You Are My Sunshine

“You Are My Sunshine” is an American standard of Old-time and Country music and one of the official state songs of Louisiana. Its original writer is disputed. According to the performance rights organisation BMI, by the year 2000 the song had been recorded by over 350 artists and translated into 30 languages. Written and recorded as early as 1939, the song was first published and copyrighted in 1940 by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell. Davis went on to be governor of Louisiana from 1944 to 1948 and again from 1960 to 1964, and used the song for his election campaign. In 1977, the Louisiana State Legislature decreed “You Are My Sunshine” the state song in honor of Davis. Its best-known covers include a recording by Johnny Cash in 1989. In 1999, “You Are My Sunshine” was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame award, and the Recording Industry Association of America named it one of the Songs of the Century. In 2003, it was ranked as No. 73 on CMT’s 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music. Earliest performances and recordings “You Are My Sunshine” Single by the Pine Ridge Boys. Songwriter(s) Doug Spivey, Marv Taylor The Pine Ridge Boys (Marv Taylor and Doug Spivey) recorded the song under the title “You Are My Sunshine” on August 22, 1939, and released it on October 6, 1939, for Bluebird Records. The song was recorded in Atlanta, Georgia, where the Pine Ridge Boys were from. No songwriter was listed. The Rice Brothers’ Gang recorded the song next for Decca, on September 13, 1939, and released it the following month. This group was originally from Northern Georgia but relocated to Shreveport, Louisiana, where they performed on the radio station KWKH. The songwriter was listed as “Paul Rice”. Paul and Hoke Rice sold the music to Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell shortly before 1940. On January 30, 1940, “You Are My Sunshine” was copyrighted by Davis and Mitchell and published by Southern Music Publishing Co., Inc. of New York. The pair recorded the song on February 5, 1940, at Decca Studios in New York. Both received song-writing credit and when the copyright was renewed on February 2, 1967, both of their names were on it.[15] Southern Music Publishing Co., Inc. is still run by the Peer Family, though BMI now lists it under American Performing Rights Society, Inc., also known by its acronym, APRS, c/o Peermusic. According to a November 1990 article by Theodore Pappas, in Chronicles Magazine, the true writer of the song was Oliver Hood of LaGrange, Georgia. The name of the article is “The Theft of an American Classic”. He asserts that Davis never actually claimed authorship because he bought the song, along with all the rights, from Paul Rice before copyrighting and publishing—a practice not uncommon in the pre-World War II music business. Though some early versions of the song credit the Rice Brothers, descendants, and associates of Oliver Hood, a musician who collaborated with Rice, state that Hood wrote the song in the early 1930s and first performed it in 1933, at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention at LaGrange.
A newspaper article in the Shreveport Times related, “On a day in 1939—no one seems to remember the exact date—Charles Mitchell and Jimmie Davis called the station KWKH to see Paul Rice (who was playing there at the time). Paul’s wife was in the hospital and he needed cash to pay her bills. He sold ‘Sunshine’ to Davis and Mitchell for $35. Each put in $17.50.” Paul Rice said, “I wrote ‘You Are My Sunshine’ in 1937. Where I got the idea for it, a girl over in South Carolina wrote me this long letter—it was long about seventeen pages. And she was talking about how I was her sunshine. I got the idea for the song and put a tune to it.” According to Rice, “At least 20 people claimed to have written ‘You Are My Sunshine’. I had a gal write me from California that she wrote it.”
Davis lived to be 101 years old and gave several conflicting accounts. When interviewed by Dorothy Horstman for her 1975 book Sing Your Heart Out Country Boy, he didn’t claim authorship of the song, but instead related its history of popularity. Tony Russell states, “Though Mitchell’s name appears on the copyright listing, he had already sold his half-share to Davis.” This is not reflected in the records of the United States Copyright Archives, which give the name, date and renewal number, “Charles Mitchell (A); 2Feb67; R403742”.