Vee Lawnhurst (1905-1992) - pianist, songwriter, library benefactor

Vee Lawnhurst (source: American Magazine March 1937)

On September 18, 1998, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted and Mayor Brown signed Resolution 734-98. This Resolution authorized the:

City Librarian to accept and expend a gift of royalties (approximately $1,000 per year), for San Francisco Public Library from the estate of Vee Lawnhurst and to enter into a membership agreement and to execute a Digital Home Recording ("DART") Royalties authorization with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ("ASCAP").

It's time to past pay tribute to the late Vee Lawnhurst, the Library's benefactor. Come to the see the display of Vee Lawnhurst sheet music in the Steve Silver Beach Blanket Babylon Music Center on the 4th Floor of the Main Library.

Born Laura Loewenherz on November 24, 1905, Vee Lawnhurst was a successful woman Tin Pan Alley era songwriter – a rare achievement. An accomplished pianist, she began her musical career as a teenager recording piano rolls. 

A pioneer of early radio, by 1923, she became a regular performer on WEAF in New York City. She was later part of a popular piano duo with Muriel Pollock. Sometimes call the "Lady bugs" who also performed on the Broadway vaudeville stage. She later formed a duet with vocalist John Seagle. Sponsored by a cosmetics company, "Wildroot Vee and Johnny" were broadcast nationwide on NBC's Red Network.

As a teenager she was already writing songs. She achieved her greatest songwriting success in the 1930s while collaborating with lyricist Tot Seymour. The pair was under contract to Famous Music Corporation from 1935 to 1937. Here is a list of Lawnhurst's greatest song hits as recorded in Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories.

“And Then Some” recorded by Ozzie Nelson & His Orchestra was a #1 song (1935)

“Accent on Youth” went to #6 for Duke Ellington and #15 for Paul Pendarvis and his Orchestra (1935)

“No Other One” went to #5 for Benny Goodman and #7 for Little Jack Little (1935)

“When The Leaves Bid The Trees Goodbye” went to #19 for Enric Madriguera & His Orchestra (1935)

“Please Keep Me In Your Dreams” went to #6 for Fats Waller and #13 for Billie Holiday (1937)

“Cross Patch” went to #7 for Fats Waller (1936) - an article in Variety magazine noted that this song was broadcast 22,963 times in 1936.

“What’s The Name of That Song” went to #7 for Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra (1936)

“Alibi Baby” went to #4 for Tommy Dorsey (1937).

“Johnny Zero” went to #4 for the Song Spinners (1943).

Tot Seymour (lyrics), Vee Lawnhurst (music) [from the collection of Peter Mintun]

Famous Music Corporation was the music publishing arm for Paramount Pictures. In 1936, Lawnhurst and Seymour contributed the title song to the Hopalong Cassidy western Call of the Prairie. A year later the pair wrote the title song for Give Us This Night featuring opera singers Jan Kiepura and Gladys Swarthout. More delightfully, the songwriting duo wrote songs for a number of animated shorts. They contributed to a number of Max Fleischer short films for Paramount including the Betty Boop cartoons Be Up To Date and Happy You and Merry Me. Several silly ditties by Seymour and Lawnhurst can also be found in the Popeye Song Folio.

Betty Boop (Mae Questel) singing "Happy You and Merry Me (1936)

Vee Lawnhurst nearly disappeared from public life from the 1940s onward and became known as a recluse. By 1992, the year she died, she had faded so far into obscurity that there were no obituaries written at her passing.

A chorus of cats singing "Hold It" (1938)

Bibliography

The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Feature Films, 1931-1940 (R.R. Bowker Co., 1993).

ASCAP Biographical Dictionary, Fourth edition, compiled for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers by Jaques Cattell Press (New York : R.R. Bowker, 1980).

"Broadway Lights," What's on the Air October 1930.

"Cosmetic Renewal," Variety February 7, 1923.

Edwards, Bill, "Laura 'Vee' Loewenherz 'Lawnhurst" Morris," Ragpiano.com.

"Hummer," American Magazine March 1937

Joel Whitburn's Pop memories, 1890-1954: The history of American popular music, compiled from America's popular music charts 1890-1954 (Record Research, 1986).

Kinkle, Roger D., The Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz, 1900-1950 (Arlington House, 1974).

Mintun, Peter, "Lawnhurst Story Revised" (unpublished manuscript, 2022).

"NBC New and Renewal Accounts," Heinl Radio Business Letter February 6, 1933.

“Played Over 10,000 Times in 1936,” Variety January 26, 1938.

Pointer, Ray, The Art and Inventions of Max Fleischer: American Animation Pioneer (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2017).

Popeye Song Folio (Famous Music Corp., 1936).

Vaché, Warren W., The Unsung Songwriters: America's Masters of Melodies (Scarecrow Press, 2000).

Smiles, "The Cyclonic Song Hit"

(source: Jerome H. Remick & Co. ad. in Variety September 27, 1918)

Here is a song that bring joy to a weary heart--that fills to o'erflowing the bosom burdened with war-time anxiety. A song that hits on all six cylinders of musical success-for here is music with a captial E--the singingest, smilingest song sensation in a month of Sundays. A success? Well-you should smile. The greatest fox trot ever written.

Although Lee S. Roberts (1885-1949) lived all but around 15 years of his life in the San Francisco Bay AreaLee S. Roberts (1885-1949) lived all but around 15 years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, he achieved his greatest fame during 1910s when he lived and worked in Chicago for the QRS Company.

Roberts was already a prolific composer when he came upon the inspiration for the song "Smiles." He attended a business convention where he heard an inspirational speaker describe the importance of smiling. That brought to Robert's mind the lyrics that would become the chorus of "Smiles"

There are smiles that make us happy, and smiles that make us blue.

