American Popular Song Edited and with an Introd. by James T. Maher
Author: Alec Wilder
Publisher:
Published: 1972
Total Pages: 536
ISBN-13: 9780195014457
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Listening to Classic American Popular Songs
Author: Allen Forte
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2008-10-01
Total Pages: 235
ISBN-13: 0300133359
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the twenties, thirties, and forties, now-legendary American songwriters and lyricists created a repertoire of popular songs, songs that have captured the hearts of generations of music lovers. George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael and many others, along with such lyricists as Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, and Dorothy Fields, produced extraordinary songs of signal importance to the American musical heritage. In this book Allen Forte shares his love of American popular song. He discusses in detail twenty-three songs, ranging from Gershwin’s “Fascinating Rhythm” (1924) to Irving Berlin’s “Steppin’ Out with My Baby” (1947), guiding readers and listeners toward a deeper appreciation of this vital and engaging music. Forte writes for the general reader, assuming no background other than a familiarity with basic music notation. Each song is discussed individually and includes complete lyrics and simple leadsheet notation. Forte discusses the songs’ distinctive musical features and their sophisticated, often touching and witty lyrics. Readers can follow the music while they listen to the accompanying compact disc, which was specially recorded for this volume by baritone Richard Lalli and pianist-arranger Gary Chapman, with Allen Forte, pianist-arranger for “Embraceable You” and “Come Rain or Come Shine”. Learn about these favorite songs and more: “How Long Has This Been Going On?” “What Is This Thing Called Love?” “Embraceable You” “Autumn in New York” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” “The Nearness of You” “That Old Black Magic” “Come Rain or Come Shine”
Great Men of American Popular Song
Author: David Ewen
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Published: 1972
Total Pages: 424
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe American popular song has undergone as many changes and developments as America herself. Here David Ewen explores the whole history and evolution of American popular music from 1746 to the present day. Through the biographies, personal portraits, and critical evaluations of thirty of its leading creators, the reader is given a perspective on how the American popular song developed over the years and gains an insight into the birth and evolution of the media (theater, radio, television, movies, etc.) in which these songs came into being. Within the biographies, such basic styles as the national ballad, the war song, ragtime songs, the blues, show tunes, movie tunes, and the songs of protest are described, while more than passing notice is given to the changing song lyric and the men who brought about this change. The result is a crisply-written, exceedingly knowledgeable work of encyclopedic scope and range that discusses and explains the currents and crosscurrents in the evolution of American popular music. -- From publisher's description.
American Popular Song Lyricists
Author: Michael Whorf
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2014-01-10
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 0786490616
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this volume (a companion to American Popular Song Composers), 39 leading American lyricists from the Tin Pan Alley, Hollywood and Broadway of the 1920s to the 1960s discuss their careers and share the stories of creating many of the most beloved songs in American music. Interviewed for radio in the 1970s, they include such writing teams as Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, and such individuals as Harold Adamson, E.Y. Harburg, Gus Kahn, Leo Robin and Paul Francis Webster. Photographs and rare sheet music reproductions accompany the interviews.
The Voices that Are Gone
Author: Jon W. Finson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1997-07-03
Total Pages: 367
ISBN-13: 019535432X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this unique and readable study, Jon Finson views the mores and values of nineteenth-century Americans as they appear in their popular songs. The author sets forth lyricists' and composers' notions of courtship, technology, death, African Americans, Native Americans, and European ethnicity by grouping songs topically. He goes on to explore the interaction between musical style and lyrics within each topic. The lyrics and changing musical styles present a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century America. The composers discussed in the book range from Henry Russell ("Woodman, Spare That Tree"), Stephen Foster ("Oh! Susanna"), and Dan Emmett ("I Wish I Was in Dixie's Land"), to George M. Cohan and Maude Nugent ("Sweet Rosie O'Grady"), and Gussie Lord Davis ("In the Baggage Coach Ahead"). Readers will recognize songs like "Pop Goes the Weasel," "The Yellow Rose of Texas," "The Fountain in the Park," "After the Ball," "A Bicycle Built for Two," and many others which gain significance by being placed in the larger context of American history.
They're Playing Our Song
Author: Max Wilk
Publisher:
Published: 1991
Total Pages: 300
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmerican Popular Song
Author: Alec Wilder
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 577
ISBN-13: 019093994X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Composer Alec Wilder's American Popular: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950 is widely recognized as the definitive book on American popular song. In this volume, which achieved immediate praise and recognition upon its publication, Wilder discusses some 800 songs from the American Songbook, offering a composer's insight, acceccible music analysis, as well has his strong personal biases. Nearly fifty years later, this classic study has received a much-needed revision. While leaving Wilder's colorful prose and brazen opinions intact, language, style, and musical nomenclature have been updated to reflect current usage. The musical examples mostly remain, but piano score has been replaced with lead-sheet notation: melody, chords, and lyrics. Rhythmic notation has also been adjusted to follow present-day norms. Additionally, a final chapter has been added, which includes more than fifty songs that were not in the original, seeking to achieve greater representation for women and African American composers, as well as including several of Wilder's own songs"--
Easy to Remember
Author: William Zinsser
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 300
ISBN-13: 9781567923254
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this warm and affectionate book, William Zinsser describes his lifelong love affair with American popular song and the American musical theater.
A Fine Romance
Author: David Lehman
Publisher: Schocken
Published: 2009-10-06
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 0805242716
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn A Fine Romance, David Lehman looks at the formation of the American songbook—the timeless numbers that became jazz standards, iconic love songs, and sound tracks to famous movies—and explores the extraordinary fact that this songbook was written almost exclusively by Jews. An acclaimed poet, editor, and cultural critic, David Lehman hears America singing—with a Yiddish accent. He guides us through America in the golden age of song, when “Embraceable You,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “My Romance,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Stormy Weather,” and countless others became nothing less than the American sound track. The stories behind these songs, the shows from which many of them came, and the shows from which many of them came, and the composers and lyricists who wrote them give voice to a specifically American saga of love, longing, assimilation, and transformation. Lehman’s analytical skills, wit, and exuberance infuse this book with an energy and a tone like no other: at once sharply observant, personally searching, and attuned to the songs that all of us love. He helps us understand how natural it should be that Wizard of Oz composer Harold Arlen was the son of a cantor who incorporated “Over the Rainbow” into his Sabbath liturgy, and why Cole Porter—the rare non-Jew in this pantheon of musicians who wrote these classic songs shaped America even as America was shaping them. (Part of the Jewish Encounter series)
America's Songs
Author: Philip Furia
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2006-05-12
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 1135471991
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAmerica's Songs tells the stories behind the most beloved popular songs of the last century. We all have songs that have a special meaning in our lives; hearing them evokes a special time or place. Little wonder that these special songs have become enduring classics. Nothing brings the roarin '20s to life like Tea for Two or I'm just Wild About Harry; the Great Depression is evoked in all of its pain and misery in songs like Brother Can You Spare a Dime?; God Bless America revives the powerful hope that American democracy promised to the world during the dark days of World War II; Young at Heart evokes the postwar optimism of the '50s. And then there are the countless songs of love, new romance, and heartbreak: As Time Goes By, Always, Am I Blue...the list is endless. Along with telling the stories behind these songs, America's Songs suggests, simply and succinctly, what makes a song great. The book illuminates the way each great song melds words and music - sentiment and melody - into a seamless whole. America's Songs also traces the fascinating but mysterious process of collaboration, the give-and-take between two craftsmen, a composer and a lyricist, as they combined their talents to create a song. For anyone interested in the history of the songs that America loves, America's Songs will make for fascinating reading.
