Stormy Weather is a 1933 torch song written by Harold Arlen (music) and Ted Koehler (lyrics). It was first performed by Ethel Waters at the Cotton Club in Harlem in 1933 and recorded with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra for Brunswick that year. The tune also appeared in London sung by Elisabeth Welch and was recorded by Frances Langford, and it was featured in the Cotton Club Parade of 1933 which toured as the Stormy Weather Revue with Adelaide Hall singing the title song. The song has since become a jazz standard and has been recorded by many artists including Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Bob Dylan. Lena Horne’s association with the tune is strong, notably in the 1943 film Stormy Weather, while Ethel Waters’s 1933 recording was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Stormy Weather remains a staple of the American songbook and has appeared on numerous albums and film soundtracks across decades.
