Robert Waltrip Short

 Robert Waltrip Short (September 15, 1924 – March 21, 2005)

Short was a cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Richard A. Whiting, Vernon Duke, Noël Coward and George and Ira Gershwin. He also championed African-American composers of the same period such as Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, presenting their work not in a critical way, but as simply the obvious equal of that of their white contemporaries. His dedication to his great love – what he called the "Great American Song" – left him equally adept at performing the witty lyrics of Bessie Smith's "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)" or Gershwin and Duke's "I Can't Get Started". Short stated his favorite songwriters were Ellington, Arlen and Kern, and he was instrumental in spearheading the construction of the Ellington Memorial in New York City. In 1971 Short published "Black and White Baby", a brilliant description of his childhood upbringing in the dance halls and saloons of Chicago and New York, and his family's fight for survival after the death of his father. He followed with "Bobby Short: The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer" in 1995 chronicling his career into the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Short continued his career in the 1970s and 1980s singing for films and television. In 1986, he appeared in the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters. Allen later used Short's recording of "I Happen to Like New York" for the opening title of Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). On March 21, 2005, Short died of leukemia at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is buried in Atherton Cemetery in Danville, Illinois, the city of his birth.