Jews & American Music

American Jewish Songwriters & Musicians

The eighteenth century British poet, Alexander Pope, wrote “An Essay on Criticism,” which is a poem, not an essay. Included is the famous phrase “Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread.” This phrase applies to the common belief that cultural, learned phenomena are inborn biological traits.

Indeed, the proportion of Jewish Americans among songwriters is far greater than the 1.7% of Jews in the American population. This phenomenon is a cultural, not a biological outcome of Jewish experience. Almost all immigrants who have come to America over the years were poor and ignorant of the American culture. This led these poor slum inhabitants to find a way out of poverty by using their talents in areas which established natives would not consider. Music is an area in which more people fail than succeed. This is also true of acting on the stage or in the movies. Therefore the poor who have little to lose will take risks which “solid citizens” will avoid. The Jewish songwriters were the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Therefore they became songwriters, not because they were Jewish, but because they were immigrants. If songwriting were an inherited condition, then all Jews would be songwriters.

Likewise, the opera is an Italian cultural phenomenon, except for the noisy Wagner’s operas. The development of the opera in Italy was the consequence of the Turkish, Muslim invasion of Constantinople in 1453 when the Greek Christians fled to Italy to escape Muslim domination. This led to the Renaissance, or rebirth, of Greek culture in Italy. The Greeks had already developed speaking choruses in their plays. These were gradually set to music and became the great operas of the nineteenth century. It is noteworthy that a German speaking Austrian, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, wrote Italian opera with great success because he learned it. All Italians are not opera composers or even musically inclined.

Therefore it is learned culture, not biology, which determines behavior, ideology, and material developments. This, then, explains that there were at least two hundred American Jewish songwriters active in the years 1900 and beyond. In the early days of Jewish settlement in America, these were very few but became an ever increasing number as two and a half million Jews arrived in the United States between 1884 and 1924. One of the first Jewish songwriters was Henry Russell, who was a Jewish immigrant from England.

He was born in 1812 and traveled to the United States in 1836. He wrote the song “A Life on an Ocean Wave,” and the music to “Woodman Spare that Tree.” He remained in the USA until 1848, when he returned to London.

Russell was related to  the Chief Rabbi of England. Russell also wrote “The Fine Old English Gentleman.” Russell was married twice. He divorced his Christian wife and married Jewish and raised his two sons in the Jewish faith. 

Russell was the first Jewish songwriter in America, although he was English. There were a few other Jewish songwriters in the United States during the 19th century and the early 20th century.  In 1892, Charles K. Harris wrote “After the Ball,” and in 1900 Albert von Tilzer (Albert Gumm) wrote “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. In 1908 Nora Bayes and her husband Jack Norworth wrote “Shine on Harvest Moon.” In 1900, Gus Edwards wrote “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” and Harry von Tilzer, Albert’s brother, wrote “I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl that Married Dear Old Dad.”

However, it was the mass immigration of eastern European Jews which fructified the American musical scene immensely.

The earliest of the east European Jewish immigrant songwriters in America was Irving Berlin, who was born in Russia in 1888. His name was Israel Beilin, which he changed to Irving Berlin.  When they arrived in New York City in 1893. Irving was then five years old. He was one of eight children. His father Moses Berlin gave Irving singing lessons until his father died in 1896. The family became extremely poor without a father. Therefore Irving left home at age fourteen and began singing in bars and in the streets of New York in an effort to help his family. He was then fourteen. Although he attended school for two years, he had no musical education and never learned to read or write music. 

In 1906, at age eighteen, Berlin went to work as a singing waiter in a restaurant in Chinatown. He waited on tables and entertained customers singing popular songs with his own lyrics. His first song was “Marie from Sunny Italy.” Then, in 1911, he wrote the words and music to “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” When this song was sung by a number of singers around the country, Berlin attained instant recognition. It was astonishing that an immigrant without much education was able to write English lyrics in addition to music, without having had a musical education. 

In 1914 Berlin wrote a complete musical called “Watch Your Step,” followed by “Stop, Look, Listen.” In 1918, he wrote “Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning,” a year in which he formed his own musical publishing company.

Berlin then wrote numerous musical shows . These incuded “Ziegfield Follies”, “Music Box Review”, “As Thousands Cheer,” “This Is The Army,” “Annie get Your Gun,” “Call Me Madam,” “Top Hat,””Follow the Fleet,” and “Holiday Inn.”  He also wrote two of America’s best known songs, “White Christmas” and “God Bless America.”

