Who was the first artist to record "You Are My Sunshine"?

Answer 1

Definitely Errol Gardner!

Answer 2

"You Are My Sunshine" is a popular song first recorded about 1940. It has been declared one of the state songs of Louisiana as a result of its association with former state governor and country music star Jimmie Davis.

Davis and Charles Mitchell are the credited songwriters of "You Are My Sunshine". According to many sources, Davis bought the song and rights from Paul Rice and put his own name on it, a practice not uncommon in the pre-World War II music business. Some early versions of the song do credit the Rice Brothers. According to some accounts, clarinetist Pud Brown also had a hand with the Rice Brothers in the song's origin or first arrangement.

Davis said that for some time he had been enthusiastic about the song and had unsuccessfully tried to convince record companies to record it before finally making his own 1940 record of the song. Davis's version was popular and was followed by numerous other versions, including those of Bing Crosby and Gene Autry, which made the number a big hit.

Davis played up his association with the song when running for governor, singing it at all his campaign rallies and riding on a horse named "Sunshine". Jimmie Davis's authorized biography, You Are My Sunshine: The Jimmie Davis Story, was published in 1987.

"You Are My Sunshine" has been recorded hundreds of times. It is today a widely recognized song and a standard for traditional country music and traditional jazz performers, although rock and roll performances by the likes of Tony Sheridan and Bill Haley & His Comets also exist. The Haley performance was recorded in 1969 and was sung by the band's bass player, Ray Cawley; it was not released until the early 1990s.

It has been featured in numerous films, television shows, television commercials, and radio commercials (most notably in a series of Rinso advertisements in the 1960s). The song was featured in the movie Primary Colors (1996) and the Coen Brothers movie O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000). It was also used in the television show Star Trek: Voyager in the episode Someone to Watch Over Me, in which the character The Doctor used the song to teach Seven of Nine about music. It was also featured in one of the final episodes of the series, "Queer as Folk." That same version was also included on the "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" Soundtrack starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Garrison Keillor usually sings the song on his radio program A Prairie Home Companion.

Answer 3

The first person to record "You Are My Sunshine" was Wayne King in 1940. Bing Crosby was second, in 1941.