boxes of "lost" songs and orchestrations by the
Broadway greats and not-so-greats turned up-
over 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 thirty-
seven 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 irre-
placeable 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 valu-
able 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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