This phrase became the kernel for a melody that he jotted down on a borrowed piece of paper in 20 minutes. The following day he mailed the melody and a couple of sentences of lyrics to J. Will Callahan, a frequent collaborator. Callahan, who lived in Bay City, Michigan, had been a lawyer but turned to writing song lyrics because his eyesight was failing. He asked his wife to repeatedly play the melody on the piano, then after four hours he dictated the finished lyrics to her.

Roberts first self-published the song in 1917 and unsuccessfully tried to promote it. He then sold it to the Jerome H. Remick company - a major music publisher of that time. Initially, they also had trouble getting dance and hotel orchestras to perform it. The song's fortunes changed when legendary song plugger Jack Robbins found the published song sitting on the stockroom shelves at the Remick offices. He saw potential in the song and successfully promoted it leading to his own first great success.

Placement in the Broadway musical The Passing Show of 1918 was probably the decisive step leading to the success of "Smiles." This production was a variety show in eight scenes produced by the legendary J. J. Shubert at the Winter Garden. The show opened on July 25, 1918 and ran through November 9, 1918. It was a three hour whirlwind of comedic skits, songs and dance numbers and featured the brother and sister team of Fred and Adele Astaire. The music was credited to Sigmund Romberg and Jean Schwartz, but a number of other songs were interpolated into the show. "Smiles" was sung in the fifth act in the middle of the show by Nell Carrington with a girls chorus.

Cover to "Smiles" by Lee S. Roberts and J. Will Callahan (source: Dorothy Starr Collection)

It's hard to gauge the immediate impact of the song within the larger production. The song was not mentioned in the reviews of the show in the New York Times and Variety. That may have been because it was not included the production at the show's opening. It was only mentioned in passing in the Billboard review.

image source: Talkmachine Talk / New Victor Records August 1918

It was a released by Victor Records in August 1918 and according to Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories it was the best selling record of the week of September 9, 1918. This recording by Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra featured vocals by Harry MacDonough. Gracyk believes that this was the first dance recording to feature vocals.

The Joseph C. Smith Orchestra, Harry MacDonough, vocals, performing "Smiles" (Victor 18473)

"Smiles" was also a 1918 hit for vaudevillians Albert Campbell and Henry Burr and operatic tenor Lambert Murphy.

Albert Campbell Henry Burr singing "Smiles" (Columbia A2616)

Lambert Murphy singing "Smiles" (Victor 45155) 

Prince's Band (not that Prince!) played an instrumental arrangement of "Smiles" the same year.

Prince's Band performing "Smiles" (Columbia A6077)

All four of these recordings are from the acoustic era of sound recording -- the period before the use of microphones and amplification.

Lee S. Roberts and Max Kortlander also teamed up to create a piano roll version of "Smiles"

By 1920 "Smiles" had earned its writers $60,000 - equivalent to a million and a half dollars today.

"Smiles" also had a rich afterlife. It was used from the 1920s as the theme song for the Ipana Troubadours' radio program. It was sung by Helen Morgan playing a burlesque singer in the early talking film Applause (1929). Judy Garland sang it in the vaudeville themed film For Me and My Gal (MGM 1942) and Betty Hutton sang it in Somebody Loves Me (1952). It was also used as a recurring theme in the film Ice Palace (Warner Bros., 1960). It also made appearances in Stella Dallas (1934), The Dolly Sisters (1945), What Price Glory (1952), Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952), Elmer Gantry (1960), and Ice Palace (1960).

In addition to being a hit song of Tin Pan Alley, "Smiles" became a standard to be interpreted by many artists over the years (to be explored in the next blog entry).

Bibliography:

Bloom, Ken. American Song: The complete musical theatre companion, 2nd ed., 1877-1995 (Schirmer Books, 1996.

Ewen, David. American Popular Songs from The Revolutionary War to The Present (Random House, 1966).

Ewen, David. All The Years of American Popular Music (Prentice-Hall, 1977).

Gracyk, Tim. Popular American Recording Pioneers, 1895-1925 (Haworth Press, 2000).

Green, Abel, "Top Songs for 20 Years," Variety August 21, 1935.

"Jack Robbins Dies; Music Publisher," New York Times December 17, 1959

Jasen, David A. A Century of American Popular Music (1899-1999): 2000 best-loved and remembered songs (Routledge, 2002)

The New York Times Theater Reviews, v.5 1912-1919 (New York Times, 1975.

Norton, Richard C. A Chronology of American Musical Theater (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Popular Music, 1900-1919: An Annotated Guide to American Popular Songs, Including Introductory Essay, Lyricists and Composers Index, Important Performances Index, Chronological Index, and List of Publishers, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, editor (Gale Research Inc., 1988).

Wickes, E.M., "The Doughboy Has Put Dough in Ragtime," Melody: A Magazine for Lovers of Popular Music August 1920.

Wickes, E.M., "It Pays to Be Different," Billboard June 25, 1921

Tin Pan Alley era songwriter Lee S. Roberts

Born in Oakland, California, there are two different birth dates given for Leland Stanford Roberts given by Ancestry.com, either November 12, 1884 or 1885. His father worked at a variety of skilled manual jobs and brought up his family in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood on Oak Grove Street and where Roberts attended San Francisco public schools before his family moved to San Mateo County.

Lee S. Robert's family returned to San Francisco where he worked as a music store clerk from 1900 for the Benjamin Curtaz and Son store. Although I cannot find any information abut his musical education, he must have been a very proficient pianist. After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire he moved to Spokane, Washington where worked as a salesman for the Simon Piano Company between 1907 and 1909. While living there he doubled as a church organist and professional musician.

He had already begun writing music when he was still in San Francisco. His song "Good-bye Blue Eyes" was published in 1905 by The Alturas Music Publishing Company, a small local publisher. From 1912 onward, his compositions steadily made their way into print. While he frequently self-published, he also had works accepted by major music publishers like M. Witmark, Joseph W. Stern, Sam Fox and Leo Feist. 

