Limehouse Blues is a British popular song with music by Philip Braham and lyrics by Douglas Furber, both London-based, and it became a jazz standard. It evokes Limehouse, the district considered London's Chinatown before World War II, with Chinese references in both lyrics and melody.
It premiered in the 1921 West End revue A to Z, where Teddie Gerard sang it in a wordless melodramatic number set in a Limehouse dance hall. Gertrude Lawrence, who replaced Beatrice Lillie in the show, was given the number and encored it when she made her 1924 Broadway debut in André Charlot's Revue, where it became a showstopper and made her a Broadway star.
Early recordings include Red Nichols with Scrappy Lambert (1928) and the Mills Brothers (1934). It was most recorded as an instrumental jazz standard, by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie and others. Film uses include Harry James in Young Man with a Horn (1950) and Julie Andrews singing it in Star! (1968).
