boxes of "lost" songs and orchestrations by the Broadway greats and not-so-greats turned upover eighty boxes, as I recall. Ira sent me to see what material written by the brothers Gershwin might have surfaced, not thinking that anything of consequence would be there. When I called to tell him that, for starters, I had counted thirtyseven manuscripts in George's hand, he truly did not believe it, and it took a couple of months for the discovery to really sink in.

But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Shortly after the discovery in Secaucus, I learned that many boxes of unique and irreplaceable musical theatre scores housed in an old theatre basement in London had been destroyed. The theatre had been taken over by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and somebody had cleaned out the "useless" stuff taking up so much space in the basement. They saved the scores of all the old warhorses like ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (those might be of use, they thought) but destroyed the obscure material-including several complete Gershwin scores and orchestrations!

So in view of the above, if you want to find out what is available in the way of songs from a particular Broadway show, where do you look? Most Broadway songs live on in two primary forms, as sheet music or on record. Before the publication of Show Tunes, it was very hard to determine exactly what material exists in either of these formats. Thanks to Steven's meticulous research, we now have a complete chronicle of what is out there, combined with much pertinent information about the shows and their creators. His book was the first of its kind and is obviously a labor of love. It has only become more valuable through the years, as more of our Broadway heritage has disappeared. Many of the songs listed in Show Tunes are so obscure that many of their publishers do not even possess a copy of them. (EMI Music Publishers, for example, can only supply you with a blurry microfilm copy of many of their old songs. They didn't bother to save any of the originals.)

Steven's magnum opus gives me a burst of adrenaline every time I open it. It is clearly and thoughtfully organized, and is a pleasure to read. I also get a burst of adrenaline when I read some of his comments about various songwriters. I certainly don't agree with all of his opinions. But I do respect his commentary.

I'm sure you will enjoy this revised edition of Show Tunes.

Michael Feinstein

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