Tin Pan Alley
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The name originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, and a plaque (see below) on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth commemorates it.
The start of Tin Pan Alley is usually dated to about 1885, when a number of music publishers set up shop in the same district of Manhattan. The end of Tin Pan Alley is less clear cut. Some date it to the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s when the phonograph and radio supplanted sheet music as the driving force of American popular music, while others consider Tin Pan Alley to have continued into the 1950s when earlier styles of American popular music were upstaged by the rise of rock & roll, for which the Brill Building served much the same role as Tin Pan Alley had.
The origins of the name "Tin Pan Alley" are unclear. One account claims that it was a derogatory reference to the sound of many pianos resembling the banging of tin pans. Another version claims the name stemmed from the way that songwriters modified their pianos so that they had a more percussive sound. After many years, the term came to refer to the U.S. music industry in general.
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Composers and lyricists
Leading Tin Pan Alley composers and lyricists include:
- Milton Ager
- Thomas S. Allen
- Harold Arlen
- Ernest Ball
- Irving Berlin
- Bernard Bierman
- George Botsford
- Shelton Brooks
- Nacio Herb Brown
- Irving Caesar
- Sammy Cahn
- Hoagy Carmichael
- George M. Cohan
- Con Conrad
- J. Fred Coots
- Gussie Lord Davis
- Buddy DeSylva
- Walter Donaldson
- Paul Dresser
- Dave Dreyer
- Al Dubin
- Dorothy Fields
- Ted Fio Rito
- Max Freedman
- Cliff Friend
- George Gershwin
- Ira Gershwin
- E. Y. "Yip" Harburg
- Charles K. Harris
- James P. Johnson
- Isham Jones
- Scott Joplin
- Gus Kahn
- Bert Kalmar
- Jerome Kern
- Al Lewis
- Sam M. Lewis
- F. W. Meacham
- Johnny Mercer
- Theodora Morse
- Ethelbert Nevin
- Bernice Petkere
- Maceo Pinkard
- Lew Pollack
- Cole Porter
- Andy Razaf
- Harry Ruby
- Al Sherman
- Lou Singer
- Sunny Skylar
- Ted Snyder
- Kay Swift
- Edward Teschemacher
- Albert Von Tilzer
- Harry Von Tilzer
- Fats Waller
- Harry Warren
- Richard A. Whiting
- Harry M. Woods
- Jack Yellen
- Vincent Youmans
- Joe Young
- Hy Zaret
Notable hit songs
Tin Pan Alley's biggest hits included:
- "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" (Harry Von Tilzer, 1900)
- "After the Ball" (Charles K. Harris, 1892)
- "Ain't She Sweet" (Jack Yellen & Milton Ager,1927)
- "Alabama Jubilee" (Jack Yellen & George L. Cobb, 1915)
- "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (Irving Berlin, 1911)
- "All Alone" (Irving Berlin, 1924)
- "At a Georgia Campmeeting" (Kerry Mills, 1897)
- "Baby Face" (Benny Davis & Harry Akst, 1926)
- "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home" (Huey Cannon, 1902)
- "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" (Gus Edwards & Edward Madden, 1909)
- "Carolina in the Morning" (Gus Kahn & Walter Donaldson, 1922)
- "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine" (Fred Fisher & Alfred Bryan, 1910)
- "Down by the Old Mill Stream" (Tell Taylor, 1910)
- "Everybody Loves My Baby" (Spencer Williams, 1924)
- "Give My Regards to Broadway" (George M. Cohan, 1904)
- "God Bless America" (Irving Berlin, 1918; revised 1938)
- "Happy Days Are Here Again" (Jack Yellen & Milton Ager, 1930)
- "Hearts and Flowers" (Theodore Moses Tobani, 1899)
- "Hello Ma Baby (Hello Ma Ragtime Gal)" (Emerson, Howard, & Sterling, 1899)
- "I Cried for You" (Arthur Freed & Nacio Herb Brown, 1923)
- "In the Baggage Coach Ahead" (Gussie L. Davis, 1896)
- "In the Good Old Summer Time" (Ren Shields & George Evans, 1902)
- "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" (Harry Williams & Egbert van Alstyne, 1905)
- "K-K-K-Katy" (Geoffrey O'Hara, 1918)
- "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" (Beth Slater Whitson & Leo Friedman, 1910)
- "Lovesick Blues" (Cliff Friend & Irving Mills, 1922)
- "Mighty Lak' a Rose" (Ethelbert Nevin & Frank L. Stanton, 1901)
- "Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose" (Ben Harney, 1896)
- "My Blue Heaven" (Walter Donaldson & George Whiting, 1927)
- "Oh, Donna Clara" (Irving Caesar, 1928)
- "Oh by Jingo!" (Albert Von Tilzer, 1919)
- "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" (Paul Dresser 1897)
- "Over There" (George M. Cohan, 1917)
- "Peg o' My Heart" (Fred Fisher & Alfred Bryan, 1913)
- "Shine Little Glow Worm" (Paul Lincke & Lilla Cayley Robinson, 1907)
- "Shine on Harvest Moon" (Nora Bayes & Jack Norworth, 1908)
- "Some of These Days" (Shelton Brooks, 1911)
- "Swanee" (George Gershwin, 1919)
- "Sweet Georgia Brown" (Maceo Pinkard, 1925)
- "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (Albert Von Tilzer, 1908)
- "The Band Played On" (Charles B. Ward & John F. Palmer, 1895)
- "The Darktown Strutters' Ball" (Shelton Brooks, 1917)
- "The Little Lost Child" (Marks & Stern, 1894)
- "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" (Charles Coborn, 1892)
- "The Sidewalks of New York" (Lawlor & Blake, 1894)
- "The Japanese Sandman" (1920)
- "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (Joe Hayden & Theodore Mertz, 1896)
- "Warmest Baby in the Bunch" (George M. Cohan, 1896)
- "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (Creamer & Turner Layton, 1922)
- "Whispering" (1920)
- "Yes, We Have No Bananas" (Frank Silver & Irving Cohn, 1923)
In popular culture
- In the 1959–1960 television season, NBC aired a sitcom Love and Marriage, based on the fictitious William Harris Music Publishing Company set in Tin Pan Alley. William Demarest, Stubby Kaye, Jeanne Bal, and Murray Hamilton co-starred in the series, which aired 18 episodes.
- In the song "Bob Dylan's Blues" from Bob Dylan's 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, he introduces the song, saying, "Unlike most of the songs nowadays that have been written up town in Tin Pan Alley, that's where most of the folk songs come from nowadays, this, this is a song, this wasn't written up there, this was written down somewhere in the United States."
- In the song "Bitter Fingers" from the 1975 autobiographical "concept album" Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Elton John refers to himself and his longtime song-writing partner, lyricist Bernie Taupin, as the "Tin Pan Alley Twins".
- Tin Pan Alley is mentioned in the song It Never Rains (1982) by Dire Straits
- The Bob Geddins blues song "Tin Pan Alley (aka The Roughest Place in Town)", recorded by Jimmy Wilson, was a top 10 hit on the R&B chart in 1953 and became a popular song among West Coast blues performers. The song was also covered by Stevie Ray Vaughan
- The song "Tin Pan Alley" by The Apples in Stereo.
See also
- Brill Building
- Music Row
- Printer's Alley
- Radio Row
- The Tin Pan Alley Rag
- Denmark Street - known as "Britain's Tin Pan Alley"