Having' fun with You Are My Sunshine
"You Are My Sunshine" is a popular song recorded by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell[1] and first recorded in 1939. It has been declared one of the state songs of Louisiana because of its association with Davis, a country music singer and former governor of the state.
The song has been covered numerous times — so often, in fact, that it is "one of the most commercially programmed numbers in American popular music."[2] The song, originally country music, has "virtually lost" its original country music identity, and "represent[s] both the national flowering of country music and its eventual absorption into the mainstream of American popular culture.”[2] In 1941, it was covered by Gene Autry, Bing Crosby, Mississippi John Hurt and Lawrence Welk.[2] In subsequent years, it was covered by Nat King Cole (1955), The Marcels, (1961), Ray Charles, Ike and Tina Turner, The Rivingtons (1962), Frank Turner, Aretha Franklin, Anne Murray, Johnny Cash, Brian Wilson, Mouse and the Traps, Gene Vincent, Jamey Johnson, Low, Andy Williams, and Johnny and the Hurricanes, amongst many others.[2]
The 1940 version by Davis has been added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress on March 21, 2013 for long-term preservation.[3]
Virginia Shehee, a long-time Davis family friend and member of the Louisiana State Senate from 1976 to 1980, introduced legislation to make "You Are My Sunshine" the official state song.[4]