Roberts achieved greater prominence as a performer of player piano rolls. The 1910 census lists him as a piano salesman in Chicago. He went to work for the Melville Clark Piano Company there and quickly joined their subsidiary, the QRS Company - a manufacturer of player pianos and the rolls they played. 

A piano roll created by Lee S. Roberts (image source: Made In Chicago Museum)

These were paper rolls with perforations that activated the piano keys creating a performance without a performer. Roberts toured throughout the country as a salesman for this technology. He returned to San Francisco in 1912 to demonstrate the Melville Clark product. It's hard to imagine today the sensation that these automatic instruments made at the time. 

A 1914 news account tells of a demonstration made by Roberts at the Rotary Club in Cincinnati. The story describes him as a "composer and interpreter of the work of old masters ... who has interpreted probably three-fourths of the piano-player selections now on the market." He wowed the audience by showing the fidelity of the recordings. Disc and cylinder recorders of the time contained surface noise and had  a limited frequency range, however, the player piano had the full acoustic richness of the instrument itself.

Lee S. Roberts, Vice-President Q. R. S. Music Co. and World's Leading Authority on Player Rolls

image source: Roehl, Player Piano Treasury.

He worked his way up the company, became Vice-President of the Company and worked for a time in New York City. A 1919 article in Music Trades noted his executive position and prominence as a recording artist. They also remarked that "He started writing songs when young and worked his way up from obscurity at San Francisco to his present position as vice-president of the company and as composer of some of the most successful songs ever presented in the country."

The 1920s were the boom time for player pianos - the instruments hit their high point in sales in 1923 while sales of the piano rolls continued to grow until 1926 when nearly 10 million were sold. A 1919 article marked the QRS Music Company as the largest piano roll company in the world with 500 employees.

An advertisement for topical piano rolls performed by Lee S. Roberts (source: Asia December 24, 1924)

He modestly said in a 1921 interview that: “I had no intention of becoming a pianist or composer... I owe all my achievement and success in that direction to the influence of the player [piano] and the extensive amount of musical literature with which it surrounded me.” 

He achieved a number one hit song in 1918 with "Smiles," co-written with lyricist J. Will Callahan. This song that became a popular standard will be the subject of a later blog entry. A 1923 article in The Dominant announced that he had signed an exclusive contract with Forster Music Publisher of Chicago. By the 1930s his style of songwriter had come and gone - a 1936 Variety described an unsuccessful trip he took to New York to try to find publishers for 200 new songs.

Roberts was a prolific composer of both songs and instrumental music and no attempt has been made to date to inventory his musical corpus. Our library catalog has seventeen listings for him, while the Dorothy Starr Collection has another thirty. Some of his music has been listed online in the Lester S. Levy Collection and Johns Hopkins University and in the Digital Commons at the University of Main.

In 1925 he returned to San Francisco where he opened a store to sell Chickering pianos. He soon became active in the nascent Bay Area radio scene. In 1927 he presented the Chickering Hour on KPO radio (the San Francisco Chronicle's station).  In 1929 he presented the Zenith Hour on KFRC. He returned to KPO 1930 presenting the Shell Happytime show sponsored by Shell Oil. Sperry Flour took over sponsorship of his program renaming it the Sperry Smiles program, eventually moving to over to KGO and NCB's West Coast network. In 1933 he presented a Folgers Coffee sponsored radio program on KGO.

Advertisement for His Old Memory Box, KGO and KFI (San Francisco Chronicle April 2, 1933).

Roberts' His Old Memory Box program ran from 1933 through 1935 on KGO (and on KFI Los Angeles). In 1935 he was appointed the program manager of the Hearst-owned radio station KYA.

Lee S. Robert's death in San Francisco on September 10, 1949 received relatively little attention in the San Francisco media or in the music trade journals. This is surprising for the creator of a hit song ("Smiles") whose music was presented by major publishers and who was a pioneer of early San Francisco radio.

Bibliography:

The Billboard and Variety articles were located in the Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive. 

Clayman, Andrew, "QRS Music Company est. ca. 1900," Made In Chicago Museum [website]

"Device Records Music," Spokane Spokesman-Review October 16, 1912

History of Westchester County, New York, Alvah P French and Will L Clark, editors. (Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1925).

"KFRC Offers Song Writer," San Francisco Chronicle September 25, 1929.

"Lee Roberts," The Dominant March 1923.

"Lee S. Roberts, Composer to Join KYA Staff," San Francisco Examiner December 29, 1935.

"Lee S. Roberts, Musician, Dies," San Francisco Examiner September 13, 1949

"Music Lovers Enjoy Concert," Cincinnati Commercial Tribune December 10, 1914.

"Q R S Company," The Economist April 19, 1919

"Q R S Recording, Editing and Master Recording Sections Come to New York with Lee S. Roberts," Music Trades September 13, 1919.

"Radio Reports," Variety December 8, 1931.

Roehl, Harvey N. Player Piano Treasury; The scrapbook history of the mechanical piano in America as told in story, pictures, trade journal articles and advertising (Vestal Press, 1973).

"Second Week of The Pacific Grand Opera," San Francisco Examiner September 29, 1912

"Snappy Shots," San Francisco Examiner June 13, 1925.

"200 Tunes Seek Pub," Variety August 12, 1936.

"Today's Air Doings to Be of Interest to All Fans," San Francisco Chronicle January 5, 1927.

"West Coast News; More Symphonies," Billboard April 8, 1933

Whitburn, Joel. Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories, 1890-1954: The history of American popular music : compiled from America's popular music charts 1890-1954 (Record Research, 1986).

