The B Side
Page 33
“Tom Dooley,” 211
“Too Marvelous for Words,” 74
“Too Young,” 127
“Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo’ Bye!),” 59
Top Hat (movie), 5
“Top Hat, White Tie and Tails,” 5
Tormé, Mel, 94–95, 124, 231, 239
Toussaint, Allen, 241–42
Town Criers, 95
“Tracks of My Tears, The,” 12, 243n, 249
Tracy, Arthur, 63
Travis, Merle, 94
Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A (Broadway show), 15, 16, 17
“True Love,” 215
Tubb, Ernest, 93, 123
Tucker, Sophie, 53
Turner, Big Joe, 69
Turner, Ike, 176
“Tutti Frutti,” 181
“Tweedle Dee,” 181
“Twilight Time,” 223
“Twist and Shout,” 11
“Twisted,” 236
Two by Two (Broadway show), 219, 221
“Two Sleepy People,” 75
Two’s Company (Broadway show), 162
“Tzena Tzena Tzena,” 120, 133
Umbrellas of Cherbourg (movie), 238
“Unchained Melody,” 9, 159
“Undecided,” 123
“Up, Up and Away,” 259
“Up on the Roof,” 254
“Uptown,” 254
Valando, Tommy, 164, 166
Vale, Jerry, 204
Valens, Ritchie, 210, 244
Valle, Marcos, 238
Vallee, Rudy, 44, 60, 62n, 90
Van Heusen, Jimmy: Academy Award, 183; among great writers, 4; Hollywood work, 4, 5, 50, 74, 108–9, 209; television score, 200, 229; as writer for Sinatra, 229
“Van Lingle Mungo,” 240
Van Zandt, Townes, 262
Vaughan, Sarah, 23, 231
Vee, Bobby, 210, 253
Vincent, Gene, 179
Vinton, Bobby, 210
“Violets for Your Furs,” 227
Wainwright, Loudon, III, 212
“Wait Till You See Her,” 225
“Wait Until Dark,” 207
Wake Up and Dream (movie), 232
Wakely, Jimmy, 119
“Walk On By,” 251, 261
Walker, Billy, 246
“Walking the Floor over You,” 93
Waller, Fats, 4, 64
Wallichs, Glenn, 93–94
Walter, Cy, 225
“Wang-Wang Blues,” 59
Ward, Helen, 68
Waring, Fred, 67, 129
“Warmth of the Sun, The,” 259
Warren, Harry, 3, 4, 5, 49, 88, 94, 108
Warwick, Dionne, 251–52
“Watch What Happens,” 238
Waters, Ethel, 52, 73
Waters, Muddy, 11, 176
“Way You Look Tonight, The,” 5
Wayne, Bobby, 153
“We Can Work It Out,” 262
“We Don’t Want the Bacon (What We Want Is a Piece of the Rhine!),” 35
Weavers, 21, 120, 121, 133, 211
Webb, Jimmy, 258–59, 262
Webster, Ben, 224
Webster, Kurt, 132
Wednesday Morning, 3AM (Simon and Garfunkel), 260–61
Weems, Ted, 132
Weil, Cynthia, 254, 255
Weill, Kurt, 106
Weinfeld, Edward, 196
Welk, Lawrence, 67, 68, 263
“We’ll Wipe You off the Map, Mr. Jap,” 87
Wells, Bob, 124
West, Wesley “Speedy,” 144
West Side Story (Broadway show), 152, 200, 214
Weston, Paul, 121, 134, 139, 144, 182, 201
Wexler, Jerry, 176, 254
“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?,” 155
“What Did I Get in Return?,” 57
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (movie), 207
“What Happened to the Music,” 13, 163–64
“What Will I Tell My Heart,” 64
“Whatcha Gonna Do Now?,” 180
What’s New (Ronstadt), 9
“When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” 63
“When I Met You Last Night in Dreamland,” 35
“When I Went Home,” 169
“When It’s Springtime in the Rockies,” 60
“When My Dreamboat Comes Home,” 222
“When the Lights Go On Again (All over the World),” 87
When Worlds Collide (movie), 102
“When You Walk in the Room,” 257
“When You Wish Upon a Star,” 223
“Where or When,” 92, 223
Where’s Charley? (Broadway show), 106, 156
“Whiskey and Gin,” 138, 184
“Whispering,” 39
Whitburn, Joel, 59–60
White, Josh, 121
“White Christmas,” 7–8, 88–89, 120, 123
White Christmas (movie), 214
Whiteman, Paul, 39, 56, 65, 73, 94, 129, 178
Whitfield, Norman, 248
Whiting, Margaret, 55, 94, 119, 206
Whiting, Richard, 3, 119
Wildcat (Broadway show), 217
Wilder, Alec, 2, 9, 14, 37, 60, 225
Wiley, Lee, 55, 224
Wilk, Max, 106, 221–22
“Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” 254
Williams, Andy, 150, 204
Williams, Hank, 141, 160, 176, 246
Williams, Mary Lou, 64
Williams, Roger, 203, 211
Willson, Meredith, 157, 178–79, 214
Wilson, Brian, 12, 243, 259–60
Wilson, Edmund, 50–51
Wilson, Teddy, 6, 224
“Windmills of Your Mind, The,” 208
“Wish You Didn’t Have to Go,” 245
“Witchcraft,” 237
“Without a Song,” 188
Witmark, Isidore, 33
“Wives and Lovers,” 250
Wizard of Oz, The (movie), 73, 77
Wodehouse, P. G., 47
Wolf, Tommy, 236
Wolpin, Eddy, 250
Wonder, Stevie, 124, 248
“Wonderful! Wonderful!,” 205
“Wonderful World,” 255
“Word, The,” 262
“Work with Me, Annie,” 180
“Wouldn’t It Be Fun?,” 216
Wrecking Crew musicians, 256, 257, 259
Wright, Edythe, 91
Wright, Robert, 157
“Wrong Number,” 242
“Yankee Doodle Ain’t Doodlin’ Now,” 87
“Yardbird Suite,” 235
Yellen, Jack, 79–80
“Yellow Rose of Texas, The,” 135
“Yes! We Have No Bananas,” 59, 184
“Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” 59
“Yesterday,” 12, 262, 263
“Yo Te Amo Mucho (and That’s That),” 96
“You, You, You,” 153
