Bess, You Is My Woman Now is a love duet from the Gershwins' 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. In the opera, Porgy and his beloved Bess declare their love and say they now belong together. The piece was first performed live by Anne Wiggins Brown and Todd Duncan on September 30, 1935, and the first studio recording was made July 19, 1935 under Gershwin's direction; the first record release followed in 1939 with Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson. The tune has been covered many times and appears on notable albums such as Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's Porgy and Bess (1958), Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte's Porgy and Bess (1959), and Barbra Streisand's medley I Loves You Porgy / Porgy, I's Your Woman Now on The Broadway Album (1985). Critics have praised it for its emotional depth, with Carlton Jones calling it the most beautiful duet in American folk music and Geoffrey Block noting its dramatic moment of shared optimism for the couple's future.
