Download Free MP3 demo tracks from the album Night Sessions by Louise Howlett and Albert Combrink HERE.

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.

Whenever Louise and I perform this song on stage, there is a collective sigh from the audience. Everybody seems to know and love this song. I love this song for its “late-at-night” feel. The space it conjures up for me is somewhere public – a bar or a nightclub – but private, at that moment just before closing time when everyone is finishing their drinks and packing up to go home, and reminisce quietly by themselves. Louise and I try to give it a modern feel and do not try to recreate the sound-world of Casablanca, making our version much more intimate than the large canvas of a movie screen.

Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman

As Time Goes By runs through the film Casablanca like a leitmotif, as the characters of Rick and Ilsa torment themselves by reminiscing over their star-crossed love by asking the club’s piano player Sam to play this song which they loved when they were together in Paris.

Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date.

“A truly perfect movie, the 1942 Casablanca still wows viewers today, and for good reason. Its unique story of a love triangle set against terribly high stakes in the war against a monster is sophisticated instead of outlandish, intriguing instead of garish. Humphrey Bogart plays the allegedly apolitical club owner in unoccupied French territory that is nevertheless crawling with Nazis; Ingrid Bergman is the lover who mysteriously deserted him in Paris; and Paul Heinreid is her heroic, slightly bewildered husband. Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Conrad Veidt are among what may be the best supporting cast in the history of Hollywood films. This is certainly among the most spirited and ennobling movies ever made.” —Tom Keogh (www.reelclassics.com)

It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory

Herman Hupfield (1894-1951) started violin lessons in Germany at the age of 9, fought in World War I and – while more recognised as a composer than a performer – entertained in military camps and hospitals in World War II. He wrote both words and music for As Time Goes By for the 1931 Broadway musical Everybody’s Welcome. The director of Casablanca Max Steiner tried to cut the song from the movie. Firstly, because of a musician’s strike, they were unable to record a new version of it and had to use the original 1931 single, which would have an effect on merchandising. In addition, Steiner wanted to write his own song, which would also give him earnings from royalties. In the end, the song had to stay in, as it was impossible to re-shoot the already-completed crucial scenes with Ingrid Bergman, who had by then cut her hair for another movie! After the film’s release, “As Time Goes By” – already recorded 11 years ealier – stayed on radio’s “Hit Parade” for 21 weeks. Max Steiner, in a 1943 interview, admitted that the song “must have had something to attract so much attention”.

Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Download Free Sheet Music of “As Time Goes By”.