Happy Easter, Northwest!
“Easter Parade” by Irving Berlin (1888–1989)
Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline on May 11, 1888, in the village of Tyumen, Russia. His family fled to escape the region’s persecution of the Jewish community and settled in New York City in the mid-1890s. As a teen, Baline worked as a street singer, and by 1906 he had become a singing waiter in Chinatown. He first published the lyrics for the tune “Marie From Sunny Italy” in 1907 with Nick Nicholson penning the music. As the lyricist, Baline’s name was misspelled as “I. Berlin” on the sheet music. He decided to keep the name, becoming known professionally as Irving Berlin. In 1916 he became a U.S. citizen and upon serving in World War I, composed the musical, Yip! Yip! Yaphank!” as an Army fund-raiser in1918 that included Ragtime styled tunes and the hit, “Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” a soldier’s lament over the sound of the bugle at dawn.
Berlin proceeded to become a lyricist for the music publishing company Waterson & Snyder. He released a major hit in 1911, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” earning him the nickname “King of Tin Pan Alley.” He was diligent in his writing efforts and was self-taught as a pianist, never learning how to read music and playing in the key of F-sharp, working with a special transcribing keyboard and assistants to explore other keys.
Nonetheless, by the second decade of the 20th century, Berlin had composed more than 1,500 songs and scores for dozens of musicals and films. Among his best known big-screen works were “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (1929), “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1938), and three Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films, including Top Hat (1935), which featured “Cheek to Cheek,” and “Follow the Fleet” (1936), which featured “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” The1942 film, Holiday Inn, showcased Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas,” which became the highest-selling tune in history. The song, “Easter Parade” was composed in 1948.
With his Broadway collaborator, Victor Herbert, Berlin became a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers [ASCAP] in 1914. And in 1919 he founded the Irving Berlin Music Corporation which gave him full control of his copyrights.
Berlin created patriotic fervor with his composition of “God Bless America,” first sung by Kate Smith in 1938 and becoming an unofficial national anthem of the United States. After World War II, Berlin struck Broadway gold again with 1946’s Annie Get Your Gun, which starred Ethel Merman and featured his songs, “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better”, “I Got the Sun in the Morning” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” He would ultimately be nominated for nine Academy Awards winning in 1943 for “White Christmas.” Many of Berlin’s songs became popular hits and are considered part of the American Music Standards canon, having been covered by a multitude of vocal and instrumental music artists.
Berlin quote:
“The songwriter must look upon his work as a business, that is, to make a success of it, he must work and work, and then WORK.” —Irving Berlin
“Easter Parade” Kids: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XflSnFQt28c&feature=share
“Easter Parade”: Al Jolson: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6JoG-g4eeNI&feature=share
Article Source: https://www.biography.com/musician/irving-berlin
The NWUUC Book Groupies will meet Tuesday, April 13th, at 7 pm on Zoom to discuss Good Kings, Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum. This book was a previous Pen/Bellwether Prize winner for Socially Engaged Fiction and “follows the lives of a group of typical teenagers – alienated, funny and yearning for autonomy – who live in an institution for juveniles with disabilities”. This book “challenges our definitions of what it means to live with disability”.
