Ira Gershwin

To the perennial question "which comes first, the music or the words?" Ira Gershwin always responded, "the contract." The jest reveals both Ira's consummate professionalism and the self-effacing wit with which he ducked the spotlight whenever possible. Yet the ingeniously inventive melodies George Gershwin composed for such classic songs as "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Embraceable You," "Fascinating Rhythm," "It Ain't Necessarily So," and "Love is Here to Stay" live on in no small part because of the equally unforgettable lyrics of Ira Gershwin, lines crafted with a precision that earned him the sobriquet "The Jeweller" among his Broadway peers. In Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist, the older and less flamboyant of the Gershwin brothers at last steps out of the shadows to claim his due as one of American songwriting's most important and enduring innovators. Philip Furia traces the development of Ira Gershwin's lyrical art from his early love of light verse and Gilbert and Sullivan, through his apprentice work in Tin Pan Alley, to his emergence as a prominent writer for the Broadway musical theater in the 1920s. Furia illuminates his work in satirical operettas such as Of Thee I Sing and Strike Up the Band, the smart "little" revues of the 1930s, and his contributions to the opera Porgy and Bess. After describing the Gershwin brothers' brief but brilliant work in Hollywood before George's sudden death--work that produced such classics as "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off"--Furia follows Ira's career through such triumphs as Lady in the Dark with Kurt Weill, Cover Girl with Jerome Kern, and A Star is Born, with Harold Arlen. Along the way, Furia provides much insight into the art of the lyricist and he captures the magic of a golden era when not only the Gershwins, but Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, Gertrude Lawrence, Fred Astaire, and other luminaries made the lights of Broadway and the Hollywood screen shine brighter than ever before. From his first major success, the now-classic "The Man I Love" (1924) to his last great hit, "The Man That Got Away" (1954), Ira Gershwin wrote the words to some of America's most loved standards. In Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist, Philip Furia illuminates the craft behind this remarkable achievement to reveal how Gershwin took the everyday speech of ordinary Americans and made it sing.

The Golden Age of popular music began prior to World War I with composers and lyricists writing hit songs for Tin Pan Alley, for musical plays, for Vaudeville, and for radio. It blossomed from the 1920s through the early 1950s, defined by a mood and style filled with rhythm and romance and with memorable, melodic, literate music. Although this work focuses on hit songs by major songwriters such as Berlin and Gershwin, Kern and Hammerstein, Rodgers and Porter, major collaborators are included as well. Contemporary songwriters, continuing with the style of the Golden Age include Marvin Hamlisch, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Burt Bacharach, and Stevie Wonder. A separate chapter concentrates on celebrities and women of song.

A one-stop source for information on the American musical theatre, Stage It with Music packs an astonishing quantity of facts as well as insights and anecdotes into a convenient A-Z dictionary format. Coverage extends from the genre's nineteenth century beginnings to the present. Included are entries on over 300 individual shows, musical series, performers, composers, lyricists, librettists, directors, designers, music directors, orchestrators, choreographers, producers, producing companies and other theatrical institutions, as well as related topics and genres. Thoroughly indexed, the volume also includes a chronology of musical shows and a bibliography. As fascinating as its subject, Stage It with Music will lure the student or researcher into delightful and rewarding browsing.

Gerald Bordman's American Musical Theatre has become a landmark book since its publication in 1978. It chronicles American musicals, show by show and season by season, and offers a running commentary and assessment as well as providing the basic facts about each production. This updated edition includes the new shows that have opened on Broadway since the original publication. Also included are over a hundred musicals that were turn-of-the-century, cheap-priced touring shows which never played Broadway, but were the training ground for many theatre greats.