C Instrument - Level 4 - Digital Download SKU: A0.499878 Composed by Irving Mills and Nat King Cole. Arranged by John Fries. 20th Century,Jazz,Standards. Lead Sheet / Fake Book. 1 pages. John Fries #113145. Published by John Fries (A0.499878). Please contact me by email at jfries@ptd.net to make a special request or to find out all that I have to offer and to express your comments or concerns.  You can also type John Fries in the searchbar to see all I have to offer. Straighten Up and Fly Right is a 1943 song written by Nat King Cole and Irving Mills and one of the first vocal hits for the King Cole Trio. It was the trio's most popular single, reaching number one on the Harlem Hit Parade for ten nonconsecutive weeks. The song was based on a black folk tale that Cole's father had used as a theme for one of his sermons. In the tale, a buzzard takes different animals for a joy ride. When he gets hungry, he throws them off on a dive and eats them for dinner. A monkey who had observed this trick goes for a ride; he wraps his tail around the buzzard's neck and gives the buzzard a big surprise by nearly choking him to death.
