Caesar, Irving (04 July 1895–17 December 1996), songwriter, was born Isidore Caesar in New York City's Henry Street settlement, the son of Morris Caesar, the owner of a secondhand bookstore, and Sophia Selinger Caesar. He attended the Chappaqua Mountain Institute, graduated from New York City's Townsend Harris Hall High School in 1914, and was briefly enrolled at the City College of New York before going to Detroit in 1915 to work for the Ford Motor Company as a mechanic. Caesar also served as secretary to ...
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Caesar, Irving (04 July 1895–17 December 1996), songwriter
James Ross Moore
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Caesar, Irving (04 July 1895–17 December 1996)
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Irving Caesar. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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Chapin, Harry Forster (1942-1981), popular singer and writer of topical songs
Barbara L. Tischler
Chapin, Harry Forster (07 December 1942–16 July 1981), popular singer and writer of topical songs, was born in New York City, the son of James Forbes Chapin, a big-band percussionist, and Elspeth Burke. As a high school student, Chapin sang in the Brooklyn Heights Boys Choir and, later, played guitar, banjo, and trumpet in a band that included his father and brothers Stephen Chapin and Tom Chapin. He attended the U.S. Air Force Academy briefly and studied at Cornell University from 1960 to 1964. Chapin was best known for his popular ballads, films, and cultural and humanitarian work for the cause of eradicating world hunger. He married Sandra Campbell Gaston in 1968; they had five children....
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Cohan, George M. (3 or 4 July 1878–05 November 1942), performer, writer of songs, musicals, and plays, and producer
Julian Mates
Cohan, George M. (3 or 4 July 1878–05 November 1942), performer, writer of songs, musicals, and plays, and producer, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Jeremiah “Jerry” John Cohan and Helen “Nellie” Frances Costigan. (Cohan’s middle initial stands for Michael.) At the age of seven, Cohan was sent to the E Street School in Providence. His formal schooling lasted six weeks, after which the school sent him to rejoin his parents and sister, Josie, in their theatrical travels. He took violin lessons and played the instrument both in the theater orchestra and in a trick violin act he devised. The Cohans went on their first road show as a family in 1889; when the show failed they went back to ...
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Cohan, George M. (3 or 4 July 1878–05 November 1942)
Maker: Carl Van Vechten
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George M. Cohan Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1933. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LOT 12735, no. 236 P&P).
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Cook, Will Marion (27 January 1869–20 July 1944), composer and librettist
David Krasner
Cook, Will Marion (27 January 1869–20 July 1944), composer and librettist, was born in Washington, D.C., the son of John Hartwell Cook, a professor of law at Howard University, and Marion Isabel Lewis, a sewing instructor. He received classical violin training at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1884–1887). For approximately the next decade he presumably studied violin and composition with the German violinist Joseph Joachim at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin (1888–1889?), and he continued harmony and counterpoint training under ...
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Donaldson, Walter (1893-1947), popular-song composer, lyricist, and publisher
Nicholas E. Tawa
Donaldson, Walter (15 February 1893–15 July 1947), popular-song composer, lyricist, and publisher, was born in Brooklyn, New York. The names of his parents are not known. Although his mother was a music teacher, Donaldson seems never to have taken music lessons; instead, he learned to play the piano by ear. While still in high school, he began writing songs, and after graduation he found employment on Wall Street, but he soon gave that up in favor of popular music. For a time he worked as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger at $15 a week; however, his addiction to writing his own songs during working hours cost him his job. His first song to make a public impression was “Just Try to Picture Me Down Home in Tennessee” (1915; lyrics by William Jerome), about a state he had never seen. World War I found him in the Entertainment Division of the U.S. Army, where he met ...
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Fisher, Fred (1875-1942), composer and lyricist of popular songs
James Fisher
Fisher, Fred (30 September 1875–14 January 1942), composer and lyricist of popular songs, was born Alfred Breitenbach in Cologne, Germany, the son of Max Breitenbach and Theodora (maiden name unknown). He spent his earliest years in Germany before his family immigrated to the United States, where his parents became citizens. When he reached his teen years, young Alfred’s life was filled with remarkable adventures that were typical of the dime novels of the day. At the age of thirteen he ran away from home to enlist in the German navy. A few years later he joined the French Foreign Legion before immigrating back to America on a cattle boat in 1900. Settling in Chicago and changing his name to Fred Fisher, he learned to play the piano from a black barroom pianist in hopes of becoming a popular songwriter....
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Gilbert, Ray (15 September 1912–03 March 1976), lyricist and composer of popular songs
James K. Aagaard
Gilbert, Ray (15 September 1912–03 March 1976), lyricist and composer of popular songs, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Jacob Kalin, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, and Mina Freeman, a Swedish immigrant. During his childhood the family moved to Chicago, where he graduated from Senn High School in 1930. After graduation Gilbert became a sketch writer for various vaudeville talents, including ...
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Jefferson, Eddie (1918-1979), jazz singer, lyricist, and tap dancer
Barry Kernfeld
Jefferson, Eddie (03 August 1918–09 May 1979), jazz singer, lyricist, and tap dancer, was born Edgar Jefferson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Information about his parents is unknown. It is known that he started dancing around age eight. He also played tuba in a school band and taught himself guitar and drums, experiences that later gave his singing a firm musical foundation. In Pittsburgh he was accompanied by pianist ...
