Love this song and these are my 3 Faves singing it.
1.Ella Fitzgerald
2.Billie Holiday
3.Janis Joplin
Great choices.
I can listen to the earliest version by Abbie Mitchell or later Leontyne Price singing it and appreciate its operatic qualities, but when Ella Fitzgerald sings it then it is completely different. It feels less of a lullaby and more of a field song (that slow brush on the snare drum), and then when she drawls "ánd the living is easy" I swear I can feel the heat rise and the sweat starting to drip down my back. Time for a mint julep...