According to Perry Bradford, himself a songster and publisher, the song was written about an actual man named Shine who was with George Walker when they were badly beaten during the New York City race riot of 1900.
Bing Crosby & The Mills Brothers recorded the song on February 29, 1932 with studio orchestra conducted by Victor Young.
[8] As a member of the Hoboken Four, Frank Sinatra sang this song in 1935 on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour.
The 1931 recording by Armstrong with his Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra is a subset of the complete lyric of the 1910 version and the expanded later version, with added scat singing and long instrumental ending: SHINE (That's Why They Call Me Shine) (Cecil Mack, Lew Brown) On his 1978 album Jazz, Ry Cooder performed the song in a "52nd Street" small band setting, with the introductory verse that explains what the song is all about.
He noted that it had been written in 1910 near the end of the "Coon song era", and described it as a unique comment on the black face sensibilities of that genre.