Straighten Up and Fly Right is a 1944 swing jazz standard performed by The King Cole Trio - one of Nat King Cole's first vocal hits - written by Nat King Cole and Irving Mills. It was released as a Capitol Records single (Capitol 154) on April 14, 1944, after being recorded November 30, 1943 in Hollywood. The song is based on a Black folk tale about a buzzard and a monkey, and its harmony borrows from I Got Rhythm. It topped the Harlem Hit Parade for ten nonconsecutive weeks and reached number nine on the pop charts, while also leading for six nonconsecutive weeks on the Most Played Jukebox Hillbilly Records. A notable cover by The Andrews Sisters reached number eight in 1944. The publishing rights story - Cole sold his share for fifty dollars to Mills and later tried to regain them - is part of its history. The track appeared in the film Here Comes Elmer and has since been widely covered; NASA's Perseverance rover even performed a 'Straighten Up and Fly Right' maneuver during descent. Album: originally released as a single; later included on Nat King Cole compilation albums.
