The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-08-11
BY JACK FOSTER
Times stan Writer


BY JACK FOSTER
Times stan Writer
1T isn't, of course, an alley at
i all. 1t isn't any street or ave-
nue. YOU could name. Wherever
some fellow or girl is trying to
change the singing in his head to
stats and bars and rhymes-that
is Tin Pan Alley.
II may be the 500 day suite
in Atlantic City which de Sylvia,
Brown and Henderson occupied
when they jotted down Sonny
Boy" within two hours and sub
seouently sold more than million
copies.
It NAV be the Riverside drive
penthouse in which George Gersh-
win looped over his piano, a black
cigar like a bit in his mouth, and
laboriously scrubbed down The
Rhapsody in Blue" modern Ameri-
can music that strikes the note oil
the everlasting.
It may be the gloomy Philadel-
phia rooming house that was
Herman Dank's studio when ne
found in his soul Silver Threads
Among the Gold" Or the cheap
hole-in the-Wall in Pittsburgh
where Stephen Foster wrote My
Old Kentucky Home" sold it for
IS to a publisher and received no
ROYALTIES for what became one Of
the greatest hits of all times.
Tin Pan Alley has at one end
its Park avenue and at the other
its slums. 1t has its rich men IN
the Irving Berlins, Jerome Kerns,
Walter Donaldson, Otto Harbachs,
and it's derelicts, mostly those old
crows who, even after fifteen
years of failure and near starva-
ton. still are sure that their next
song will be a success.
n II
A SENSATION" really is the
IA word. For hysteria Is the
food and drink on which Tin Pan
Alley lives. Each new song, each
new orchestration is sensational,
stupendous, terrifc-the greatest
melody written since Berlin came
up from the Bowery with Alex
anders Rag Time Band"
And when the sales of a tune
passes 100000, the cries of Co
lossal genius" become SO great in
Lindy's restaurant, where herring
and phrases are torn, that you
are sure there has been a second
coming Of Beethoven.
I am talking now about a par
ticular section of Tin Pan Alley
about that strip along Broad
way and Seventh avenue, from
the middle Forties t. the early
Fifties, where you find gilded on
the office windows Shapiro, Bern
stein & Co." Leo Feist, Inc,
Robbins Music Corp" Donald
son, Douglas e. Gumble," and so
on and on, as on and on you
walk.
This is where melody is bartered
and abstract love comes into its
own. 1t is where the campaigns
to make a tune a hit are plotted.
For it is the music publishers
Job to create enough excitement
so that Nellie, who can play the
piano, and Willie, who would
rather be Russ Co'umDo than a
fire chief, will hear is song and
want to buy it. Therefore, the
charming extravaganza.
"TTAVE YOU" I asked publish
II err as I went about gather
ing the stuff for this series, "a hit
tune this month";
Have I a hit!" he retorted,
"Why, if that Baby Blue Eyes
song of ours isn't a sensation, I
hope my mother dies. and she is
sick right now in Hot Springs"
Il am sorry" I said.
Eyes, I have been blue-blue-
blue for I owe all to my mother"
he sighed. And this reminds me
that we have just brought out a
new mother song. 1t goes tum-tee-
tum-tee-um-tum.
1T is about how a mother sits
at home all day, looking at the
picture of her wandering boy, and
then at night prays God to bring
him back. 1t is new idea, any
how"