As Thousands Cheer

As Thousands Cheer PDF Author: Laurence Bergreen
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786752521
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 706

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Book Description
Irving Berlin (1888–1989) was unable to read or write music and could only play the piano in the key of F-sharp major; yet, for the first half of the twentieth century he was America's most successful and most representative songwriter, composing such hits as "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Cheek to Cheek," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "White Christmas," "Anything You Can Do," "There's No Business Like Show Business," and "God Bless America." As Thousands Cheer, winner of the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, explores with precision and sensitivity Berlin's long, prolific career; his self-doubt and late-blooming misanthropy; and the tyrannical control he exerted over his legacy of song. From his immigrant beginnings through Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood to his reclusive and bitter final years, this definitive biography reveals the man who wrote 1500 songs but could never quash the fear that, for all his success, he wasn't quite good enough.

As Thousands Cheer

As Thousands Cheer PDF Author: Laurence Bergreen
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786752521
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 706

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Book Description
Irving Berlin (1888–1989) was unable to read or write music and could only play the piano in the key of F-sharp major; yet, for the first half of the twentieth century he was America's most successful and most representative songwriter, composing such hits as "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Cheek to Cheek," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "White Christmas," "Anything You Can Do," "There's No Business Like Show Business," and "God Bless America." As Thousands Cheer, winner of the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, explores with precision and sensitivity Berlin's long, prolific career; his self-doubt and late-blooming misanthropy; and the tyrannical control he exerted over his legacy of song. From his immigrant beginnings through Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood to his reclusive and bitter final years, this definitive biography reveals the man who wrote 1500 songs but could never quash the fear that, for all his success, he wasn't quite good enough.

Annual Review of Jazz Studies 14

Annual Review of Jazz Studies 14 PDF Author: Evan Spring
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810869209
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The Annual Review of Jazz Studies provides a forum for the ever-expanding range and depth of jazz scholarship, from technical analyses to oral history to cultural interpretation. Addressed to specialists and fans alike, all volumes include feature articles, book reviews, and previously unpublished photographs.

Our Musicals, Ourselves

Our Musicals, Ourselves PDF Author: John Bush Jones
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1611682231
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 650

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Book Description
Our Musicals, Ourselves is the first full-scale social history of the American musical theater from the imported Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas of the late nineteenth century to such recent musicals as The Producers and Urinetown. While many aficionados of the Broadway musical associate it with wonderful, diversionary shows like The Music Man or My Fair Lady, John Bush Jones instead selects musicals for their social relevance and the extent to which they engage, directly or metaphorically, contemporary politics and culture. Organized chronologically, with some liberties taken to keep together similarly themed musicals, Jones examines dozens of Broadway shows from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present that demonstrate numerous links between what played on Broadway and what played on newspapersÕ front pages across our nation. He reviews the productions, lyrics, staging, and casts from the lesser-known early musicals (the ÒgunboatÓ musicals of the Teddy Roosevelt era and the ÒCinderella showsÓ and Òleisure time musicalsÓ of the 1920s) and continues his analysis with better-known shows including Showboat, Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma, South Pacific, West Side Story, Cabaret, Hair, Company, A Chorus Line, and many others. While most examinations of the American musical focus on specific shows or emphasize the development of the musical as an art form, JonesÕs book uses musicals as a way of illuminating broader social and cultural themes of the times. With six appendixes detailing the long-running diversionary musicals and a foreword by Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, JonesÕs comprehensive social history will appeal to both students and fans of Broadway.

Broadway Babies

Broadway Babies PDF Author: Ethan Mordden
Publisher: New York ; Toronto : Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195054253
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Broadway Babies spotlights the men and women who made a difference in the development of American musical comedy. While theatrical historians traditionally have emphasized the role of the authors of musicals, Mordden also examines the personal styles of the directors, choreographers, and producers, in order to demonstrate not only what the musical became but what it was.

The Great Depression in America [2 volumes]

The Great Depression in America [2 volumes] PDF Author: William H. Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313088713
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 717

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Book Description
Everything from Amos n' Andy to zeppelins is included in this expansive two volume encyclopedia of popular culture during the Great Depression era. Two hundred entries explore the entertainments, amusements, and people of the United States during the difficult years of the 1930s. In spite of, or perhaps because of, such dire financial conditions, the worlds of art, fashion, film, literature, radio, music, sports, and theater pushed forward. Conditions of the times were often mirrored in the popular culture with songs such as Brother Can You Spare a Dime, breadlines and soup kitchens, homelessness, and prohibition and repeal. Icons of the era such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George and Ira Gershwin, Jean Harlow, Billie Holiday, the Marx Brothers, Roy Rogers, Frank Sinatra, and Shirley Temple entertained many. Dracula, Gone With the Wind, It Happened One Night, and Superman distracted others from their daily worries. Fads and games - chain letters, jigsaw puzzles, marathon dancing, miniature golf, Monopoly - amused some, while musicians often sang the blues. Nancy and William Young have written a work ideal for college and high school students as well as general readers looking for an overview of the popular culture of the 1930s. Art deco, big bands, Bonnie and Clyde, the Chicago's World Fair, Walt Disney, Duke Ellington, five-and-dimes, the Grand Ole Opry, the jitter-bug, Lindbergh kidnapping, Little Orphan Annie, the Olympics, operettas, quiz shows, Seabiscuit, vaudeville, westerns, and Your Hit Parade are just a sampling of the vast range of entries in this work. Reference features include an introductory essay providing an historical and cultural overview of the period, bibliography, and index.

