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<text>
<title>
(1930s) Music:Irving Berlin
</title>
<history>Time-The Weekly Magazine-1930s Highlights</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Time Magazine
May 28, 1934
Music: Irving Berlin
</hdr>
<body>
<p> In Manhattan one afternoon last week, a dark-skinned
crickety little man jumped from a taxi into a Broadway barber
shop, had himself shaved, dashed for his office, summoned a
stenographer and in a plaintive singsong voice dictated a dozen
lines of verse. He read them over ruefully as he paced the
floor. His subject was old songs and he was worried for fear it
would sound conceited to say:
</p>
<qt>
<l>I'm proud to have written a few</l>
<l>That are still remembered by you.</l>
</qt>
<p> Irving Berlin was celebrating his 25th year as a songwriter
by putting on a radio revue, sponsored by Gulf Refining Co. The
latest lyric was to introduce "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and
"Always," his two favorites. For the five broadcasts there were
100 Berlin songs. Three weeks ago the programs began with a
smashing song parade, left millions of listeners marveling not
only at Berlin's record for hits but also at the way he has
survived the changing fashions. Many an oldtime songwriter can
stir up sentimental memories. Irving Berlin's parade marched
proudly and vigorously into 1934, ended with a medley from As
Thousands Cheer, the biggest theatrical success since
Depression.
</p>
<p> A man would need to be even more modest than Irving Berlin
not to be proud of As Thousands Cheer, with its sure-fire title,
its quick topical lines on which Moss Hart collaborated, its
lyrics and music which Berlin wrote alone, varying his mood
until it was hard to believe that the same man had written
gentle, reminiscent "Easter Parade" and stomping Harlemy "Heat
Wave." The box-office success of As Thousands Cheer beats that
of Of Thee I Sing, the 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning show for
which George Gershwin wrote the music. It is running far ahead
of Jerome Kern's Roberta, although no single show tune is
selling so well as "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," Roberta's
lifesaver. Irving Berlin is proud of having set a record in the
theatre's lean time, proud of having written a fast, popular
show at 46, when most songwriters' careers are over. But deep
in his heart he has a warmer feeling for the first Music Box
Revue ("Say It With Music"). And never has he been so proud as
when in 1910 he was able to buy his mother a hard shiny set of
parlor furniture with the royalties from "My Wife's Gone to the
Country" and "Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon."
</p>
<p> The previous years had been hard for young Irving Berlin,
born Israel Baline in Molgne, Russia. He was the youngest of
eight children. His father was a cantor. First thing he
remembers is lying on a blanket on the side of the road while
his home and half the village burned to the ground. The family
drifted to New York where Father Baline got irregular work
certifying meat for kosher butcher shops. He died when "Izzy"
was eight. Four sisters went on doing bead work in an East Side
basement home. An older brother worked in a sweat shop. For two
years "Izzy" went to public school, sold newspapers on the side.
But on Saturday nights he was rankled to see that other children
had earned more money than he to put in their mother's apron.
At 14 he decided he was a burden, ran away.
</p>
<p> All Izzy Baline was equipped with was a thin pleasant voice
and a sad way of singing which he had learned from his cantor
father. He made for a Bowery saloon, wriggled under the swinging
doors and sang "The Mansion of Aching Hearts" until he had
picked up enough pennies for a 10-cent night's lodging. Not long
after he got a $5-a-week job "busking" (stage slang for a
hireling who echoes a stage song from the gallery) for the
Keaton family at Tony Pastor's vaudeville theatre on 14th
Street. The Keatons had a young son named Buster, whom they
threw back and forth, bounced against the scenery. But once
during their act they would pause to plug a song and then it was
Izzy Baline's turn to stand up in the balcony and lead them on
to singing it again. When young Buster Keaton acquired Hollywood
fame he had himself incorporated and Songwriter Irving Berlin
was one of the first to buy his stock. All through Depression
when railroad dividends and Anaconda copper failed him Irving
Berlin steadily collected revenue from Buster Keaton Inc.
</p>
<p> Uptown New York heard of Izzy Baline when he was a singing
waiter at Nigger Mike's Chinatown saloon. Herbert Bayard Swope,
who later became editor of the New York World, went there on a
slumming expedition with Prince Louis of Bettenberg, returned
to his paper and wrote a piece about the waiter who shied from
a handsome tip. Nigger Mike, a dark-skinned Russian Jew like
Berlin, had a way of borrowing from the till when drink was on
him. One night he took $25, blamed Izzy Baline and fired him.
A year later the first Berlin song was published. It was called
"Marie From Sunny Italy," signed I. Berlin, an approximation of
the way the Bowery pronounced Baline.
</p>
<p> Year after that, in 1909, Irving Berlin decided he was
made. A Tin-Pan Alley firm hired him as a $25-a-week lyric
writer. Fussy English words were beyond him. (His mother stuck
to Yiddish until she died.) But he had a gift for blending the
vernacular with tunes that were catchy and easy to sing. In less
than five years after he left Nigger Mike's the ragtime craze
had reached its peak. And all the hit tunes seemed to be Irving
Berlin's. There was "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Everybody's
Doin' It Now," "The Mysterious Rag," "The Ragtime Violin,"...
</p>
<p> Irving Berlin's song titles tell part of his story. When
he was 23 he married Dorothy Goetz, sister of Producer Ray Goetz
who later married Irene Bordoni. On a Cuban honeymoon young Mrs.