The Most Circulated Art, Music & Recreation Books of SFPL-To-Go up to December 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a radical effect upon library service. At San Francisco Public Library our readers have relied eBooks and other eResources more than ever. However, many other readers either cannot or prefer not to read online, or the books they want are not yet available online. The launch of SFPL-To-Go on August 10 brought the San Francisco Public Library's print collections back into the public's hands after a nearly five month break. 

Most of the books in the subjects of Art, Music and Recreation are assigned a call number in the Dewey 700 range (Dewey Decimals numbers 700 to 799). Among the top 15 most circulated in the Dewey 700 range, seven are pre-2020 titles.

The most borrowed print book by far is Ali Wong's Dear Girls. It was already among the most popular titles a year ago. Two other books that have continued from last year's list are Trevor Noah's Born A Crime and Hamilton: The Revolution.  Some other no longer current titles that have continue to be frequently borrowed include The Mamba Mentality by the late Kobe Bryant, Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, Making Comics by Lynda Barry and Just Kids by Patti Smith.  Noah's and Smith's books are possibly the most popular arts related books of this century so far.

Naturally, most of the books that are frequently requested and checked out are current titles.  Hollywood often figures into these choices and currently The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood and Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother are hot titles.  Two new books by popular music divas Jessica Simpson and Mariah Carey are also racking up a large number of holds.

It's a great pleasure the see the positive attention our readers are giving to Marilyn Chase's biography of San Francisco's own Ruth Asawa, Everything She Touched.

The Victory Machine by Ethan Sherwood details the rise and fall of our Golden State Warriors (who are hopefully soon to rise again!)  Sanam Maher's A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing Of a Social Media Star would not immediately seem like a hot title (we initially only ordered three copies for our system) but it has proven popular in its rich investigation of fame, faith gender roles and social media.

Homebody: A Guide To Creating Spaces You Never Want To Leave from 2018 by Joanna Gaines is the most apt title for our times. If the experts tell us to stay at home, then, of course, we want to make it a place that we never want to leave.

The Top 15 Titles of December 2020

Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice For Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong (Random House, 2019).

Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (Spiegel & Grau, 2016).

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown And the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson (Flatiron Books, 2020). 

The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant (MCD, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2018). 

Open Book by Jessica Simpson with Kevin Carr O'Leary (Dey St., 2020). 

Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa by Marilyn Chase (Chronicle Books, 2020).

A Woman Like Her: The Story Behind the Honor Killing Of a Social Media Star by Sanam Maher (Melville House Publishing, 2020).

A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir by Colin Jost (Crown, 2020). 

Homebody: A Guide To Creating Spaces You Never Want To Leave by Joanna Gaines (Harper Design, 2018). 

Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco, 2010). 

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 2017). 

Making Comics by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly, 2019)

Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs Of a Neurotic Filmmaker (Hachette Books, 2020).

The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis (Andy Cohen Books, 2020). 

The Victory Machine: The Making And Unmaking Of the Warriors Dynasty by Ethan Sherwood Strauss (PublicAffairs, 2020).

Hamilton: The Revolution: Being the Complete Libretto of the Broadway Musical, With a True Account Of its Creation, and Concise Remarks On Hip-hop, the Power of Stories, And the New America by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter (Grand Central Publishing, 2016).

Sheet Music of World War I

"Over There," words and music by George M. Cohan, 

cover illustration by Norman Rockwell

World War I has recently returned as the subject of books and news reports largely owing to the commemoration of the centennial of the war's end (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month).  One hundred years ago, sentiment about the war was documented in popular culture, in particular through popular song.  Sheet music later collected by librarians of the San Francisco Public Library's Music Department were bound into volumes that present a vast range of these songs.

World War I began without American involvement in 1914.  The earliest songs about the war in our bound sheet music collections came from England.  The famous tune "Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag And Smile, Smile, Smile!" dates from 1915.  But most of the earliest songs are directed to the home front (where the majority of sheet music consumers would reside).  Representative titles include "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers," "Keep the Home-fires Burning: ('Till the Boys Come Home)," "Laddie In Khaki: (The Girl Who Waits At Home) ," and "God Be With Our Boys To-night."

At the war's outset, many Americans saw the conflict as solely a European affair.  This is represented in the 1915 song "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier."  Ambivalence to fighting the war is seen even in 19118 with the comic song "Uncle Sam, Don't Take My Man Away."  But more bellicose sentiments ultimately prevailed in the song market with the new "war edition" (1915) of "Yankee Doodle Boy" (1915) and "Over There" (1917) by George Cohan.  Some songs appealed to the romance of a foreign land like "Come Across, Yankee Boy, Come Across," "Joan of Arc They Are Calling You" and "When Yankee Doodle Learns To Parlez Vous Francais."  This could even turn to romance in songs like "Jerry Mon Cheri," "And He'd Say Oo-la la! Wee-wee," and "Wee wee Marie: Will You Do Zis For Me."

"You Keep Sending 'Em Over And We'll Keep Knocking Them Down," 

words by Sidney D. Mitchell, music by Harry Ruby

Many songs were recruiting posters in sound.  Some songs present American pep and braggadocio like "You Keep Sending 'Em Over And We'll Keep Knocking 'Em Down," "Tell That To The Marines," "We'll Lick The Kaiser If It Takes Us Twenty Years," "We Don't Want The Bacon: What We Want Is A Piece Of The Rhine," "Just Like Washington Crossed The Delaware (General Pershing Will Cross The Rhine)," "The Ragtime Volunteers Are Off to War" and "When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band To France."

There were also plenty of American songs written for families and loved ones of soldiers far from home and in harm's way.  Some reflected domestic support like "Ev'ry Girl Is Doing Her Bit To-day," "We'll Do Our Share: (While You're Over There)," and "Women Of The Homeland: (God Bless You, Every One!)."  Other songs expressed worry and concern for the young soldiers across the ocean, for instance "The Little Grey Mother: Who Waits All Alone," "Just A Baby's Prayer At Twilight: (For Her Daddy Over There)," "Hello Central, Give Me No Man's Land" (the latter being a child's wish for a telephone operator to connect to their father at the front line).