“God bless America,

Land that I love,

Stand beside her, and guide her

Through the night with a light from above

From the mountains to the prairies

To the oceans white with foam, God bless America

My home sweet home, God bless America my home sweet home.

(Lyrics by Irving Berlin).

Irving Berlin’s hundredth birthday was celebrated by a special broadcast from Carnegie Hall in New York. He died soon thereafter. At his funeral, it was remembered that Jerome Kern had said, “Irving Berlin is American Music.”

Irvfing Berlin married Dorothy Goetz of Buffalo in 1912 when she was 20 years old. During their honeymoon in Havana she contracted typhoid fever and died on their return to New York. Irving was so distraught that for some months he could not work.

Eight years later he married Ellin Mackay, the daughter of a wealthy Catholic. He was the executive of a large company and became incensed because his daughter married an immigrant Jew. He failed to come to their wedding, which was a simple ceremony at the Municipal Building. Her father refused to speak to his daughter thereafter. When her father lost his money during the 1929 stock market crash, he reconciled with Irving and Ellin and borrowed money from his successful son-in-law. Irving and Ellin had four children. Their son died in infancy. The other three were girls whose married names forever hid the descent from their famous grandfather.

Sigmund Romberg, a.k.a. Rosenberg, was born in Hungary in 1887. He composed sixty works for the musical theater and additionally for musical revues and comedies. His ability was visible when he was a small child, learning to play the piano and the violin at age six. His parents sent him to a college to learn engineering, but he emigrated and went to the USA in 1909 to become a musician. He was most prominent as a composer of operettas and material for musicals, of which Oscar Hammerstein participated as the lyricist. Romberg started his career in the United States by playing music in cafes and bars in New York. In 1914, when he became an American citizen he composed “The Whirl of the World.” There followed “The Blue Paradise,” “The Night is Young,” and “When I Get Too Old to Dream.”

One of Romberg’s most successful shows was “The Student Prince,” which ran for 608 performances. “Desert Song” ran for 465 performances. It was inspired by the adventures of Lawrence of Arabia. “The New Moon” ran for 519 performances and was repeated in two film versions.

In 1970, Romberg was inducted into The Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Romberg was first married to Eugenia Romberg. Divorced, he married Lillian Harris in 1925. He had no children. He died of a stroke in 1951. In 1954, Jose Ferrer played Romberg in the film “Deep in my Heart.”  

Jerome Kern was born in 1885 of two Jewish parents of German birth. He wrote over 700 songs, and is best known for his musical Showboat, which was made into a movie starring Howard Keel and Katherine Grayson.

Kern grew up in New York City and attended The New York College of Music. He began his career providing songs to Broadway shows, as well as in London, England. 

In May 1915, Kern booked a voyage to England on the Lusitania, but missed the boat by oversleeping. The Lusitania was sunk with all aboard after a torpedo hit it.

During the decade of the 1920’s, Kern was unusually productive, as he created at least one show each year of the decade, including “The Night Boat,” which ran for 300 performances in New York and for three seasons on tour. Kern’s songs were sung on the radio and in nightclubs. He had an aversion to these performances, because they were out of context with the shows for which they were written.

In 1925, Kern met Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he collaborated for a lifetime. In 1927, Kern wrote “Show Boat,” with Hammerstein writing the lyrics.  The show included Kern’s greatest songs, “Old Man River,” “Can’t Help Loving That Man”, “You Are Love,” “Life Upon the Wicked Stage,” “Why Do I Love You,” “Bill” (lyrics by P.G. Wodehouse), and “Make Believe.”

“We could make believe I love you,

Only make believe that you love me,

Others find peace of mind in pretending,

Coudn’t you, couldn’t I, couldn’t we?

Make believe our lips are blending, In a phantom kiss or two or three,

Might as well make believe I love you,

For to tell the truth, I do.”  (Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II).

In 1935, Kern went to Hollywood, where he composed the scores for a number of films. He then settled permanently in Hollywood in 1937. In 1939, Kern suffered a heart attack, and that year composed “Music in the Air” with Oscar Hammerstein. Kern then wrote “I Dream Too Much,” which featured the opera singer Lily Pons. He continued to write songs throughout the 1930’s, and wrote the music for “Swing Time,” including “The Way You Look Tonight.”

