"Heart and Soul" is a popular song composed by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Frank Loesser. It charted with different artists between 1938 and 1961. A simplified version is a popular piano duet.
Musical format
The song's A-section is often simplified as a repeating I-vi-IV-V progression and taught to beginning piano students as an easy two-hand duet (), with one person playing the bass and another playing the melody.
Like the piece "Chopsticks", this version became widely known, even to those who never studied piano, and is sometimes mistakenly thought to be a folk tune. The chord progression, often referred to as the "50s progression", was employed in the doo-wop hits of the 1950s and 1960s.
Early versions
In 1938, it was first recorded and released by Larry Clinton and his orchestra with vocals by Bea Wain. Their performance was filmed. That same year Al Bowlly recorded the song with Geraldo and his orchestra.
In 1939, three versions reached the music charts: Larry Clinton (No. 1), Eddy Duchin (No. 12), and Al Donahue (No. 16). A version by The Four Aces with the Jack Pleis Orchestra reached No. 11 in 1952, and a version by Johnny Maddox reached No. 57 in 1956. In 1961, The Cleftones version reached No. 18 and the one by Jan and Dean reached No. 25.
The Cleftones version
The Cleftones succeeded with a rhythm and blues rearrangement of the song in 1961. After the release on April 17, 1961, "Heart and Soul" reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July of that year, making this song The Cleftones' most popular work.
In 1959, the Cleftones' manager, George Goldner, convinced the group that their future resided in re-recording existing songs with an established popularity. By this time, Charles James had grown more proficient on the guitar, and the group and Goldner used that to develop a new arrangement of the piece.
At that time, a local prominent disc jockey set up a recording session in Rochester, New York, to record "Heart and Soul" and, arranged for singer Pat Spann's boyfriend Panama Francis to play drums and 15-year-old/future Grammy Award winner Duane Hitchings to play keyboards. At the recording session, the group was presented with a rearrangement of "Heart and Soul" that was more formal than they had practiced. The group added unexpected rhythms to give the song a syncopated feel.
"Heart and Soul" sat undistributed until 1961. In early April of that year, Roulette Records president Morris Levy reactivated New York-based American record label Gee Records as a division of Roulette Records and made "Heart and Soul" the reactivated label's first release. That same month, American news magazine Billboard Music Week review panel listed "The Cleftones; Heart and Soul (Famous, ASCAP) (1:52) Gee" as one of seventeen "Pick Hits" from all songs released in the week of April 17, 1961. Under its "Spotlight Winners of the Week" column, Billboard identified the song as having the strongest sales potential of all records reviewed for the week, commenting on The Cleftones and "Heart and Soul",
On July 3, 1961, "Heart and Soul" reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 R&B chart. The recording eventually sold approximately 350,000 copies for Gee/Roulette.
In 1973, the Cleftones version was used in the movie American Graffiti. It is also featured in the 1985 coming-of-age comedy Mischief.
Music critic Terry Atkinson of the Palm Beach Post noted in 1990 that "Heart and Soul" is the song for which the Cleftones are best remembered. In 1999, American music critic Dave Marsh listed The Cleftones' "Heart and Soul" as number 913 in his book, The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.
In 2012, American author and essayist Ray Schuck noted that the lyrics, "Well, I know that you're in love with him, 'cause I saw you dancing in the gym/You both kicked off your shoes – man, I dig those rhythm and blues." —from Don McLean's song "American Pie might be a vague reference to the Cleftones' 1961 rhythm and blues song, "Heart and Soul." In his essay, Schuck argued that such a reference would "segue nicely into the verses comprising the remainder of this stanza, albeit with a disappointing outcome."