Other songs acknowledged the loss of life of warfare. "If I'm Not At The Roll Call: Kiss Mother Good-bye For Me" expresses this from the soldier's perspective.  But at the war's end many songs acknowledge the loss of life like "A Star Of Gold: A Hero's Gift," "In Flanders' Fields" and "Miserere: In Memory Of The American Soldiers Who Fell On The Battlefields Of The Great Way."

War's end was also a source of joy in songs like "Oh! What A Time For The Girlies When The Boys Come Marching Home." "How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down On The Farm?: (After They've Seen Paree)" reflects the awakening that many young men from the country had after experiencing the big city, a foreign country, and the wider world.


For those interested in listening to some of these songs, we offer the album The Great War: An American Musical Fantasy (Archeophone, 2006) through the Alexander Street Press American Music streaming audio database.

"Hello Central! Give Me No Man's Land," 

words by Sam M. Lewis & Joe Young, music by Jean Schwartz

Björk's 34 Scores

Copies of Björk's 34 Scores for Piano, Organ, Harpsichord and Celeste have just arrived at the San Francisco Public Library.  Properly speaking these are not arrangements of her songs for solo instruments, but for voice accompanied by one of these instruments.  (In one case there is an arrangement for voice and two pianos).

The Biography In Context database entry on Björk describes her as "an Icelandic singer and musician known for her experimental sound and unusual look."  She is difficult to pin down by genre, having performed in diverse styles like pop, rock, electronica and classical music.  34 Scores spans 22 years of her career, including songs from the Debut, Post, Homogenic, Selmasongs, Vespertine, Medúlla, Drawing Restraint 9, Volta and Vulnicura albums.

Björk has always performed her songs with in a variety of settings and with a variety of ensembles, so the some of the unconventionality of this collection is not surprising.  How often do you hear music for the celeste (also called celesta)?

from Music and Musicians by Albert Lavignac (Henry Holt and Company, 1907).

This keyboard instrument is best known from Tchaikovsky's use of it in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the Nutcracker. 

Already, there are online celeste versions of Björk's "All Is Full Of Love."


She has written that this collection came about through a self-examination of the meaning of "music documentation."

When cds were slowly becoming obsolete, i was curious about the difference of midi (digital notation) and classical notation and enthusiastic in blurring the lines and at which occasions and how one would share music in these new times.

Popular music songbooks and sheet music long preceded recorded sound.  They have always only provided an incomplete representation of songs.  They especially miss a singers' unique style and inflection.  Naturally Björk's florid vocalizing cannot be adequately captured in musical notation.  Nevertheless these arrangements give us the essential elements of the songs and capture her music in a novel way.

34 Scores for Piano, Organ, Harpsichord and Celeste by Björk (Wise Publications, 2017).


Further reading on Björk and her music:


Björk: There's More to Life Than This: The Stories Behind Every Song by Ian Gittins (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002).

Björk by Nicola Dibben (Indiana University Press,|2009).

The Queen of Boogie Woogie: Wendy DeWitt Sings at SFPL

Born in San Francisco, Wendy DeWitt is a Santa Rosa High School graduate. She was only 10 when she caught the attention of Western Swing Hall of Famer, Tommy Thomsen’s attention. Since then she has gone on to win regional competitions and been a finalist at the International Blues Challenge. Her album, Gateway, made the top of the charts in Italy. She has had the distinction of playing with Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Charlie Musselwhite, Otis Rush and Jimmy Thackery. She produces the annual Queens of Boogie Woogie and San Francisco International Boogie Woogie Festival. Chris Spector of Midwest Record once said about her, “All the cool kids already know DeWitt is one smoking boogie woogie piano/organ gal and it’s time the word to spread beyond her regional awards.”

San Francisco Public Library’s Art and Music and Recreation Department is delighted to have her come back and conduct an interactive presentation on boogie woogie and blues as she takes us on a journey through America’s most grooving roots music, how it all started, and how it went to influence the world. DeWitt sprinkles her performance with stories, fascinating information, photos, and examples.

San Francisco Public Library has a wonderful collection of musical scores, CDs, DVDs, and books about boogie woogie music. Curious patrons can do a Subject Searches (Piano music (Boogie woogie)) or a Keyword Search (boogie woogie).


Here’s a list of suggested titles:

Beginning Boogie & Rags for Piano (Boston Music Co., 2006) 

The Story of Boogie-Woogie: A Left Hand like God by Peter J. Silvester (Scarecrow Press, 2009.)

Boogie Woogie Piano [DVD] / featuring Mitch Woods (Hal Leonard, 2006)

Boogie Woogie Rareties, 1927-1932 [33 rpm LP record]. (Milestone, 1969)

The Literature of Rock - Hoffmann & Cooper

The researcher today has the internet and databases at hand to search for articles and information on all subjects.  For the subject of rock music, the library subscribes to three very good databases.

The Music Index - article citations and full text for more recent coverage

Rock's Backpages - full text of articles by well-known rock critics and scholars, not thorough coverage

JStor - full text of articles in selective scholarly periodicals

Between these three resources and a good web search, a large amount of information can be found.  But at times the amount of information is too great and it becomes difficult to choose and evaluate sources.  This is where a good print bibliography can help out.

The Literature of Rock, compiled first by Frank Hoffmann and later together with B. Lee Cooper (with assistance from Lee Ann Cooper), was published between 1981 and 1995.  The three volumes cover articles written respectively between 1954 to 1978, 1979 to 1983, and 1984 to 1990.  The final volume also includes "additional material for the period 1954-1983".

Each volume has an index that lists the artists, bands, films, and subjects covered.  This book is organized in a unique way that progresses chronologically and stylistically through the genre, thus grouping together music scenes and related artists.

