The Coffee Song

Album: Ojah Awake (1976)

Songfacts®:

  • In a review published in the September 25, 1976 issue of New Musical Express, Angie Errigo wrote: "I'm told Frank Sinatra used to do this song. You could have fooled me; I thought it was copped from a television ad for Maxwell House... Nice congas. Goofy enough to be a hit, I warrant."

    The version she was alluding to here had just been released by Osibisa, and the song had indeed been used in a TV commercial for Maxwell House, and was also recorded by Frank Sinatra, way back in 1946. Written by lyricist Bob Hilliard and composer Dick Miles, it is also sometimes known as or subtitled "They've Got An Awful Lot Of Coffee In Brazil."
  • This has been called a novelty song, but according to Volume IV of the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopeadia Britannica, which was published in 1910, in 1906, 40 years before the song was written, nearly 77% of Brazil's exports were coffee and rubber, the former valued at 245,474,525 milreis gold, which was equivalent to £27,615,884.

    Like the man said, that's an awful lot of the beverage which because of the Boston Tea Party is American's favorite drink.
  • The Osibisa recording was released on the Island label backed by "Warrior." >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3

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