“You and the Night and the Music,” 15
“You Are My Sunshine,” 223
“You Are There,” 240
“You Beat Me to the Punch,” 249
“You Can in Yucatan,” 96
“You Send Me,” 247
“You Tell Me Your Dream and I’ll Tell You Mine,” 35
“You Won’t See Me,” 262
“You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” 5
“You’ll Never Know,” 88, 94
“You’ll Never Walk Alone,” 105
Youmans, Vincent, 3, 45
Young, Faron, 246
Young, Lester, 224
Young, Neil, 263
“Young at Heart,” 164, 166–
67, 171n, 233
“Young Blood,” 261
“Younger Than Springtime,” 105
Your Hit Parade (radio and TV shows), 71
“Your Lips Are No Man’s Land but Mine,” 35–36
“You’re a Grand Old Flag,” 34
“You’re the Top,” 78
“You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” 105
“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” 262
“You’ve Gotta Be a Football Hero (to Get Along with the Beautiful Girls),” 209
“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” 243n, 255
“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” 261
Zak, Albin, 213
“Zing a Little Zong,” 108
Zinsser, William, 10, 231
PHOTO CREDITS
ASCAP group: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-125354
Irving Berlin: Life magazine
George Gershwin: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, LC-DIG-ds-02793
Cole Porter: Photofest
Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC-USZ62-122089
Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC-USZ62-134899
Harry Warren, Al Dubin: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC-USZ62-134886
Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer: Special Collections and Archives of Georgia State University
Arthur Schwartz: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection, LC-USZ62-139393
Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC-USZ62-137551
Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke: Van Heusen Photo Archives
Duke Ellington and orchestra: Photofest
Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, Bob Hope: Ray Evans papers, Rare Books & Manuscripts Library, University of Pennsylvania
Glenn Miller: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Frank Sinatra, Jan Savitt: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Nat King Cole: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Billie Holiday, Jimmy McLin: Charles Peterson
Johnnie Ray: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Patti Page: AP Photo/Edward Kitch
Frank Sinatra, Mitch Miller: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Song pluggers: Dennis Stock, Magnum Photos
Mitch Miller: Don Hunstein, Sony Music Entertainment
Old-line songwriters: Corbis Images
Brill Building: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Frank Loesser, Marlon Brando: Photofest
Carolyn Leigh: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC-DIG-ds-06753
Ervin Drake: The Drake Collection
Tony Bennett: Don Hunstein, Sony Music Entertainment
Mabel Mercer: Photofest
Miles Davis: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Ella Fitzgerald, Norman Granz: Joe Lauro Archive
Nelson Riddle: The Riddle Family
Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil: William “PoPsie” Randolph
Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Dionne Warwick: Photofest
*It’s interesting to compare the provenance of songs that would become standards with the general run of songs. Near the height of the Great American Songbook era, a researcher analyzed songs played on the radio and determined that 8 percent came from “musical revues” (that is, Broadway shows), 25 percent from films, and 67 percent from “pops” (Tin Pan Alley). The unsurprising conclusion is that, compared with the typical Alley number, a Hollywood song was more likely and a Broadway song much more likely to “last.”
*Billboard started publishing reliable charts in the early 1940s. The categories of the charts, in terms of type of music (pop, rhythm and blues, country and western, etc.) and platform (record sales, radio or jukebox plays), were frequently shuffled and changed. In this book, unless otherwise indicated, I refer to the chart showing sales of single records—at first in the 78-rpm format, then, starting in the 1950s, the 45-rpm.
*Schwartz was offered the job of collaborating with Gershwin on that film’s score, but according to Jonathan Schwartz, he responded, with characteristic modesty and grammatical meticulousness, “There’s a better man than I available.” The man was Jerome Kern, who produced at least two timeless songs for Cover Girl: “Long Ago (and Far Away)” and “Sure Thing.” Kern died the year after the film’s release.
