My Melancholy Baby is a popular American song published in 1912 with music by Ernie Burnett and lyrics by George A Norton, with Maybelle Watson later added to the credits in royalties disputes. It was first publicly sung by William Frawley in 1912, and the first recording was by Walter Van Brunt (Walter Scanlan) around 1914–1915. The tune carries a melancholic mood and sits in the Jazz and Pop Vocal tradition, becoming a standard widely covered on albums and in film soundtracks. A breakthrough recording came from Gene Austin in 1927 on Victor Records (Victor 21015) with the B-side There’s A Cradle In Carolina. The song has since been recorded by many stars, including Bing Crosby in 1938 and Ella Fitzgerald and Mildred Bailey in later years, and has appeared in films such as The Roaring Twenties (1939) and Birth of the Blues (1941). The copyright story is notable because Maybelle Watson was added to the lyric credits after a 1940 suit.