Berlin caught typhoid fever, died five months later. The young
widower tried in vain to produce another good, rowdy song. His
next big hit was "When I Lost You."
</p>
<p> In 1917 Irving Berlin was drafted, sent to Camp Upton in
Yaphank, L.I. In his radio program fortnight ago there was a
great sound of groaning and creaking cots while he re-enacted
the agony which prompted him to write "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up
in the Morning."
</p>
<p> Back to Broadway, after the Follies of 1919 and 1920
("Mandy," "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody"), an ideal name for
a theatre suddenly popped into Irving Berlin's head. In the
middle of the night he tackled Producer Sam Harris, a fiend from
his East Side days, to say: "If you ever want to build a theatre
for musical comedy, why not call it the Music Box?"
</p>
<p> The Music Box Revues ran for four years before Irving
Berlin met Ellin Mackay, pretty young daughter of Clarence
Hungerford Mackay, board chairman of Postal Telegraph & Cable
Corp., and an ardent Catholic. Social New York made a great to-
do when it discovered that Mr. Mackay's daughter was serious
about the songwriter who made no bones about his East Side
background. Irving Berlin went quietly about his business, wrote
"Always," the song which coincided with their engagement. If it
were true that lately he helped his father-in-law to the tune
of $1,000,000 Irving Berlin would be the last one to admit it.
But the two are reconciled. When time allows they have dinner
together once a week. And Grandfather Mackay takes pride in the
two Berlin children: Linda Louise, 2; and Mary Ellin, 7, who
hears her father's broadcasts on phonograph records because the
Gulf Oil programs go on after her bedtime.
</p>
<p> "Always" is typical of the simplicity Berlin works for,
unless he happens to be writing a variety piece for a show.
Sophisticates may prefer the rhythmic tricks of George Gershwin,
the tongue-twisting verses of Gershwin's brother Ira. But
running his own publishing house for 15 years has taught Berlin
that people buy music they can play and sing. Irving Berlin is
the very active head of Irving Berlin Inc. He may work all night
in his East End Avenue apartment. (Lately he has been busy on
the broadcasts, planning a revue for next autumn.) He may
occasionally flee the city for Nassau or Bermuda, any place to
sit in the sun. But most afternoons he is hustling downtown,
first to the barber who for 23 years has combed his hair and
shaved him, then to the office. He has seen the music-publishing
business in three distinct phases: 1) when songs sold for a dime
and made little profit; 2) when the price reached 30 cents and
people gladly paid it; 3) when radio came along, cut the sale
of a hit from 2,000,000 to 200,000 copies, the life of a song
from a year to two months. Berlin, the businessman, has a log
kept to show the number of times his songs are broadcast over
the three major networks. But he forgets to call for it the days
he arrives uptown with a song in his head. Then he paces the
floor and dictates the lyric, rushes to his big old piano,
strikes an F sharp chord and painstakingly picks out the tune
while a musical stenographer writes down the notes. Irving
Berlin never had a music lesson. He plays by ear, in only one
key. If he wants the effect of another, he turns a crank and the
keyboard shifts.
</p>
<p> Song enthusiasts will argue interminably over the
respective merits of George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Irving
Berlin, the important triumvirate in the U.S. song-writing
industry. But comparisons are inept. George Gershwin, more
technically ambitious than the others, has more musically
ambitious enthusiasts. Jerome Kern has never claimed to be a
popular songwriter. Like Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg, he
writes wholly for shows. His charming music would fit well into
the best of Viennese operettas.
</p>
<p> When Alexander Woollcott wrote his biography of Irving
Berlin (1924), he asked Jerome Kern to supply a colleague's
estimate. Kern was reminded of Wagner because Berlin, like the
operatic titan, "molds and blends and ornaments his words and
music at one and the same time, each being the outgrowth of the
other." Kern could have carried the likeness further. Wagner,
too, was a shrewd businessman. And his inspiration never seemed
to run dry.
</p>
<p>Berlin Songs
</p>
<list>
<l>1910 My Wife's Gone to the Country</l>
<l>1911 Alexander's Ragtime Band</l>
<l>1912 Everybody's Doin' It Now</l>
<l>1913 When I Lost You</l>
<l>1914 When That Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam'</l>
<l>1915 When I Leave the World Behind</l>
<l>1916 This Is the Life</l>
<l>1917 Down on the Farm</l>
<l>1918 They Were All Out of Step but Jim</l>
<l>1919 A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody</l>
<l>1920 You'd Be Surprised</l>
<l>1921 Everybody Step</l>
<l>1922 What'll I Do</l>
<l>1923 All Alone</l>
<l>1924 Remember</l>
<l>1925 Always</l>
<l>1926 Blue Skies</l>
<l>1927 A Russian Lullaby</l>
<l>1928 The Song Is Ended</l>
<l>1929 Puttin' on the Ritz</l>
<l>1930 Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee</l>
<l>1931 Soft Light and Sweet Music</l>
<l>1932 Say It Isn't So</l>
<l>1933 How Deep Is the Ocean</l>
<l>1934 Medley from As Thousands Cheer</l>
<l>Heat Wave</l>
<l>How's Chances</l>
<l>Not for All the Rice in China</l>
<l>Easter Parade</l>
</list>
</body>
</article>
</text>