“Swing Time” was performed by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.  Kern continued his  collaboration with Hammerstein until his death in 1945, accumulating numerous awards. MGM made a fictionalized movie of his life called “Til the clouds Roll By.” Kern was married once and had one daughter. No doubt his greatest achievement was “Show Boat,” which has been made into a movie and contains his greatest songs.

Sammy Cahn, or Samuel Cohen, was born in New York in 1913 of two Jewish immigrants from Poland. He had four sisters. Sammy learned to play the violin and joined a Dixieland band after his bar mitzvah, touring the Catskills.

Cahn wrote both music and words or lyrics. He wrote “Love and Marriage,” which became the theme song for the TV show “Married… with Children.” The song had won an Emmy award in 1956. Cahn wrote so many sons for Frank Sinatra that he was regarded as Sinatra’s personal songwriter. Cahn contributed songs and lyrics to sequels to The Wizard of Oz and was elected to The Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He was married two times. First to Gloria Delson, with whom he had two children, and, after his divorce, he married Virginia Curtis.

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1898. He died in 1937 at age thirty-eight. He composed both popular and classical music, including “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris.” “Summertime” and “Porgy and Bess” were a few of his best known compositions.

Gershwin studied piano and composition with prominent musicians. He began his career composing Broadway theater shows. His brother Ira wrote the lyrics.

After a few poorly paid jobs when he was seventeen, Gershwin produced nearly a hundred songs under his or an assumed name. 

In 1919, Gershwin wrote “Swanee,” his biggest song hit that far. He wrote numerous songs in the decade 1920-1929, including “Lady be Good”, “Funny Face,” and “Strike Up the Band.” 

In 1924, Gershwin composed “Rhapsody in Blue,” a title suggested by his brother Ira. The first time Gershwin played this composition, a number of prominent composers were present., including Serge Rachmaninoff, Leopold Stokowski, Fritz Kreisler, and John Phillip Sousa.

The recording of “Rhapsody” sold millions of copies. It established Gershwin as a serious composer of classical music. Had he lived, he would have become a major contributor to American classics far more important than any songwriters had achieved in Gershwin’s short lifetime.

The number of movies made since the inception of Hollywood films in the beginning of the 20th century is vast and mostly boring nonsense, not worth the time or the expense of sleeping through them. There are, however, a few exceptions to this ongoing disaster. One of these exceptions is “The Wizard of Oz.”

Harold Arlen was born in Buffalo, New York in 1905.  His father was a cantor in a synagogue. He dropped out of school and formed a band and made a living as an arranger and performer. After he moved to New York in the mid-1920’s, Arlen began his composing career. He wrote over 500 songs for Broadway musicals and Hollywood. He wrote for the Harlem Cotton Club, “St. Louis Woman,” and “Free and Easy.” He wrote songs for twenty-nine films, including “A Star Is Born” and “The Wizard of Oz.” 

Arlen’s music has been compared to Stephen Foster’s original American folk music. 

Arlen’s contribution to “The Wizard of Oz” was so popular that his songs from that movie are widely known to the American public, even if their composer is seldom recognized. “Over the Rainbow” is undoubtedly the best known of all his songs. The words to the song were written by Isidore Hochberg, also knowns as E.Y. Harburg.

“Follow the Yellow Brick Road, follow the Rainbow over the Stream, We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz. We heard he is a Wiz of a Wiz, if ever a Wiz there was. The Wizard of Oz is one because because of the wonderful things he does.”. Other songs by Harold Arlen included in the Wizard of Oz are, ”Come Out, Come Out,” “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” “If I Only Had a Brain,” “If I Only Had a Heart,” “If I Only Had the Nerve,” “If I Were King of the Forest,”  and “Courage.” The words to “Over the Rainbow” were written by Isidore Hochberg and sung in the movie by Judy Garland.

Over the Rainbow

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high

There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true

Someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me

Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly

Birds fly over the rainbow.  Why then, oh why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow

Why, oh why can't I?

Harold Arlen was married to Anya Taranda. They adopted one child, his brother’s son. Anya became emotionally so disturbed that she was incarcerated in a mental institution an died  in 1970. Arlen never married again. 

Neil Diamond was born in Brooklyn in 1941. He has been married three times, first to Jayne Posner, whom he divorced after six years in 1969. His second wife was Maria Murphy, from 1969 to 1990, and his third wife is Katie McNeil, whom he married in 2012. He has four children. He was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. 

