This song comes from the Gershwins' opera Porgy and Bess (1935) where it is sung by the main character Porgy and his beloved Bess.
Also, one of America's greatest composers, George Gershwin, used a Cunningham Piano to write his opera "Porgy and Bess" in Folly Beach, South Carolina.
The protagonist of the Firesign Theatre album Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers was named George Leroy Tirebiter, after the dog, and that album's movie-within-a-play, "High School Madness," featured a boy named Porgy Tirebiter.
Porgy and Bess was written by a white composer, George Gershwin, for an all-black cast.
In 1963, in a studio recording of Porgy and Bess featuring Leontyne Price and William Warfield, he performed Sportin' Life's two main arias from the opera, "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "There's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York".
The Littlehead porgy was described in 1884 by the ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and Charles Henry Gilbert, who were both professors (Jordan later became president) of Stanford University.
She was to appear with that company many times through 1991, including appearances in L'enfant et les sortilèges (as the Fire, directed by John Dexter), the Centennial Gala (the duet from Don Giovanni), La bohème (as Musetta, opposite Plácido Domingo), Les contes d'Hoffmann (as Antonia, conducted by Julius Rudel), Porgy and Bess (as Clara), L'italiana in Algeri (as Elvira) and Don Giovanni (as Zerlina).
This studio recording originated as several semi-staged performances which took place on February 24 and 25, 2006 at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, with Alvy Powell as Porgy, Marquita Lister as Bess, Nicole Cabell as Clara and Robert Mack as Sportin' Life.
The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is an album by American jazz group the Modern Jazz Quartet performing the score to George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess recorded in 1964-65 and released on the Atlantic label.
He numbered among his credits Broadway appearances in "Show Boat", Carmen Jones", "Finian's Rainbow" and "Porgy and Bess". Member of The Belafonte Folk Singers and The Phoenix Singers. Appeared with Belafonte on many concerts over the years, notably heard as background voice in "Try To Remember".
Notable descendants include Duncan Clinch Heyward, twice elected Governor of South Carolina (1903-07) and 1937 published author of “Seed of Madagascar”, which relates the story of his rice-planting family; and DuBose Heyward, whose 1920’s novel and later stage play “Porgy”, portrayed blacks without condescension, and was transformed by George Gershwin into the popular opera “Porgy and Bess”, an American musical masterpiece.
The lyrics are by DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel Porgy on which the opera was based, although the song is also co-credited to Ira Gershwin by ASCAP.