Heritage Signature Vintage Movie Poster Auction #636

Heritage Signature Vintage Movie Poster Auction #636 PDF Author:
Publisher: Heritage Capital Corporation
ISBN: 9781599670607
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Moss Hart

Moss Hart PDF Author: Jared Brown
Publisher: Backstage Books
ISBN: 9780823078905
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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Book Description
"He's a legend of The Great White Way whose very name is synonymous with the Golden Age of Broadway: Moss Hart. In Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theater, biographer Jared Brown offers a meticulously researched, sensitive look at the life and work of a major American artist." "More than just an assessment of Hart's career, this is a personal portrait as well. Despite his enormous success in both theatre and film, Hart spent all of his adult life in psychoanalysis, attempting to come to grips with a crushing depression. He was rumored to be bisexual, and this book examines the evidence for that claim. When he married, in his forties, he and his wife, the actress-singer Kitty Carlisle, were said by Hart's friend and collaborator Alan Jay Lerner to be "not only an ideal couple, [but] the ideal couple."" "This is the first biography to be written with the full cooperation of Hart's family and friends. Author Jared Brown had access to documents (such as Hart's diary) previously unavailable to biographers, and conducted lengthy interviews with Hart's wife and children, as well as with some of the most prominent performers he worked with, such as Julie Andrews, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert, and Roubert Goulet. This long-awaited biography, featuring dozens of never-before-published photographs, is truly the definitive picture of an extraordinary man and a theatrical giant."--BOOK JACKET.

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters PDF Author: Stephen Bourne
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810859029
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
"Waters transformed such songs as "Dinah," "Am I Blue?," "Stormy Weather," and Irving Berlin's "Heat Wave" into classics and inspired the next generation of black female vocalists. She gave sophistication and class to the blues and American popular song, influencing countless singers, including Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra. Tough, uncompromising, courageous, and ambitious, Waters became one of the first African American women to be given equal billing with white stars on Broadway. In 1943, the film version of her Broadway success Cabin in the Sky established her as Hollywood's first black leading lady. In such plays as Mamba's Daughters and films as The Member of the Wedding, she shattered the myth that black women could perform only as singers. For her work in Pinky, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the second African American to be so honored.".

The World of Musicals [2 volumes]

The World of Musicals [2 volumes] PDF Author: Mark A. Robinson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440800979
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 950

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Book Description
This wide-ranging, two-volume encyclopedia of musicals old and new will captivate young fans—and prove invaluable to those contemplating staging a musical production. Written with high school students in mind, The World of Musicals: An Encyclopedia of Stage, Screen, and Song encompasses not only Broadway and film musicals, but also made-for-television musicals, a genre that has been largely ignored. The two volumes cover significant musicals in easily accessible entries that offer both useful information and fun facts. Each entry lists the work's writers, composers, directors, choreographers, and cast, and includes a song list, a synopsis, and descriptions of the original production and important revivals or remakes. Biographical entries share the stories of some of the brightest and most celebrated talents in the business. The encyclopedia will undoubtedly ignite and feed student interest in musical theatre. At the same time, it will prove a wonderful resource for teachers or community theatre directors charged with selecting and producing shows. In fact, anyone interested in theatre, film, television, or music will be fascinated by the work's tantalizing bits of historical and theatre trivia.

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin PDF Author: James Kaplan
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300180489
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fast-moving, musically astute portrait of arguably the greatest composer of American popular music Irving Berlin (1888-1989) has been called--by George Gershwin, among others--the greatest songwriter of the golden age of the American popular song. "Berlin has no place in American music," legendary composer Jerome Kern wrote; "he is American music." In a career that spanned an astonishing nine decades, Berlin wrote some fifteen hundred tunes, including "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "God Bless America," and "White Christmas." From ragtime to the rock era, Berlin's work has endured in the very fiber of American national identity. Exploring the interplay of Berlin's life with the life of New York City, noted biographer James Kaplan offers a visceral narrative of Berlin as self-made man and witty, wily, tough Jewish immigrant. This fast-paced, musically opinionated biography uncovers Berlin's unique brilliance as a composer of music and lyrics. Masterfully written and psychologically penetrating, Kaplan's book underscores Berlin's continued relevance in American popular culture. About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." - New York times "Exemplary." - Wall St. Journal "Distinguished." - New Yorker "Superb." - The Guardian