His career began at age 16, when he was in high school. He started to write music and poetry and wrote his own songs. Diamond attended New York University, but dropped out with only a few units needed for graduation, because he was offered a contract at $50 per week. That equals $143 in 2020.

In 1962, Diamond signed a contract with Columbia Records.  He wrote a number of songs for Columbia, and then recorded on his own with “Solitary Man” with Atlantic.

In 1996, Diamond moved to Los Angeles and wrote “Sweet Caroline” for Caroline Kennedy, but later changed his mind and claimed it was written for his wife.

In 1980, Neil Diamond accepted the role of “The Jazz Singer,”  a movie in which Al Jolson had played the title role in 1927; Diamond had no acting experience. Although the movie was not well received, the soundtrack sold more than six million copies.

Diamond played opposite Laurence Olivier, whose character is an orthodox Jewish cantor and father of the Jazz Singer. He had hoped that his son would become a cantor, as had been true for five generations. But his son leaves the family. The father and son become estranged and no longer see one another until “Jackie,” the Jazz Singer, comes to New York to appear in an important show furthering his career. The opening night of the show is vital for “The Jazz Singer” and he is told that if he does not appear as scheduled he will never sing on Broadway again. He visits his sick father who cannot perform as cantor. His mother persuades him to go to the synagogue and sing the opening prayer at the Yom Kippur service, the holiest day of the Jewish year. He sings “Kol Nidre,” a song performed in every synagogue the world over at the beginning of the service,  and is reconciled with his family.

“Kol Nidre” is Aramaic  for “All the Vows.” Aramaic is spoken in Lebanon by the Christian minority among the Arab speaking majority. The language is related to Hebrew as American English is related to British  English.

Since both Al Jolson and Neil Diamond had learned some Hebrew as children, they were able to perform this song-prayer. Diamond said later that he would not act in a movie again and would stick to performing as a singer. 

Until 2018, Neil Diamond continued touring across the country. He retired after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, but gave one more concert in Las Vegas in 2020.

Leonard Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1918. He was not only a songwriter but also the composer of so called “classical” music. He is best known for his composition West Side Story, modeled after the story of Romeo and Juliet.

The song “America” has been described as “the real show stopper” of the musical. It is followed by “Officer Krupke,” which ridicules the police, but also tells how the gang life came about. The show includes the “Spanish Quartet” and the “Jet Song.” “I Feel Pretty” is sung by a girl who is happy to be loved by a boy in the gang. Then there is “The Dance at the Gym,” which moves from jazz to ballet and includes a duet between two lovers. The song “Maria”  is an expression of love song by a boy concerning his love for his girl. “A Boy Like That” is sung by a girl defending her man, and “Somewhere” is a duet in which the two protagonists sing about running away together . Finally, “Cool” is sung by the gang leader telling the boys to keep “cool” before a fight.

Leonard Bernstein was not only a composer but spent most of his time as a symphony conductor. He graduated from Harvard University and then enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He then continued his studies at the Boston Symphony summer institute, where he studied conducting. This led to his appointment to conducting assistant in Boston, and thereafter in 1943 he was appointed assistant conductor  of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. 

In 1945 he was appointed Music Director of the New York City Symphony. In 1944 Bernstein wrote his Jeremiah symphony and the musical “On the Town.” In 1946, Arturo Toscanini invited Bernstein to be guest conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Beginning in 1947, Bernstein conducted numerous times in Israel and in Boston. From 1951 to 1956, he was visiting professor of music at Brandeis University. Leonard Bernstein remained active until 1990. The list of his activities is extremely long. During his years he received many honors and was feted by the “elite” New York society who attended his concerts.

It is unfortunate that attendance at major American symphony orchestras is limited to the rich and the superrich, thereby making this form of music invisible to the American public.

Bernstein was married to Felicia Cohn, a native of Chile. They had three children.

Paul Simon was born in 1941 in New York. His career resembles that of so many popular American musicians and songwriters whose abilities were and are severely limited. This is evident by comparing American songwriters to the great Italian and other European music composers of the 19thcentury. They include Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Gioachino Rossini, Giacomo Puccini, and numerous others, including the German speaking Austrian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who composed Italian opera. 

Germany had already been the native land of Bach, Handel, Hayden, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Weber, and Austria had the privilege of enjoying the music of Johann Strauss  Sr. and Johann Strauss, Jr.

The fact is that not one of the American composers of the twentieth century, including Paul Simon, ever reached the level of achievement attained by the Europeans.

Paul Simon teamed with Art Garfunkel to produce such trash as “Wednesday Morning” and “Sounds of Silence,” which initially failed to gain much of an audience. Simon did win “The Album of the Year Award” for “Still Crazy after all these Years,” which demonstrated that alost anything can gain an award in American music.  Thereafter Simon composed numerous songs which have been mainly forgotten.

In 1985 and 1986, Simon travelled to South Africa, where he recorded “Graceland,” an album including Zulu singing. In the 21st Century, Simon composed “You’re So Beautiful” and “Surprise.” For all this, Simon has won a Lifetime Achievement Award and a number of Grammys.

Simon has had a long time association with the TV shows “Saturday Night Live.” The contributions of Garfinkel to Simon’s enterprises was minimal.

Simon contributed a good amount of money to charity, including the Children’s Health Fund and Autism Speaks.  Simon has been married three times and has four children. 

Stephen Sondheim was born in New York City in 1930. He composed mainly for the musical theater. He is best known for his shows “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “A Little Night Music,” “Merrily We Roll Along,” and “In the Woods.” Sondheim has received numerous awards and one theater on Broadway was named after him.

He received an Academy Award and eight Tony Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award, eight Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. Sondheim wrote a musical called “Beggar on Horseback.”

In 1959, Sondheim wrote the lyrics for “Gypsy,” a show concerning Gypsy Rose Lee. Sondheim wanted to write the music but was persuaded to write the lyrics instead. 

Sondheim then composed the music for five musicals and also wrote the lyrics. These were “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” which opened in 1964 and ran for 964 performances. He then wrote “Anyone Can Wait,” which failed with only nine performances, as did several other efforts.

Sondheim was homosexual. He had no children.

Marvin Hamlisch was one of only fifteen people who ever won all four awards available to members of the entertainment industry. He won the ‘Emmy’ Award for excellence in the television industry, the Grammy Award for excellence in the music industry, an Oscar for excellence in the film industry, and a Tony for excellence in the theater.

Marvin Hamlisch was born New York of two Jewish parents who immigrated to the USA from Vienna, Austria. He was a child prodigy. At age seven he was accepted into the Juilliard School of Music.

His first job was to play piano for the rehearsals of “Funny Girl” with Barbra Streisand.  He graduated from Queens College in 1967. Still in his teens, Hamlisch wrote his first song, “Traveling Man.” At age 21 he wrote “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows.” He then wrote the film score for “The Swimmer.” He then wrote film scores for several Woody Allen movies, and the popular song “California Nights.”

In 1973, Hamlisch arranged the score for the music of “The Sting.” The album hit number one on “Billboard” the following year, selling nearly two million copies in the U.S. alone. In 1973, Hamlisch won two Academy prizes for scoring “The Way We Were,” He then wrote the theme music for “Good morning America,” and in 1980 he wrote The Goodbye Girl.” He was music director for Barbara Streisand’s 1994 concert tour.  He became conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, as well as symphony orchestras in Dallas, Buffalo, Pasadena, and Baltimore.  On August 6, 2012, Hamlisch suddenly collapsed and died. He had married Terry Blair in 1989. She was a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio and a television news anchor. They had no children.

William “Billy” Joel was born in New York City in 1949. He is a singer, songwriter, composer, and pianist. He has been called “The Piano Man,” after one of his songs, having released twelve studio albums.

Joel has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards, winning five of them.

He was inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2001 he received The Johnny Mercer Award. In 2013, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. In 1987, he was invited to hold a rock and roll tour in the Soviet Union. He performs regularly at Madison Square Garden in New York.  

William Joel was raised in Oyster Bay on Long Island. His father, Helmut Joel,  a German immigrant, was a classical pianist who came from Nurnberg. To escape the Nazi government, the Joel family moved to Switzerland (Die Schweiz). The family then moved to the United States, where his father became an engineer. His mother had immigrated from England.

After the Second World War, Billy Joel’s father divorced his mother and returned to Vienna, Austria, where he became a classical conductor. Billy’s mother  sent him to a piano teacher at age four. After his father left, he helped support his mother and his sister by playing in a piano bar.

After graduating from high school, Billy began his career as a songwriter. He modeled himself after The Beatles and The Four Seasons. He then joined “The Echoes.” He played piano on several record releases, including playing with “The Shangri-Las” which led to a solo performance. 

Billy Joel then signed a contract with Columbia Productions. His first album with Columbia was called “Piano Man.” His second Columbia recording was called “Street Life Serenade,”which contains “Root Beer Rag.” By 1977, Joel had written numerous songs. He was introduced to Phil Ramone, who produced all of Joel’s albums from 1977 to 1979. In that year he travelled to Havana, Cuba, to participate in The Havana Jam Festival.

He then recorded “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” and “She’s Got A Way,” which sold over three million copies. Billy Joel was financially a great success. His music does indeed appeal to many American salthough it falls far short of such music greats as Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern.

Frank Loesser wrote the music and the lyrics for “Guys and Dolls” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” He was awarded the Pulitzer prize for drama and received an Academy Award for the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”

Loesser’s parents were German Jews. Frank could play the piano at age four before he could read. His first Broadway show was composed in 1936. That year he married Lynn Garland. Loesser then wrote the lyrics for a number of popular songs until he joined the army in World War II.

“Guys and Dolls” earned Loesser a Tony Award in 1950. It was made into a film in 1955 with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, and Jean Simmons. In 1952 Loesser wrote the music for “Hans Christian Andersen,” including “Wonderful Copenhagen,” “Anywhere I Wander,” and “Thumbelina.”

In 1957, Loesser divorced and began a relationship with Jo Sullivan. In 1965, Loesser wrote his last musical “Pleasures and Palaces.” He died of lung cancer in 1969 as a result of heavy smoking.

Among his many songs were “Once in Love with Amy,” “A Bushel and a Peck,” “Luck be a Lady,” “Standing on the Corner,” “The Brotherhood of Man,” and many others. One of his most popular songs is “A Bushel and a Peck”.

I love you, a bushel and a peck;

a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck;

 a hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap

 and I’m talking in my sleep, about you.

When Frank Loesser died in 1969, he was only 59 years old.

Barry Manilow: Barry Alan Pincus was born in 1943 in the Bronx, New York. He changed his name to his mother’s name, Manilow, and married Susan Deixler in 1964. They divorced in 1966. In 2014, Manilow married his boyfriend, Gary Kief.

Over the years, Manilow has written and performed for musicals, films, and concerts, as well as advertising corporations such as McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and Band-Aid.  He was been nominated for a Grammy Award fifteen times between 1973 and 2015.

In 1964, Manilow wrote the score for “The Drunkard,” which was shown for eight years in New York’s 13th Street Theater. In the 1960’s, Manilow made a living by writing commercial jingles for State Farm Insurance, “Like a good neighbor, State farm is there”or Band-Aid, “I am stuck on Band-Aid, ‘cause Band–Aid is stuck on me.” He also sang for “Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Pepsi, “All across the nation it’s the Pepsi generation” , McDonalds and Dr. Pepper.

In the 1970’s, Manilow recorded to songs, “Could it be Magic” and “Morning.” Both songs were hardly noticed. From 1971 to 1975, Manilow was pianist for the recording artist Bette Midler. In 1977, Manilow recorded an album called “Barry Manilow Live,” which included some of the jingles he had written. Manilow then appeared on American Bandstand. Later Manilow was featured in a movie called “Copacabana,” produced by Dick Clark.

In 1980, ABC presented four television specials starring Barry Manilow. Reaching an audience of 37 million, the specials won an award for Outstanding Comedy and Variety. In 1988, Manilow appeared on a television special called “Big Fun on Swing Street.” From then on, into the 21st century, Manilow recorded and appeared on television regularly. In 2020 Manilow was extremely popular among millions of fans in the United States and England. This demonstrates that there are many listeners who know nothing of the Italian opera or the music of Johann Strauss I and II or Beethoven but believe that Manilow can sing and that his recitations are songs. In 2020, prior to the shutdown, Manilow was expected in 58 events. He was to appear numerous times in Las Vegas, and in England . This leads to the conclusion so well summarized in that Latin proverb: De Gustibus non est disputandem,” or “With taste there is no Argument.”

