not weird -origins! This song is one of them. As its story unwinds, it is impossible to imagine how some bizarre manifestations of human behavior could have ended up triggering this song's composition. Now that I have your attention - read on !!

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Margaret Whiting was the older daughter of the famed songwriter, Richard Whiting.   She became famous in her own right and was the featured vocalist on Capitol Records' smash hit, Moonlight in Vermont.   As a celebrity, she led an extremely active social life, which included four marriages.   One of her four husbands was the pianist Lou Busch, who was known professionally as Joe "Fingers" Carr. (Margaret was always quick to acknowledge her fondness for piano players!) It was on a date with a famous Café Society pianist, Walter Gross,* that   a series of unusual happenings occurred which ultimately produced an incredibly beautiful song!

Margaret and Walter had been double dating with another couple and after a night of dining and drinking were calling it a day.   As they traversed the George Washington Bridge (with Walter at the wheel) Margaret remarked how she had always loved piano players, and mentioned another pianist, Skitch Henderson (who was to become the bandleader on Steve Allen's TV show.)

The mere mention of the name, "Skitch Henderson" had an immediate and startling effect on Walter Gross's behavior!   He flew into a rage and began to drive in a way which thoroughly frightened the car's other three occupants. At last, they managed to calm him down and things returned to nearly normal.                              

Later, having dropped off the other couple, Gross and Margaret arrived at her place. Congeniality seemed to have returned, so he asked her if he might come in for a drink" and she acquiesced.

As Margaret was pouring a drink for him, Walter apologized for the way he had acted. She felt relieved and replied that she just couldn't understand how he could have gotten so upset when he merely heard the name" "Skitch Henderson""  

She had no sooner gotten the name out of her mouth, when Gross leapt to his feet and began another tirade, and appeared to be on the verge of becoming violent! Margaret was finally able to pacify the enraged man enough to ease him out through the front door.

Getting to sleep was not easy for her, and after she had slept for a few hours she was startled to hear her doorbell ringing.   She opened the door, and there stood a tearful Walter Gross, who murmured that   ""he didn't want to come in" he simply had something he wanted her to have."    He thereupon thrust a sheet of paper into her hands and left.

It was a sheet of music paper, and written upon it was an original melody that he apparently had just finished composing!

Later, when Margaret was able to hear the melody played by her personal pianist, she was astonished by its beauty!   She decided that she had to get this marvelous melody into the hands of   "the right lyricist."   (That person turned out to be Jack Lawrence, a friend, and highly successful writer of hit songs.)

When Lawrence returned the melody with its completed lyrics some weeks later, it turned out to be a song destined to be an all-time great standard!

The song?   TENDERLY   !!

* When I found about this tale, I was doubly amazed!   Walter Gross had always been one of my favorite pianists and as a kid, I listened on Sunday afternoons to the radio program, Piano Playhouse - presided over by Milton Cross.   Gross shared the ticket with other great pianists such as Cy Walter and Stan Freeman.   

And then, in 1998, I had the thrill of visiting the great Margaret at her NYC residence and actually playing on her dad's Steinway, while gazing at the sheet music of his hit songs on her living room wall!   She was a gracious, very funny and genuinely beautiful person!

Authors Bio:
I have spent a long and interesting life involved in music, as a performer (piano,) educator (at every level from elementary to graduate school,) solo pianist, bandleader, composer/songwriter; entertainer, storyteller and humorist.

In my final position as a teacher, I taught functional keyboard harmony at Onondaga Community College at Syracuse, N.Y. I earned a B.S. in music education at the Crane Department of music at SUNY Potsdam and a M.S. in music education at Ithaca College.

I also had the honor of serving as president of the New York School Music Association. After retiring from music education I have performed extensively, presenting musical programs which featured stories about the great standards, coupled with performance. These performances were facilitated by my having a repertoire of over 3,000 songs, coupled with extensive knowledge of their origins, which included many humorous stories.

In the last decade, I have worked with a songwriting partner, Maria DeAngelis, a vocalist who provided lyrics and performances of our tunes. We succeeded in having many of our songs used both in movies and network television as background music.

As a bandleader, I was involved in playing with my group for over 1,500 wedding receptions. Because of this extensive experience, I was motivated to write a book WEDDING RECEPTION SECRETS, which provided much valuable and "inside" information (from the viewpoint of a bandleader) for couples who were planning their wedding. Along the way, I composed music for a syndicated children's TV series.
I was the first of four children, born to my Mom and Dad in Saranac Lake, N.Y. Both of my parents, although untrained, had wonderful musical ears. I and my siblings inherited their musical sensitivities.

One can see from the foregoing that I had ample opportunities to enjoy music from several vantage points. I am 83 years old and happy to say that I continue to be very active. I attribute much of my good health to my interest in information in the area of healthy living and care. For the past fifteen years, I have undergone EDTA chelation therapy. I believe my longevity is related to that.

In addition to the foregoing, I must add my deep concern with today's course of events in the world. I've always been interested in politics and what factors are responsible for what is happening in the world.

I sense, with deep sadness, a degradation of manners, morals and public awareness. My gut feeling is that television has been misused, and become a device that Aldous Huxley would have given a prominent role in his BRAVE NEW WORLD.

I have many favorite quotations, but the one that is most profound, in my opinion, is one by Albert Einstein: "WITH THE SPLITTING OF THE ATOM, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED EXCEPT OUR WAY OF THINKING." *

* In the summer of 1944, I was boatboy at a private consortium of six summer homes on Lower Saranac Lake (The Knollwood.) The occupant of Cottage 6 was Albert Einstein.
I saw him several times over the course of that summer. To me (in retrospect) that was an awesome experience!

Phil Klein