Where the book shines is in the annotations that accompany each citation.  This can give the researcher a sense of how useful an article will be for one's purposes.  In addition to indexing articles, the Literature of Rock also includes book chapters and encyclopedia entries.  The section for "Protest Songs" lists articles from mainstream publications like Life, Public Opinion Quarterly and Saturday Review, as well as sections from books.  Because each volume adds new entries it can be necessary to consult each of the three volumes.

Anyone researching rock music, both its genres and artists, will discover valuable information.  Of course, a bibliography like this is only the first step.  Researchers then need to search the Library's online catalog to see whether the Library has the publications (in print or online).  Sometimes knowing the citation information makes the article more easily found through an online search engine.  When we do not own a book or magazine title, we can usually obtain it for our patrons through Inter-Library Loan.


The Literature of Rock by Frank Hoffmann (and B. Lee Cooper) (Scarecrow Press, 1981-1995).

Bob Marley: The Illustrated History - Presented by local music historian Richie Unterberger

Koret Auditorium, Main Library - 100 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102

Thursday, March 29th 6:00pm-7:30pm

 
The Art, Music and Recreation Center of the San Francisco Public Library is pleased to host local music historian Richie Unterberger. Coinciding with the publication of his book, Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Ultimate Illustrated History, Richie Unterberger will show film clips, images from the book and host a presentation about Marley & the Wailers.

We would like to recommend the following titles from our book collection to learn more about Bob Marley & the Wailers.

Bob Marley: The Untold Story by Chris Salewicz (London: Harper Collins, c2009)

So Much Things to Say: The Oral history of Bob Marley by Roger Steffens (W.W. Norton & Company 2017)

Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley by Timothy White (St. Martin's Griffin c2006)

Marley Legend: An Illustrated Life of Bob Marley by James Henke (Chronicle Books c2006) 

Soul Rebel: An Intimate  Portrait of Bob Marley by David Burnett (Insight Editions, c2009)

Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae, 1975-1976 by Kim, Gottlieb-Walker (Titan Books, c2010)


Search the catalog for subject Reggae Music -- Jamaica to find CD's, LP's and streaming audio.


 

Regional Airplay and National Charts in 1966

The front page of the July 2, 1966 issue of Billboard magazine featured an article entitled "Detroit & L.A. Sales 'Happening Places'."  This article detailed the various the contributions of various regional markets to the national hit charts -- Detroit came on top owing to the song "Cool Jerk" by Capitols, though it's hard to imagine that the Motown label didn't play a role in its prominence.

San Francisco placed third with 7 chart lists.  The article makes special note of the San Jose-based Syndicate of Sound's song "Little Girl" "moving up the charts."

Indeed the song is shown in the 11th position on the weekly charts with a red star given to "sides registering proportionate upward progress" for the week.  (By the way, harkening back to an older era, Frank Sinatra topped that week's chart with "Strangers In The Night."  Representing the new era, The Beatles charted at no. 2 with "Paperback Writer.")

According to Joel Whitburn Presents Top 10 Singles Charts, "Little Girl" peaked at #8 during the week of July 9, 1966, squeezed between "Cool Jerk" by the Capitols at #7 and "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones at #9.  It repeated at #8 the following week of July 16 and then faded away.


According to the Billboard Book of One Hit Wonders, the Syndicate of Sound recorded "Little Girl" on January 9, 1966 at Golden Gate Recorders in San Francisco at 665 Harrison Street.  Leo de Gar Kulka opened Golden State Recorders in 1964 after moving north from Los Angeles and soon began recording many of the bands of the "San Francisco Sound."  In If These Halls Could Talk, Heather Johnson describes it as "one of the few music recording studios in town with a recording room comparable in size to established L.A. and New York facilities."

 source: John In Montana blog

The KFRC Weekly Music Charts 1966-1970 show "Little Girl" charting earlier in the Bay Area.  On May 25, 1966 it was ranked #11, June 1, 1966 at #9 and on June 8, 1966 at #14 on the station's "Big 30."  After that it did appear in the Top 30 again.  It achieved its peak of popularity in the Bay Area a month before its national success. 

This is an interesting time because radio stations were programmed locally and their record charts still reflected local tastes.  That same week "Don't Bring Me Down" by The Animals reached #3 on KFRC, but it never reached Billboard's Top Ten.

 The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders has a brief chapter describing the band's history and the creation of their hit song.  The lead singer recalled: "I had no idea how I would interpret it vocally.  It didn't really work putting melody on top ... so we agreed I'd do it, without a melody, but with attitude."

A black and white video from that time captures that attitude.

The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders by Wayne Jancik (Billboard Books, 1998).

Hall, Claude, "Detroit & L.A. Sales 'Happening Places'." Billboard (July 2, 1966), 1; 26.

If These Halls Could Talk: A Historical Tour Through San Francisco Recording Studios by Heather Johnson (Thomson Course Technology, 2006).

Joel Whitburn Presents Top 10 Singles Charts: Chart Data Compiled from Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Hot 100 charts, 1955-2000 (Record Research, 2001).

KFRC Weekly Music Charts. 1966-1970 by Frank W. Hoffmann (Paw Paw Press, 2015).

Ten Years of The San Francisco Public Library, Art, Music and Recreation Center blog

"Two Decorative Figures" by Leo Lentelli at the Mission Branch Library, 24th Street and Bartlett

 
The San Francisco Public Library, Art, Music and Recreation Center blog began on March 7, 2007.  During that time we have had more than 50,000 readers visit our 436 blog entries.  This blog has given us an opportunity to highlight programs and exhibitions, and to share reference and reading resources.

Here are the most read entries from our blog year by year.

Leo Lentelli: Sculptor of the City Beautiful (June 18, 2007)

Leo Lentelli was a sculptor who was heavily involved with the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition.  He also created works of public art visible to all who visit San Francisco.  Our blog entry has become well read because it is cited in the Wikipedia article about Lentelli.

