Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. His music forms a great part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, “Marie from Sunny Italy”, in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights, and had his first major international hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, in 1911. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. It is commonly believed that Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp using his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever.
“Alexander’s Ragtime Band” sparked an international dance craze in places as far away as Berlin’s native Russia, which also “flung itself into the ragtime beat with an abandon bordering on mania.” By 1918 he had written hundreds of songs, mostly topical, which enjoyed brief popularity. Many of the songs were for the new dances then appearing. After a Hawaiian dance craze began, he wrote “That Hula-Hula”, and then did a string of southern songs, such as “When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam”. During this period, he was creating a few new songs every week, including songs aimed at the various immigrant cultures arriving from Europe. On one occasion, Berlin, whose face was still not known, was on a train trip and decided to entertain the fellow passengers with some music. They asked him how he knew so many hit songs, and Berlin modestly replied, “I wrote them.
An important song that Berlin wrote during his transition from writing ragtime to lyrical ballads was “A Pretty Girl is Like A Melody,” which became one of Berlin’s first big guns. The song was written for Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1919 and became the musical’s lead song. Its popularity was so great that it later became the theme for all of Ziegfeld’s revues, and the theme song in the 1936 film The Great Ziegfeld. Historian Alec Wilder puts it on the same level as Jerome Kern’s “pure melodies,” and in comparison with Berlin’s earlier music, says it’s “extraordinary that such a development in style and sophistication should have taken place in a single year.”
Written after his first daughter’s birth, he distilled his feelings about being married and a father for the first time: “Blue days, all of them gone; nothing but blue skies, from now on.” The song was introduced by Belle Baker in Betsy, a Ziegfeld production. It became a hit recording for Ben Selvin and one of several Berlin hits in 1927. It was performed by Al Jolson in the first feature sound film, The Jazz Singer, that same year. In 1946, it returned to the top 10 on the charts with Count Basie and Benny Goodman. In 1978, Willie Nelson made the song a no. 1 country hit, 52 years after it was written.
“Cheek to Cheek” written in 1935, for the movie Top Hat (1935). In the movie, Astaire sings the song to Rogers as they dance. The song was nominated for the Best Song Oscar for 1936. The song spent five weeks at #1 on Your Hit Parade and was named the No.1 song of 1935. In 2004, Astaire’s version finished at No. 15 on AFI’s 100 Years.
When his old and close friend Jerome Kern, who was the composer for ‘Annie Get Your Gun’, died suddenly, producers Rodgers and Hammerstein persuaded Berlin to take over composing the score. Loosely based on the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley, the music and lyrics were written by Berlin. At first Berlin refused to take on the job, claiming that he knew nothing about “hillbilly music”, but the show ran for 1,147 performances and became his most successful score. It is said that the showstopper song, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, was almost left out of the show altogether because Berlin mistakenly thought that Rodgers and Hammerstein didn’t like it. However, it became the “ultimate uptempo show tune.” It was to become Ethel Merman’s signature piece.
On the origin of another of the play’s leading songs, Logan described how he and Hammerstein privately discussed wanting another duet between Annie and Frank. Berlin overheard their conversation, and although the show was to go into rehearsal within days, he wrote the song Anything You Can Do a few hours later.
Over the years he was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple and direct, with his stated aim being to “reach the heart of the average American,” whom he saw as the “real soul of the country.” In doing so, said Walter Cronkite, at Berlin’s 100th birthday tribute, he “helped write the story of this country, capturing the best of who we are and the dreams that shape our lives.”
