She’s Tall, She’s Tan, She’s Terrific (Cotton Club Parade)

New York: Mills Music, Inc, 1938. Folio sheet music, illustrated pictorial wraps. 9 x 12 inches. 6 pp. (including cover). Moderate creasing with small edge wear and light surface wear; a bright, very good example.. A visually striking promotional sheet music cover issued in connection with the Cotton Club revue Cotton Club Parade (1938), featuring large photographic portraits of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Cab Calloway wearing top hats against a bold orange background. The design incorporates lively vignette illustrations of musicians and dancers along the lower margin, evoking the theatrical energy of Harlem nightclub revues of the late swing era.

The song was written by the prolific Tin Pan Alley team Benny Davis and J. Fred Coots, responsible for numerous popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s. The cover notes that the entire production was conceived and staged by Davis and Coots, and prominently advertises the show as “featuring Bill Robinson and Cab Calloway,” two of the most celebrated African-American entertainers of the period. Robinson, already internationally famous for his stair-step tap dancing and film appearances, was one of the highest-paid Black performers of the era. Calloway, leader of the Cotton Club orchestra during the early 1930s, had become one of the most recognizable bandleaders in jazz through his performances and recordings such as “Minnie the Moocher,” which popularized the “hi-de-ho” call-and-response style referenced on the cover by the song “Hi-De-Ho Romeo.”.