Description

The Irving Berlin Reader offers fascinating glimpses the life and work of this most famous of American songwriters. Berlin is presented here in full through writings from his earliest years to the present, including Berlin’s own thoughts on songwriting. Many of the articles are otherwise difficult or impossible to find, and all are expertly contextualized by Ben Sears’s introductions.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One: Musical Demon – Early Years
1.1 A Trip to Chinatown with Irving Berlin, Ward Morehouse
1.2 Alexander & Irving, Edward Jablonski
1.3 Excerpt from Alexander and His Band, Charles Hamm
1.4 The Boy Who Revived Ragtime, Rennard Wolf
1.5 Review of Watch Your Step by Madam Critic
1.6 Excerpt from First Nights and First Editions, Harry B. Smith
1.7 Watch Your Step: Irving Berlin’s 1914 Musical, Margaret Knapp
1.8 Ghost of Verdi Interviewed: Tells How He Suffers Nightly
1.9 Fond Memory: Those Old Music Box Revues, Robert Baral
1.10 Letter about The Music Box, Robert Benchley
1.11 Yes, We Have No Bananas in Grand Opera Setting, S.I. deKrafft
Part Two: Blue Skies – Middle Years
2.1 Memoir, George S. Kaufman
2.2 Letter from Jerome Kern to Alexander Woollcott from The Story of Irving Berlin
2.3 Excerpt from Musical Stages, Richard Rodgers
2.4 Excerpt from chapter The March of Time in A Song in the Dark, Richard Barrios
2.5 Unity in Word and Tone in Two Ballads by Irving Berlin, Howard Pollack
2.6 The Origins of Easter Parade, Benjamin Sears
2.7 Gawd Bless A-M-E-R-I-K-A, Cleve Sallendar
2.8 No Right to a Personal Interest in ‘God Bless America’, Berlin is Told, Variety
2.9 Excerpt from Stokowski, Here for Concert Tonight, Praises Martial, Folk Songs
Likes to Play for Soldiers, Nashville Tennessean
2.10 Irving Berlin Orders Song Word Change, Richmond Afro American
2.11 Excerpt from Musical Stages: An Autobiography, Richard Rodgers
2.12 Excerpt from Who Could Ask for Anything More, Ethel Merman, as told to Pete Martin
2.13 Annie Get Your Gun, Brooks Atkinson
2.14 Verse to Halloween, Harold Arlen & Ralph Blane
2.15 Excerpt from The Hollywood Musical, John Russell Taylor and Arthur Jackson
2.16 Excerpt from Steps in Time, Fred Astaire
Part Three: The Melody Lingers On – Later Years
3.1 A Ninetieth-birthday Salute to the Master of American Song, Joshua Logan
3.2 First Encounters: Irving Berlin and George Gershwin, Nancy Caldwell Sorel
3.3 Excerpts from Top Hat and Tales, Mark Steyn
3.4 Berlin at 100: Life On a High Note, Marilyn Berger
3.5 Bit of Blues for Ballads of Berlin, Murray Kempton
3.6 Genius Without Tears, Josh Rubins
3.7 Irving Berlin (1888-1989), Arthur Maisel
3.8 Cartoon: September 22, 1989, Edward Sorel
Epilogue: Berlin on Songwriting
4.1 How to Write Ragtime Songs, Irving Berlin
4.2 Song and Sorrow Are Playmates, Irving Berlin
4.3 Irving Berlin Gives Nine Rules for Writing Popular Songs, Frank Ward O’Malley
4.4 Excerpt from Words and Music From Irving Berlin, Isaac Goldberg
4.5 How to Write a Song Hit, Irving Berlin
Biographical Highlights
Suggested Reading
Index