San Francisco Sheet Music of the Roaring Twenties from the Dorothy Starr Collection featuring local bandleaders

The 1920s were a heyday for live music. Most people went out on the town to enjoy their music -- sound recordings had limited audio fidelity, films were silent and  San Francisco also had a lively music publishing scene. Sherman, Clay & Co. and Villa Moret, Inc. both introduced hit songs of that era. We have collected many imprints of that era in our Dorothy Starr sheet music collection.

Come to the Steve Silver Beach Blanket Babylon Music Center on the Main Library's Fourth Floor to view the display "San Francisco Sheet Music of the Roaring Twenties from the Dorothy Starr Collection featuring local bandleaders." 

We display sheet with photographs of the main bandleaders of that time - Ben Black, Abe Lyman, Herb Meyerinck, Jack Coakley, Anson Weeks, Walt Roesner, Tom Gerun (Gerunovich), Clyde Cooper, Frank Jenks and Paul Ash. The bands performed at motion picture palaces like the California Theater and Granada Theatre, hotels like the Mark Hopkins and the Clift and restaurants like the Cabiria and the Roof Garden Cafe.

Sheet music on display:

Day by Day in Every Way (I love you more and more) / words and music by Art Hickman and Ben Black (Florintine Music Publishing Co., 1923).

Idolizing / words and music by Sam Messenheimer, Irving Abrahamson and Ray West (Sherman, Clay & Co., 1926).

New Moon / words and music by Anson Weeks, George S. Tyner and Herbert B. Marple (Weeks & Winge, Inc., 1926).

Croon A Little Lullaby / music by Chris Schonberg and Clyde Baker (Sherman, Clay & Co., 1925).

Moonlit Waters / music by Nacio Herb Brown (Villa Moret, Inc., 1927).

Count The Stars / words and music by Glenhall Taylor, Henry Santrey, Maurice J. Gunsky and Merton H. Bories (Florintine Music Publishing Co., 1926).

I'm Telling You / music by Vincent Rose (Sherman, Clay & Co., 1929).

Consolation / music by Merton H. Bories (Villa Moret, Inc., 1926).

Nancy (Irish fox trot) / music by Neil Moret (Villa Moret, Inc., 1924).

Dear Little Girl (When I'm with you) / words and music by Otto Cesana (Villa Moret, Inc., 1928).