Description
Without any formal training in music composition, Irving Berlin took a knack for music and turned it into the most successful songwriting career in American history. Berlin was the first Tin Pan Alley songwriter to go uptown to Broadway with a complete musical score (Watch Your Step in 1914); he is the only songwriter to build a theater exclusively for his own work (The Music Box); and his name appears above the title of his Broadway shows and Hollywood films (Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn), still a rare honor for songwriters. Berlin is also notable due the length of his career in American Song; he sold his first song at the age of 18 and passed away at the age of 101 having outlived several of his own copyrights. Throughout his career, Berlin showed that a popular song need not be of a lesser quality than songs informed by the principles of "classical" music composition. Forty years after his last published song many of his songs remain popular and several have even entered folk song status, something no other 20th-century American songwriter can claim.As one of the most seminal figures of twentieth century, both in the world of music and in American culture more generally, and as one of the rare songwriters equally successful with popular songs, Broadway shows, and Hollywood scores, Irving Berlin is the subject of an enormous corpus of writing, scattered throughout countless publications and archives. A noted performer and interpreter of Berlin's works, Benjamin Sears has unprecedented familiarity with these sources and brings together in this Reader a broad range of the most insightful primary and secondary materials. Grouped together according to the chronology of Berlin's life and work, each section and article features a critical introduction to orient the reader and contextualize the materials within the framework of American musical history. Taken as a whole, the writings - many by Berlin himself -- provide a new perspective on Berlin that highlights his musical genius in the context of his artistic development.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsIntroductionPart One: Musical Demon - Early Years1.1 A Trip to Chinatown with Irving Berlin, Ward Morehouse1.2 "Alexander" & Irving, Edward Jablonski1.3 Excerpt from Alexander and His Band, Charles Hamm1.4 The Boy Who Revived Ragtime, Rennard Wolf1.5 Review of Watch Your Step by "Madam Critic"1.6 Excerpt from First Nights and First Editions, Harry B. Smith1.7 "Watch Your Step": Irving Berlin's 1914 Musical, Margaret Knapp1.8 Ghost of Verdi Interviewed: Tells How He Suffers Nightly1.9 Fond Memory: Those Old Music Box Revues, Robert Baral1.10 Letter about The Music Box, Robert Benchley1.11 "Yes, We Have No Bananas" in Grand Opera Setting, S.I. deKrafftPart Two: Blue Skies - Middle Years2.1 Memoir, George S. Kaufman2.2 Letter from Jerome Kern to Alexander Woollcott from The Story of Irving Berlin2.3 Excerpt from Musical Stages, Richard Rodgers2.4 Excerpt from chapter The March of Time in A Song in the Dark, Richard Barrios2.5 Unity in Word and Tone in Two Ballads by Irving Berlin, Howard Pollack2.6 The Origins of Easter Parade, Benjamin Sears2.7 "Gawd Bless A-M-E-R-I-K-A", Cleve Sallendar2.8 "No Right to a Personal Interest in 'God Bless America'," Berlin is Told, Variety2.9 Excerpt from Stokowski, Here for Concert Tonight, Praises Martial, Folk Songs; Likes to Play for Soldiers, Nashville Tennessean2.10 Irving Berlin Orders Song Word Change, Richmond Afro American2.11 Excerpt from Musical Stages: An Autobiography, Richard Rodgers2.12 Excerpt from Who Could Ask for Anything More, Ethel Merman, as told to Pete Martin2.13 Annie Get Your Gun, Brooks Atkinson2.14 Verse to Halloween, Harold Arlen & Ralph Blane2.15 Excerpt from The Hollywood Musical, John Russell Taylor and Arthur Jackson2.16 Excerpt from Steps in Time, Fred AstairePart Three: The Melody Lingers On - Later Years3.1 A Ninetieth-birthday Salute to the Master of American Song, Joshua Logan3.2 First Encounters: Irving Berlin and George Gershwin, Nancy Caldwell Sorel3.3 Excerpts from Top Hat and Tales, Mark Steyn3.4 Berlin at 100: Life On a High Note, Marilyn Berger3.5 Bit of Blues for Ballads of Berlin, Murray Kempton3.6 Genius Without Tears, Josh Rubins3.7 Irving Berlin (1888-1989), Arthur Maisel3.8 Cartoon: September 22, 1989, Edward SorelEpilogue: Berlin on Songwriting 4.1 How to Write Ragtime Songs, Irving Berlin4.2 Song and Sorrow Are Playmates, Irving Berlin4.3 Irving Berlin Gives Nine Rules for Writing Popular Songs, Frank Ward O'Malley4.4 Excerpt from Words and Music From Irving Berlin, Isaac Goldberg4.5 How to Write a Song Hit, Irving BerlinBiographical HighlightsSuggested ReadingIndex
