Monday, September 7, 2009

Harry Warren

The world's first gold record...

The most hits on Your Hit Parade ever...

Over 500 published songs, and his hits are household songs, even 60 years later.

1949 Director of ASCAP...

11 Academy award nominations and three awards for Movie's Best Song.....

And have you heard of Harry Warren?

Success, even in performing arts, is not equal to fame.


Is he a master composer? Yes, without doubt. Is that recognized? No.

Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" reviewed the 2001 revival:

"What better show to install in that theater than -- of course -- a newly opulent ''42nd Street,'' with its finger-snapping anthems to Broadway and Times Square?

Those anthems, by the immortal team of Harry Warren and Al Dubin, remain among the most infectious songs ever written about Manhattan, as energetic, tough-hearted and self-romanticizing as the island itself. No sooner does the orchestra at the Ford Center strike up the overture (beginning with ''We're in the Money'') than you feel yourself grinning."


in 2009, American Songwriter Magazine editor Paul Zollo writes:
"the advent of rock and roll changed the game... He moved away from the short form of songs to write a masterwork - a Latin Mass - completed in 1962. Sadly, there was little interest in it, and it went unheard for a decade until Loyola Marymouth University staged a performance of it. To this day, though, it has never been recorded."


Somebody ought to remedy that.

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