The Dewey Decimal System and Music Scores (December 10, 2008)

The San Francisco Public Library uses the Dewey Decimal System to classify much of its nonfiction material.  The score collection uses an earlier version of this classification system. This entry explains some of the idiosyncrasies of our use of the system.


Color and Music (Marcy 17, 2009)

In early 2009, our Department and the Business, Science and Technology Department presented an exhibit called Color Amour that celebrated the history, art and science of color.  This entry focused on one aspect of the exhibition.

Jim Marshall (1936-2010) (November 8, 2010)

The passing of famed San Francisco photographer was the occasion for a small display of his work in our department.

Art in America Annual Guide, Museums, Galleries, Artists (June 22, 2011)

This entry highlights an important reference source that is available to San Francisco Public Library card holders as a special magazine issue in a magazine database.

Jews and the Brill Building - by Richie Unterberger (January 29, 2012)

Richie Unterberger is a local expert on popular music who frequently presents programs at the Library. This is one of the few blog entries written by a non-San Francisco Public Library librarian.

Richard Diebenkorn and Ingleside (September 19, 2013)

At this time, the DeYoung Museum presented the exhibit Richard Diebenkorn: The Berkeley Years, 1953–1966.  This was one of a pair of blog entries that looked at Diebenkorn's connection to San Francisco.  This entry focuses on the Ingleside neighborhood where he grew up.

Bobby Womack's I Left My Heart in San Francisco (July 1, 2014)

This entry was a tribute to the rhythm'n'blues musician Bobby Womack that examined his performance of an iconic San Francisco song.

"John McLaren" by M. Earl Cummings

M. Earl Cummings, pt. 2 - Sculpture in Golden Gate Park (August 9, 2015)

This was one of a pair entries discussing a San Francisco artist who played an important role in the City's cultural life during the first half of the 20th century.  This essay looks at his many works of public sculpture in Golden Gate Park.

Dorothy Starr Interviewed (November 17, 2016)

The Dorothy Starr Collection is a unique and important resource in our department.  This entry features an interview with Dorothy Starr herself where she talks about her life and vocation.


Please keep checking in to our blog to learn about our activities, our collections and about San Francisco's artistic, musical, and recreational activities.

Facts Behind The Songs

Facts Behind the Songs by Marvin E. Paymer is an idiosyncratic reference book for popular music. Its scope is the music from the 1890s (the earliest days of Tin Pan Alley) to the early 1990s.  The books consists of alphabetical succession of articles by 11 contributors that are classified into 8 categories: 1) origin; 2) foreign influence; 3) domestic influence; 4) dissemination; 5) historical survey; 6) genre; 7) song subject; and 8) style of music and lyrics.

"Origin" brings together articles relating to the creators and the production of music. Some articles are about locales, others are about venues for creation.

"Foreign Influence" looks at the contribution of other cultures in American popular music.  Domestic Influence likewise considers how American genres (ranging from Bebop to Zydeco) entered the musical mainstream.

"Dissemination" looks at technology and the institutions that offer music.  The "Historical Survey" devotes a chapters to a variety of time periods; genre lists articles on a variety of styles of music.

Perhaps the most useful category is "Song Subject." There are articles about more than 100 categories ranging from "age" ("Forever Young," "My Generation") to "writing" ("Take a Letter, Maria," "Paperback Writer"). I have found this book to be helpful for the article "Classics" which includes a table called "The Classics and Popular Song." This provides a convenient listing of classical melodies that have become popular songs.

The book closes with a "Catalogue of Songs" that lists every song mentioned in the book giving the year it was written and the names of the songwriters. It also indexes every article where each song is mentioned.

The information in Facts Behind The Songs is mostly covered in other reference sources. The value of the book is the unique organization of this information.


Facts Behind the Songs: A Handbook of American Popular Music From the Nineties to the '90s, Marvin E. Paymer, general editor (Garland Pub., 1993).

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory

The Song Machine is a survey and explanation of the changes in popular music over the past 20 years.  Although these changes have been driven by technology, through the increased use of computer software in creating songs and the new forms of music sales and distribution through the internet, author John Seabrook also gives due attention to the creators, artists and audiences of contemporary popular music.

The most striking insight I obtained from this book is how much pop music has become IKEA.  A whole corps of Swedish songwriters and producers lie behind much of today's sound.  These songwriters and producers have, through experience and research, developed an effective assembly line that produces sleek and seductive pop confections that can be, as the author notes of himself, hard to resist.  In one telling passage, Seabrook notes how the emphasis on music and the arts in the Swedish public school system prepared Max Martin, born Martin Karl Sandberg and the author of 21  number 1 singles (as of this writing) since 1999, for his amazing success.  One senses that America needs to likewise invest in arts education to achieve parity with Sweden's pop music success.

While the meticulously assembled audio design of these song can sometimes be overwhelming, performing artists (lead vocalist / vocalists) are still need to be imprinted upon the final product.  Seabrook's book presents a parade of popular music celebrity, European and American, who are ubiquitous on the airwaves and in the tabloids (mostly online these days).  He also tracks the exploitation of these young stars and describes how their creative wishes are cut short by producers who better understand how to exploit their talents and personalities for profit.

There are chapters on the origins of the Swedish sound and approach to hit-making, the boy (and girl) band phenomenon, the compositional process of the contemporary hit, music streaming through Spotify, and on K-pop.  K-pop is an even purer distillation of this singer and song manufacturing process.  For cultural and economic reasons, Korean pop producers have a tighter control over their performing talent who must practice for many years to reach the top and who must accept rigid restrictions on how they conduct their personal lives.

