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They're Playing Our Song: Conversations With America's Classic Songwriters
Originally published in 1973, when it won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award , reprinted and revised several times since, They're Playing Our Song is a classic oral history of American popular music. Now further updated with new material and new photographs, this book is indispensable for anyone interested in the Great American Songbook of the 20th Century, original, classic and timeless songs and lyrics as popular today as ever.
- GenresMusicNonfictionBiography
426 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 27, 2020
Like Kevin Brownlow with the pioneers of Hollywood film, Max Wilk had the interest and the opportunity to interview a wide selection of America's songwriters from the classic era of popular sheet music at a time when they were old and out of fashion, but while they were still (mostly) alive to talk about their glory years. The only one who appears to have declined to contribute more than a couple of sentences was Irving Berlin, but like those of his contemporaries who had died young, he too appears via the recollections of others.
And it's an invaluable compilation of craftsmen talking about their craft. Some of them are still household names today (Rodgers and Hammerstein). Some of them I recognise from the recurring credits on songsheets (Harry Warren, Vincent Youmans) and some of them I've never consciously heard of (Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin), though it turns out I've heard their songs (e.g. "Three Coins in the Fountain"). The results, both personal anecdotes and technical insights, are fascinating, and of course there's the odd case where anecdotes overlap and two collaborators' recollections of the same event notably differ!
Views on the 'modern' music of the late Sixties and early Seventies are often trenchant: "Today it's all protesters..." "They write about the world today, and that world isn't a very pleasant place. So there aren't many pleasant songs.". " The song of today appeals mostly to just one section of the public. It's aimed at the young, it expresses feelings of the young, and the young can identify. But the over-thirty people can't... I don't think the kids are writing for anyone except themselves. They don't really want to reach anyone else. It's as if they're saying, 'This is a music for us. This is our music.'". But the names that are cited as modern talent are, by and large, the performers of that era who have also stood the test of time and are remembered today. (I was amused by the sceptical assertion in the article on Oscar Hammerstein that nobody would be reviving "Jesus Christ Superstar" forty-five years on - little did Wilk know that as it happened he'd chanced upon the one composer of popular new musicals whose shows would become as perennial as "Show Boat"! 45 years on, and yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber's early hit has just had a new production...)
The first thing I did on finishing this book was to go to my music cabinet and get out the music for Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies", to find out exactly what it was he wrote that allegedly stole the opening night of a failed Rodgers and Hart musical (the show 'Betsy', which has long since sunk without trace). I didn't recognise the title, but it turned out, of course, that I knew it all along...
And it's an invaluable compilation of craftsmen talking about their craft. Some of them are still household names today (Rodgers and Hammerstein). Some of them I recognise from the recurring credits on songsheets (Harry Warren, Vincent Youmans) and some of them I've never consciously heard of (Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin), though it turns out I've heard their songs (e.g. "Three Coins in the Fountain"). The results, both personal anecdotes and technical insights, are fascinating, and of course there's the odd case where anecdotes overlap and two collaborators' recollections of the same event notably differ!
Views on the 'modern' music of the late Sixties and early Seventies are often trenchant: "Today it's all protesters..." "They write about the world today, and that world isn't a very pleasant place. So there aren't many pleasant songs.". " The song of today appeals mostly to just one section of the public. It's aimed at the young, it expresses feelings of the young, and the young can identify. But the over-thirty people can't... I don't think the kids are writing for anyone except themselves. They don't really want to reach anyone else. It's as if they're saying, 'This is a music for us. This is our music.'". But the names that are cited as modern talent are, by and large, the performers of that era who have also stood the test of time and are remembered today. (I was amused by the sceptical assertion in the article on Oscar Hammerstein that nobody would be reviving "Jesus Christ Superstar" forty-five years on - little did Wilk know that as it happened he'd chanced upon the one composer of popular new musicals whose shows would become as perennial as "Show Boat"! 45 years on, and yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber's early hit has just had a new production...)
The first thing I did on finishing this book was to go to my music cabinet and get out the music for Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies", to find out exactly what it was he wrote that allegedly stole the opening night of a failed Rodgers and Hart musical (the show 'Betsy', which has long since sunk without trace). I didn't recognise the title, but it turned out, of course, that I knew it all along...
May 27, 2023
This is my great grandfathers book
January 7, 2010
Nice interviews and insights from the creators of the Great American Songbook. A bit rambling in places, but affable and enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews