September 29, 2019
Just before rock and roll, popular music came mostly from Broadway songwriting duos: George Gershwin composed the music, his brother Ira wrote the words; Richard Rodgers teamed up with Lorenz Hart and then Oscar Hammerstein; Burt Bacharach had Hal David…(Irving Berlin, the greatest of them all, didn’t need anybody.)And then there’s the lesser-known Harry Warren, who wrote for movies when musicals still ruled. Writing with lyricist Al Dubin in the 1930’s and Mack Gordon in the 1940’s, he charted 21 #1 hits, won 3 Oscars and was nominated for 8 more.
Warren also wrote Jeepers, Creepers, That’s Amore, Shuffle Off To Buffalo and We’re In The Money, among others, but we don’t need to hear those today.