At the outset of his investigation, Seabrook had a low opinion of this assembly line pop.  He came, however, to have a respect and appreciation for the extreme attention to detail and craftsmanship of all involved in the enterprise.  He also places today's music in the context of prior systems of manufacturing popular songs like Tin Pan Alley, The Brill Building, and Motown.  It is easy to argue that the new hit producing infrastructure has outdone its predecessors -- at least in terms of impact in the musical marketplace.  This is, nevertheless, music designed to manipulate the listener and it's hard not to feel manipulated by these carefully designed sonic products.  But one hopes that there can also be a similar renaissance of hand-crafted sounds in the pop music world.


The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015).

The Most Requested Art, Music & Recreation Books - December 2015

 The year-end list of the titles with the most holds is topped by music memoirs, especially by women (Carrie Brownstein of Sleater / Kinney, Patti Smith, Carly Simon and Grace Jones).  Eight months earlier memoirs by Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) and Viv Albertine (The Slits) were near the top.

One surprising title on this months list is The Arab of the Future, a graphic memoir of life in the Middle East.  There were two history books by noted rock historians - Peter Guralnick's biography of Sam Phillips, and the revised 6th edition of Greil Marcus' classic Mystery Train.

Works on architecture and interior design are popular.  Tiny House Living is a natural fit for 21st century San Francisco and is the only carry over from the April 2015 blog list of requested books.

Two of the more unusual books on the list are Ivory Vikings, an investigation of a set of walrus ivory chess pieces more than a millennia old, and The White Road, a history of porcelain penned by the author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes.

While there may be a queue of people awaiting their holds to be filled on these books, we frequently order extra copies to meet demand, so go ahead and place your holds on these popular new books.


1. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein (Riverhead Books, 2015).

2. M Train by Patti Smith (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).

3. The Arab of the Future: A Graphic Memoir: A Childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984) by Riad Sattouf, translated by Sam Taylor (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2015.

4. Boys in the Trees: A Memoir by Carly Simon (Flatiron Books, 2015).

5. I'll Never Write My Memoirs by Grace Jones as told to Paul Morley (Gallery Books, 2015).

6. Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello (Blue Rider Press, 2015)

7. Styled: Secrets for Arranging Rooms, From Tabletops to Bookshelves by Emily Henderson with Angelin Borsics (Potter Style, 2015).

8. Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' roll by Peter Guralnick (Little, Brown and Company, 2015).

9. Tiny House Living: Ideas for Building and Living Well in Less than 400 Square Feet by Ryan Mitchell. (Betterway Home, 2014).

10. Love Style Life by Garance Doré (Spiegel & Grau, 2015).

11. Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern by Francine Prose (Yale University Press, 2015).

12. The Kinfolk Home: Interiors for Slow Living by Nathan Williams (Ouur/Artisan, 2015).

13. Becoming by Cindy Crawford (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2015).

14. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' roll Music by Greil Marcus (Plume, 2015).

15. Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).

16. Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman who Made Them by Nancy Marie Brown (St. Martin's Press, 2015).

17. Cabin Porn: Inspiration for Your Quiet Place Somewhere, collected by Beaver Brook, edited by Zach Klein (Little, Brown and Company, 20150.

18. The White Road: Journey into an Obsession by Edmund de Waal (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).

Season of the Witch Playlist - Music from the 60's, 70's and 80's!

The years between 1965 and 1985 were a tumultuous and often dark time in San Francisco history.  In this year's One City One Book selection, Season of the Witch, author David Talbot uses a backdrop of local music to delve deep into the heart of this extraordinary era of social and political unrest.

From Santana and Jefferson Airplane's appearance at the late 1960's Altamont Free Concert where a young African-American male was murdered, to punk rocker Jello Biafra's mayoral bid shortly after the assassinations of both Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, local music provided an unsentimental soundtrack.

The Art, Music & Recreation Center of the San Francisco Public Library is delighted to display some of our collection's ephemera and book images of the music that is featured in this remarkable publication. Inspired by the author's "playlist", materials culled include everything from rock posters that are on loan from the San Francisco History Center, to newspaper clippings that are stored in our department's vertical files. Images will be on display in the glass display cases on both sides of the Fourth Floor elevator lobby until January 28, 2016.

The hyperlinks below will lead you to our catalog showing the Library's holdings for an artist.

Season of the Witch Playlist: The David Talbot's Best Songs Recorded by San Francisco Bands, 1965-1985


The Ace of Cups - "Circles”

The Beau Brummels -“Just a Little,” “Laugh Laugh, ”“Sometime at Night”

Big Brother and theHolding Company  - “Call on Me,” "Combination of the Two,” “Farewell Song,” “Piece of My Heart”

Creedence ClearwaterRevival  - “As Long as I Can See the Light,” “Fortunate Son,” “Walk on the Water”

The Dead Kennedys  - “Holiday in Cambodia”

The Flamin’ Groovies  - “Shake Some Action,” “Slow Death”

The Grateful Dead  - “Box of Rain,” “The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion),” “New Speedway Boogie,” “Ripple,” “Uncle John’s Band”

The Great Society - “Grimly Forming,” “Trieulogy”

The JeffersonAirplane - “It’s No Secret,” “Lather,” “Law Man.” “Somebody to Love,” “Today,” “White Rabbit”

Jorma Kaukonen - “Genesis”

Lee Michaels - “Heighty Hi,” “What Now America”

Moby Grape - “8:05,” “Going Nowhere,” “I Am Not Willing,” “Naked, If I Want To,” “Omaha,” “Sitting by the Window”

The Mojo Men - “Sit Down, I Think I Love You”

Romeo Void - “Never Say Never”

Santana - “Samba Pa Ti”

Skip Spence - “Diana”

Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth - “Down So Low,” “Seven Bridges Road”

Translator - “Everywhere That I’m Not”

The Vejtables - “I Still Love You”

The Youngbloods - “Darkness, Darkness,” “Get Together”