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Krenek, Ernst (1900-1991), composer and librettist
Garrett H. Bowles
Krenek, Ernst (23 August 1900–22 December 1991), composer and librettist, was born Ernst Heinrich Křenek in Vienna, Austria, the son of Ernst Josef Křenek, an officer in the Quartermaster Corps of the Austro-Hungarian army, and Emanuela Josefa Auguste Cizek. At the age of six he began piano lessons with his mother, which continued with one of the teachers when he entered a private school run by the Christian Brothers. By 1908 he had begun writing short piano pieces that his mother notated for him and in 1910 began studying with a teacher at the Kaiser's Music School. By 1916 Krenek had decided to become a composer. Because ...
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Larson, Jonathan (04 February 1960–25 January 1996), composer-lyricist-librettist of Rent, a rock opera inspired by La Bohème
Amy Asch
Larson, Jonathan (04 February 1960–25 January 1996), composer-lyricist-librettist of Rent, a rock opera inspired by La Bohème, composer-lyricist-librettist of Rent, a rock opera inspired by La Bohème, was born in Mt. Vernon, New York, and raised in suburban White Plains, the second child of Allan S. Larson, a direct-marketing executive, and Nanette Notarius Larson. Both parents loved music and theater; show tunes and folk music were always playing in their home. Both Larson and his sister took piano lessons during elementary school. The boy could play by ear, and his teacher encouraged him to experiment with rhythm, harmony, and setting words. By high school, he was called the “Piano Man” after the enormously popular song of that title by Billy Joel. He also played tuba in the marching band. Active in school and community theater, Larson had major roles in several musicals....
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Larson, Jonathan (04 February 1960–25 January 1996)
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Jonathan Larson. Courtesy of Unky's Music.
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Loesser, Frank (1910-1969), composer and lyricist
John L. Cogdill
Loesser, Frank (29 June 1910–28 July 1969), composer and lyricist, was born Francis Henry Loesser in New York City, the son of Henry Loesser, a piano teacher, and Julia Ehrlich, a professional accompanist. His parents were natives of Prussia and Austria, respectively, and the household was culturally and musically sophisticated in the European fashion. Young Frank, however, aggressively resisted his father’s highbrow tastes, dabbling in songwriting and playing the harmonica. He attended a New York City school for gifted children through his high school years, then at age fifteen demonstrated his rebelliousness by getting himself expelled from the City College of New York for failing every subject except gym and English. He entered the workforce, trying various jobs with indifferent success. Among other things, he labored as a city editor for a short-lived New Rochelle, New York, newspaper, as a sketch writer for the Keith vaudeville circuit, as a knit-goods editor for ...
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Mercer, Johnny (1909-1976), popular composer, lyricist, and singer
Philip Furia
Mercer, Johnny (18 November 1909–25 June 1976), popular composer, lyricist, and singer, was born John Herndon Mercer in Savannah, Georgia, the son of George Mercer, an attorney, and Lillian Ciucevich. Throughout his childhood Mercer was fascinated with the popular songs of the day as well as by Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and the blues and spirituals of southern blacks. From 1922 to 1927 he attended Virginia’s Woodbury Forest Preparatory School, where he wrote light verse and songs. Shortly after graduation he pursued a career as an actor and singer in New York. There he married Ginger Meehan, a dancer, in 1931 and soon had two children. While his acting career languished, success as a songwriter came in 1933 when he collaborated with ...
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Mercer, Johnny (1909-1976)
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Johnny Mercer, c. 1946-1948. © William P. Gottlieb; used by permission. William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress (LC-GLB23-0612 DLC).
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Porter, Cole (09 June 1891–15 October 1964), songwriter
James Ross Moore
Porter, Cole (09 June 1891–15 October 1964), songwriter, was born in Peru, Indiana, the son of Samuel Fenwick Porter, a druggist and farmer, and Kate Cole. His mother (who added Cole’s middle name, Albert, later) arranged to have one of his songs published when he was eleven. Porter’s education at Worcester Academy, Yale (B.A., 1913), and Harvard’s law and music schools (1914–1915) was financed by his maternal grandfather, James Omar Cole....
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Porter, Cole (09 June 1891–15 October 1964)
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Cole Porter. Charcoal on paper, 1953, by Soss Efram Melik. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
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Rowe, James (1865-1933), gospel music song lyricist
Charles K. Wolfe
Rowe, James (1865–1933), gospel music song lyricist, was born in Devonshire, England, the son of John Rowe and Jane Gallard. His father died at age forty-eight, and Rowe left school at an early age to support his family. He held positions in the English government for several years but seems not to have had any special training or experience in music. He immigrated to the United States in 1890, settling first in New York City, where he worked for the New York Central Railroad Company. Later relocating to Albany, New York, he served as superintendent for the animal control department of the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society from 1900 to 1910. During this time he married Blanche Clapper....
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Swift, Kay (19 April 1897–28 January 1993), composer, lyricist, and songwriter
Benjamin Sears
Swift, Kay (19 April 1897–28 January 1993), composer, lyricist, and songwriter, was born Katharine Faulkner Swift in New York City, the daughter of Samuel Swift, a music critic, and Ellen Faulkner Swift, an interior decorator. She began her musical studies at the age of seven, later won a scholarship to the Institute of Musical Arts (now the Juilliard School), and in 1920–1921 attended the New England Conservatory, where she studied piano with Heinrich Gebhard and composition with ...
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