André Previn was born in Berlin, Germany in 1929. To escape the Nazi horrors, André and family left Germany in 1938 and moved to Los Angeles. Previn studied conducting in San Francisco and then worked for MGM for sixteen years. He was involved in over 50 films before leaving his film career. His career began as an arranger and composer of Hollywood film scores for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. He later became the music director and conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Oslo Philharmonic. Then he conducted the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Previn was also a jazz pianist who accompanied jazz singers.   Previn was also a composer. He wrote two concert overtures, several tone poems, fourteen concerti, a symphony for strings, incidental music for a British play, a great deal of chamber music, numerous pieces for various instruments, a waltz, a string quartet, and, in addition, two successful operas

Previn was also well received by television audiences. In England he was featured in a program “Meet André Previn” on London “Weekend Television.” He appeared in several comedies with other pianists and succeeded in them as well.

Previn was the subject of a two hour film called “The Kindness of Strangers.” This film followed Previn for a year for engagements around the world. This film was issued in 2009.

Previn was married five times. He first married jazz singer Betty Bennett in 1952. With her he had two daughters, Claudia and Alice. He divorced Bennett in 1957 before his younger daughter was born. In 1959 he married Dory Langan. She was a singer, songwriter, and lyricist. During their marriage, Previn conducted several of her film scores. In 1970, Previn married Mia Farrow. With her he had three children and adopted two Vietnamese boys. In 1979, Previn divorced Mia Farrow. Previn then married Heather Sneddon, his fourth marriage. With her he had one son. The marriage lasted seventeen years. In 2002 Previn married for a fifth time, to Ann Sophie Mutter, a famous German violinist. In 2006 he divorced Mutter but continued to work with her.

Previn won four Academy Awards. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Music in England and was nominated for three Emmy Awards. He died in New York City in 2019 at age eighty-nine.

The Destructive Impact of the Acting and Singing Professions

It is evident that Irving Berlin was a happy and satisfied celebrity during a one-hundred-one year life span. Unfortunately, the acting and musician profession includes a great deal of unhappy people who, despite their fame and celebrity status, are subjects of the psychiatric expression “Man Against Himself.”

The number and proportion of American actors and musicians who become alcoholics, drug addicts, and suicides exceeds the average American statistic for similar conduct. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the American suicide rate is about 155.3 per hundred thousand, with men constituting 78% of those who kill themselves in the course of a year. The suicide rate for women is therefore only 22% of all suicides.

Among actors and singers, suicide is far more common, and includes some of the most famous, wealthiest and successful entertainers such as Marilyn Monroe. 

One frequent condition of suicides is drug and/or alcohol addiction. That is by no means unknown in the general American population, but it is far more common among actors and singers. This is in part the consequence of the environment in which performers live. Alcohol and drugs are part of the nightlife which is the habit of entertainers.

There are psychiatrists who claim that there is a connection between creativity and mental illness.  The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention  psychiatrists contend that many suicides share characteristics such as perfectionism. Suicides are less likely to tolerate such common events as unexpected events, losses, whether financial or personal, and stress. It is of course obvious that the entertainment industry is very stressful and that unexpected events occur all the time. Artists are far more likely than others to lose their jobs or to never achieve a paying career in movies or on the stage. There are innumerable singers, dancers, actors, and others whose talents go to waste waiting on tables or working at some menial job. This lifestyle can lead to severe depression, if not suicide.

Divorce is so common in the United States that one half of all marriages have ended through divorce after age 52. Yet, divorce is even more common among Amercan entertaainers than all others. In fact, numerous singers and actors are divorced more than once. Despite the perceived need to end a dissatisfying relationship, divorce can lead to great psychological distress. Resentment, fear, confusion and anxiety accompany divorce. However, actors and so-called “celebrities” are expected to keep smiling. Numerous divorces are of course an admission of defeat, which actors must cover up in order to keep a following. The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale considers divorce nearly as stressful as the death of a spouse. Since many entertainers are divorced several times even as they must earn a living in very insecure positions, their anxiety level is indeed very high.

The Influence of Culture on American Music

It is of interest to discover the source of the many musicals produced in America and elsewhere. The numerous members of the audiences watching Broadway musicals on the stage or in a movie can hardly imagine how the lyricists and composers attain the inspiration to write their songs.

Since almost all the great musicals written in the 1930’s and 1940’s were written by Jews, it appears reasonable to view these achievements as products of Jewish culture.

