The Song Is Kern

David Lewis: Although Jerome Kern’s mother recognised his talent and encouraged him in music from an early age, his father insisted that no son of his would ever pursue such a disreputable career as composing. .

IMDB : And “Show Boat” featured a song, “Mis’ry’s Comin’ Round”, which was so utterly tragic that Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. ordered it cut–and it remained cut, existing only as background music, until the 1994 revival.

Answers.com : His first big hit, “How’d You Like to Spoon with Me?,” was interpolated into The Earl and the Girl (1905), then for the next decade the young composer shuttled back and forth between New York and London where he picked up an abiding love for Gaiety musical comedy and met his future wife, Eva Leale.

The New York Times : Strictly speaking, only once, with Oscar Hammerstein 2d, who wrote the lyrics for “Show Boat,” did he deliberately write a song hit outside of a show or screen play. That was “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” He called himself a “musical clothier–nothing more or less,” and said: “I write music to both the situations and the lyrics in plays.” .

Voice of America : An example of his inventiveness is the song “All the Things You Are.” Several composers say they consider it the greatest song ever written. Singers continue to like Kern songs because they can be sung in many different ways. .

Dorothy Fields : You see Jerry had intended to leave the St. Regis where they were living and to walk around to Ackerman the antique shop on 57th St to buy a breakfront and he walked up Park Avenue and as he passed the Bible Institute he collapsed. He had no identification except an ASCAP button and when the ambulance picked him up, they rushed him over to Welfare Island and called ASCAP

PBS : Most of Kern’s manuscripts were assumed for decades to be lost. But in 1982 hundreds of manuscripts by Kern and other Broadway composers were found in a warehouse in Secaucus, New Jersey.

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