Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?): History and Key Facts

"Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)" (often called simply "Lover Man") is a 1941 popular song written by Jimmy Davis, Roger ("Ram") Ramirez, and James Sherman. It is particularly associated with Billie Holiday, for whom it was written, and her version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1989.

Holiday's version reached No. 5 on the R&B chart and No. 16 on pop in 1945. In July 1946, Charlie Parker recorded a rendition of "Lover Man" while he was intoxicated. Dial Records producer Ross Russell had to hold him up to the microphone during the recording. Sonny Stitt played the song many times on alto saxophone in a virtuoso way, in the original key of D flat. Most jazz musicians, nevertheless, play the song in the key of F. Barbra Streisand recorded a version for her album Simply Streisand in 1967, and her version peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.