*It turns out Miller made a mistake with “Till I Waltz Again with You.” As recorded by Teresa Brewer on Coral Records, it was the country’s best-selling record for five weeks.
*It was Paul who changed the spelling of the family name.
*Some of ASCAP’s flaws can be seen in its treatment of African-Americans, perhaps most egregiously in the case of the pianist, prolific composer, and jazz pioneer Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton. Of the nearly two hundred charter members of the organization, only two were black: classical baritone Harry T. Burleigh and classical composer James Weldon Johnson. Born in 1890, Morton started writing songs in the first decade of the twentieth century but did not earn any royalties from them until 1939, when ASCAP finally allowed him to become a member. He had applied five years earlier but had been rejected, in a letter reading: “Please be advised that all applications must be proposed and seconded by members of this Society.” In 1939, he was placed in category 3, then the lowest designation. In a letter to a friend, he reported that he expected to get $120 a year from ASCAP. The organization is notoriously secretive about its classifications and its members’ earnings, but Oscar Hammerstein II subsequently testified in a court case that, at the time, ASCAP members in the top category—such as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin—received an average of more than $15,000 a year. Morton died in 1941.
*Lawrence’s depiction has Marlo accurately representing the sentimental verbosity but mangling the actual lyric of “Home (When Shadows Fall),” by Harry Clarkson, Geoffrey Clarkson, and Peter Van Steeden, which he had published in 1931 to great success. The actual line goes: “When shadows fall and trees whisper: ‘Day is ending.’” Variety’s 1970 obituary of Marlo calls him “one of the most colorful song pluggers in the music business during the 1920s and ’30s” and recounts that “Home” had been “introduced simultaneously on eight different network radio shows on Thanksgiving Eve, 1931, by Kate Smith, Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, Russ Columbo, and others. It was to become a legendary Tin Pan Alley exploit.”
*“Play, Fiddle, Play” is more famous in legal than in musical circles. A man named Ira Arnstein, who would become famous for his persistent and annoying litigiousness, sued Edward Marks, claiming that the song was plagiarized from an earlier work of his own, “I Love You Madly.” A district court judge ruled against Arnstein; when he appealed to the Second District Court, his luck was no better. The ruling was written by the famous Judge Learned Hand, who, in discussing the possibility that Altman and Lawrence would somehow have gotten hold of Arnstein’s composition, had some unkind things to say about the two young songwriters and about their trade in general: “Almost anything is possible; so is such a theory, but it is very unlikely. Altman was an entirely unknown person, a one-finger composer who had no reputation; the most he could do was to contribute the simple themes which by this hypothesis Deutsch intended to lift from the copyrighted song; that is to say, his only part could be just what Deutsch did not need, the melody. Lawrence could apparently write the kind of treacle which passes in a popular love song, but such mawkish verses are reeled off by hundreds of poetasters all over the country. Deutsch needed no help from either of these men.” Arnstein’s story is skillfully told by Rosen in Unfair to Genius: The Strange and Litigious Career of Ira B. Arnstein.
*“Frenesí” was a tu
ne by a Mexican songwriter, originally composed for the marimba; Artie Shaw had a number-one record with it. “The Last Time I Saw Paris” wasn’t BMI but had come from the pens of quintessential ASCAPers Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The other songs mentioned were all conventional numbers that had modest success in record sales and airplay.
*According to his daughter Susan, Loesser had written a “dummy tune” for “Praise the Lord”—a sort of placeholder until a proper composer came in. “My mother and some other people convinced him to keep the tune and not seek another composer,” she recalled. “It was the first song he wrote both music and lyrics for.”
*In 1957, Frank Sinatra was putting together an album called A Jolly Christmas and asked Martin to provide some more upbeat lyrics. The writer provided some changes, including replacing the “muddle through” line with “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” That became the most commonly performed version.
*Louis Prima’s version of “Sing,” released in 1936 (a year before Goodman’s), did have a kind of nonsense-rhyme lyric. Goodman wisely dropped it.
*Clooney’s comment was perceptive. Crosby had once told his in-house lyricist, Johnny Burke, that the phrase “I love you” was never to appear in a Crosby song.
*Variety slang for “not so good.”
*Springer went on to cowrite a couple of hits, notably “Midnight Gambler” for Frankie Laine, “Santa Baby” for Eartha Kitt, and “(How Little It Matters) How Little We Know” (lyrics by Carolyn Leigh) for Sinatra. At one point, an aspiring lyric writer named Fred Ebb came to see him. Ebb later recalled that Springer said, “If I would work with him every day from nine to five, regular office hours, he would literally teach me to write songs—and so I did.” The partnership lasted about a year, and Ebb eventually joined forces with another young writer, John Kander. They had a one-off hit in 1963 for Barbra Streisand, “My Coloring Book,” and then began writing for the stage.
*Loesser had actually written “Baby” back in 1944 and was famous for performing the duet at parties with his wife, Lynn. In 1948 he sold it to MGM for use in an Esther Williams movie, Neptune’s Daughter.