Dedicated to Sister Irma--- Louis Armstrong singing What a Wonderful World!
"What a Wonderful World" is a song written by Bob Thiele (as George Douglas) and George David Weiss. It was first recorded by Louis Armstrong and released as a single in 1968. Thiele and Weiss were both prominent in the music world (Thiele as a producer and Weiss as a composer/performer). Some have suggested that pianist Dana Pelkie collaborated on the song using "George Douglas" as a pseudonym, but this has never been confirmed. This pseudonym is also known to relate to Thiele. Armstrong's recording was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
Intended as an antidote for the increasingly racially and politically charged climate of everyday life in the United States, the song also has a hopeful, optimistic tone with regard to the future, with reference to babies being born into the world and having much to look forward to. The song was initially offered to Tony Bennett, who turned the song down. [1] Thereafter, it was offered to Louis Armstrong. The song was not initially a hit in the United States, where it sold fewer than 1,000 copies because the head of ABC Records did not like the song and so did not promote it, but was a major success in the United Kingdom, reaching number one on the UK singles chart. In the U.S. the song hit #116 on the Bubbling Under Charts. It was also the biggest-selling single of 1968 in the UK where it was also among the last pop singles issued by HMV Records before becoming an exclusive classical music label.[2] The song made Louis Armstrong the oldest male to top the charts, at sixty-six years and ten months old. Armstrong's record was broken in 2009 when the cover of Islands in the Stream recorded for Comic Relief reached number one. One of the featured artists on the song was Tom Jones. [3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Wonder...
Intended as an antidote for the increasingly racially and politically charged climate of everyday life in the United States, the song also has a hopeful, optimistic tone with regard to the future, with reference to babies being born into the world and having much to look forward to. The song was initially offered to Tony Bennett, who turned the song down. [1] Thereafter, it was offered to Louis Armstrong. The song was not initially a hit in the United States, where it sold fewer than 1,000 copies because the head of ABC Records did not like the song and so did not promote it, but was a major success in the United Kingdom, reaching number one on the UK singles chart. In the U.S. the song hit #116 on the Bubbling Under Charts. It was also the biggest-selling single of 1968 in the UK where it was also among the last pop singles issued by HMV Records before becoming an exclusive classical music label.[2] The song made Louis Armstrong the oldest male to top the charts, at sixty-six years and ten months old. Armstrong's record was broken in 2009 when the cover of Islands in the Stream recorded for Comic Relief reached number one. One of the featured artists on the song was Tom Jones. [3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Wonder...
Beautiful!!! And AMEN to that!!!!!