470 The Cats and the Fiddle “I Miss You So” 1940

“The mid-tempo shuffle, with high tenor harmonies carried through the entire recording, included a tipple-led instrumental (a tipple is a long-forgotten 10-stringed instrument that looks like a small acoustic guitar and sounds like a ukulele). The song, later slowed down and recorded by the Orioles, is now a standard, but in early 1940 it was just another excellent black vocal-group recording unknown to the mass market. Still it was popular in black communities and enabled [lead singer] Austin Powell and company to continue their whirlwind schedule of national one-nighters, from the Apollo Theatre to elegant supper clubs” (Jay Warner, American Singing Groups: A History from 1940 to Today, 2006). 

The Cats and the Fiddle “I Miss You So”