Author Description

Mrs. Oscar Hammerstein, so the story goes, once overheard someone praise Ol' Man River as a great Kern song. I beg your pardon, she said, but Jerome Kern did not write 'Ol' Man River.' Mr. Kern wrote dum dum dum da; my husband wrote Ol' Man River. It's easy to understand her frustration. While the years between World Wars I and II have long been hailed as the golden age of American popular song, it is the composers, not the lyricists, who always usually get top billing. I Love a Gershwin Tune too often means just that-the tune-even though George Gershwin wrote many unlovable tunes before he began working with his brother Ira in 1924. Few people realize that their favorite Arlen songs each had a different lyricist-Ted Koehler for Stormy Weather, Yip Harburg for Over the Rainbow, Johnny Mercer for That Old Black Magic. Only Broadway or Hollywood buffs know which Kern songs get their wry touch from Dorothy Fields, who would flippantly rhyme fellow with jello, and which of Kern's sonorous melodies got even lusher from Otto Harbach, who preferred solemn rhymes like truth and forsooth. Jazz critics sometimes pride themselves on ignoring the lyrics to Waller and Ellington instrumentals, blithely consigning Andy Razaf or Don George to oblivion.