About (I Don't Know Why I Love You) But I Do

It was Henry's biggest U.S. hit, reaching #4 in early 1961. The B-side on the single release was "Just My Baby and Me". On its initial release in December 1960, the U.S. release on the Argo record label was titled "I Don't Know Why". However, about ten weeks later, Argo announced that due to confusion arising from the song being mistaken for the 1931 song called "I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)," they changed the name of this song to "But I Do." The U.K. release on the Pye Records label and the Australian release on the Coronet Records label were both titled "But I Do". The U.K. version spent 19 weeks in the charts and peaked at #3 in the first week of May 1961. The song was made popular again after its use in a 1993 UK television commercial for the Fiat Cinquecento, and appearances in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, and the 1999 film Mickey Blue Eyes. Clarence Henry was born in New Orleans in 1937, moving to the Algiers neighborhood in 1948. He started learning piano as a child, with Fats Domino and Professor Longhair being his main influences. When Henry played in talent shows, he dressed like Longhair and wore a wig with braids on both sides. He joined Bobby Mitchell & the Toppers in 1952, playing piano and trombone, before leaving when he graduated in 1955 to join saxophonist Eddie Smith's band.