Tuxedo Junction

This big band standard started life as an instrumental. Credited initially to Erskine Hawkins, Bill Johnson and Julian Dash, Hawkins introduced it with his Orchestra. A new arrangement by Glenn Miller released in 1940 was far more popular. The sheet music was published by Lewis Music Publishing, and at some point, someone at the company decided to record a vocal version. A number of lyricists were approached for this task, and one of them, Buddy Fayne, had the bright idea of asking Hawkins why he had called it "Tuxedo Junction." The real Tuxedo Juction was a colloquialism for the area in the Ensley suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, a club vased in the Nixon Building and Tuxedo Park. This venue was on the Chitlin' Circuit, which was a mainstay of black performers in the segregated Deep South.

"Tuxedo Junction" has been widely performed and recorded both as an instrumental and as a song. Perhaps the most notable film version is the 1954 biopic The Glenn Miller Story which saw James Stewart playing the lead opposite June Allyson.