Husband, friend penned song... ("Devil May Care")

[Bud]

http://www.star-gazette.com/apps/pbcs.d ... 50302/1035

Gloria and Terrell Kirk settled into an $18-a-month Manhattan apartment in the early 1950s after buying the previous tenant's furniture for $500.

"When other apartments became empty, we let our friends know and got them into the building," Gloria Kirk said.

One friend was Arkansas-born, Texas-raised Bob Dorough, today a still-vibrant performer at age 83, but then a fledgling jazz singer, pianist and composer. (See www. bobdorough.com).

"Well, 333 East 75th had musicians on the first, second, fourth and fifth floors," said Dorough by e-mail from his home in Mount Bethel, Pa., near Stroudsburg. "I was on four, and Terrell and Gloria were on two."

Songwriting intrigued Terrell, or "TP" as Dorough called him.

"He would appear at my door many mornings, coffee cup in hand, to trade ideas with me," Dorough said. "We got on a kick of trying to write songs that would sell, and we'd both go down to the Brill Building (the hub of the music publishing industry) to try and sell these songs."

One morning, Kirk hummed a melody for Dorough, saying it's called "Devil May Care." Research revealed six songs under that title, all with variations of "you don't love me anymore, you're so devil may care."

"I said we'll write a different one," Dorough recalled. The collaboration -- both contributed words and music -- resulted in a recording by Don Forbes, a singer with the Les Elgart band.

"TP and I were ecstatic," Dorough said. "Our song was copyrighted in 1952 or 1953 and although we wrote several songs together, none of the others were ever recorded."

"Devil May Care" became a jazz standard, recorded in the 1960s by singer Teri Thornton and trumpet great Miles Davis. More recently, the tune appears on four albums by acclaimed vocalist Diana Krall and releases by British artists Claire Martin and Jamie Cullum.

Dorough produced a 1956 album, "Devil May Care," that included the title song written with Kirk. Miles Davis heard the record at a mutual friend's home in Los Angeles, and he and Dorough met for the first time.

"Back in New York City, in 1962, he asked me to write him a Christmas song and I wrote one called 'Blue Xmas,'" Dorough said. "Whenever Miles and I were at the same party or at his house, he'd ask me to sing for him."

Davis recorded "Blue Xmas" and another Dorough song, "Nothing Like You," and then an instrumental version of "Devil May Care."

According to Dorough, Elgart never paid royalties to him or Kirk for authoring "Devil May Care."

"After 28 years, I exercised the U.S. copyright laws and got the song in my own firm," Dorough said.

As a result, Gloria Kirk still receives royalty checks for the song -- enough, she said, to pay a fairly hefty dental bill.