Cole Porter was one of the minority of successful composers of Broadway musicals in his lifetime who was not Jewish. He asked Richard Rodgers, a Jewish composer, how to best succeed on Broadway, and Rodgers told him to write “Jewish.” The Jewish songwriters did indeed gain some inspiration from synagogue music, but they also derived some music  in part from jazz and Afro-American music.

Irving Berlin found inspiration in ragtime music. He even called his first hit “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The success of that song indicated that Berlin had addressed all of America and not only the Yiddish speakers of his day. Scott Joplin and other Afro-American song writers complained that Berlin was using “their” music for his productions.

The Jewish Al Jolson was the first to sing jazz in a movie, called “The Jazz Singer.” He even played in “blackface,” imitating Afro-Amercan physical characteristics, although the story is Jewish. The Jewish Harold Arlen also borrowed from the black musical experience. He included the Harlem Cotton Club and Cab Calloway in his repertory. The Jewish bandleaders Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman include black musicians in their bands. George Gershwin combined jazz and the European symphonic music In his “Rhapsody in Blue.” Gershwin grew up in Harlem, which no doubt influenced his music.

There are of course some musicals like “Fiddler on the Roof” which are the very soul of Jewish music. The argument here is that culture influences what songwriters write, even if the culture influencing them is not their own.

Culture has three dimensions. There is material culture, such as the instruments available to make music. Second, culture includes the ideational or belief culture, which translates into behavioral culture. We act on that which we believe using the material objects available to us.

Novelists reflect the culture in which they write. Some of these novels are quite old, such as “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo, originally written in French. The musical was produced in 1980.  The story deals with the life of a poor man who stole a loaf of bread, for which he was imprisoned nineteen years.

The show has been translated from the French into numerous languages and has had a worldwide audience.

A most popular show has been The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This too is based on a French novel.  It was produced in the United States in 1988 and has been translated into 115 languages. This musical is definitely not Jewish but reflects the French culture.

Miss Saigon is related to the Vietnam war but based on the opera “Madame Butterfly” by Giacomo Puccini concerning an American naval officer and a Japanese woman. The show reflects American culture and history.

The numerous Broadway musicals written by Jewish composers likewise rely on books, such as the stories by Sholem Aleichem which gave rise  to “Fiddler on the Roof.” Furthermore, much of the music written by Jewish composers is based on synagogue music. Those familiar with cantorial singing are acquainted with the wailing and even weeping sounds some cantors use to address God and ask Him for help to alleviate the 1,600 years of persecution and suffering of the European Jewish community. It is uncommon and most rare for Americasn cantors to sing in that European manner since American Jews have no reason to do so. The culture determines very much how the music sounds.

There are Jewish plays and movies which reflect the Yiddish culture. Yiddish, a Germanic language, is far from Hebrew. It is hardly known in America and Israel. Yet, in the early 20th century, when there were literally 2.5 million eastern European Jews living in New York City and other American cities, Yiddish plays were shown in Yiddish theaters reflecting the Yiddish culture. In the 21st century, the Yiddish culture is no more, as the European Jews who once spoke that language were either murdered or fled to Israel, The United States, or South America, Australia, and other faraway places. The Yiddish culture died with them. In Israel, Hebrew, the language of the Bible, is spoken. The Israeli music differs radically from European Jewish music. It is joyous, celebrating an independent people and has none of the European wailing and crying.

Another excellent example of culture influencing music is the music of the great Ludwig van Beethoven. Although of Flemish descent, Beethoven wrote German music, including powerful symphonies with loud drum parts and a cadence resembling German march music. This is even more visible in the operas of Richard Wagner, who used German mythology as his inspiration.

America has changed greatly since the 1930’s and 1940’s. Therefore American music has also changed. There were no “rappers” in the era of Gershwin and Kern. Even the great bands led by such men as Benny Goodman, Paul Whiteman, and  Glenn Miller are no longer popular because Americans of the 21st century have experience not compatible with 40’s and 50’s music.

Culture, the man made environment, determines our lives. What is legitimate or wrong is determined by the state of technology, beliefs, and behavior. We are not as free as we like to think, for who would drive in an English car with the steering wheel on the “wrong” side, who would advocate a Nazi state in America, and who would behave like a native of the Kalahari desert and walk about an American community with only a loincloth with a spear and arrows?

Shalom u'vracha.

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