The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty
by Wilfrid Sheed
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Book Summary Information
Author: Wilfrid SheedEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-13
ISBN: 0812970187
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty
Book Review: A Book about Jazz Song Writers and Lyricists without Any Music to Listen to
Summary: 4 Stars
The House That George Built works fine if you can hear in your head every fabulous popular song that Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Harry Warren, Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Mercer, Frank Loesser, Burton Lane, Cy Coleman, Walter Donaldson, Arthur Schwartz, and Vincent Youmans. But I can't, even though I'm not exactly a youngster. In an age when even books about insects contain CDs of their songs, it's very peculiar to have a history of popular music without containing the music itself.
The book works well, however, for those who know the songs and music but don't know very much about how the music was created and the quirks of those who did the creating. It's hard to imagine that there are very many people in that category, but if you are . . . this book's a five-star effort just for you.
Mr. Sheed covers a lot of ground, lightly, in appropriately syncopated style. His writing style, in fact, was for me the most interesting aspect of the book. Like P.G. Wodehouse, Mr. Sheed is capable to turning up an interesting, novel phrase every so often that keeps you riveted to the material as you look for the next gem. Even better, Mr. Sheed reserves most of those fascinating phrases for summing up a given composer or lyricist. Jerome Kern, for example, while older seemed "slightly overwhelmed by his own magnificence."
The book's tone is deliberately conversational: Mr. Sheed calls the book a bull session. To me, it felt like sitting in a comfy piano bar in Manhattan and listening to an entertaining companion over a perfect dry martini (Beefeater gin up with olives) while the old standards tinkle on in the background.
The book is full of those sorts of gossipy things that relatives say about one another. Why? Well, Mr. Sheed drew heavily on interviews with relatives of the song men to develop his miniature portraits of where they got their talent and training (if any), what the talent was like, how they got a break in the business, how economic and industry conditions affected their success, family life, drinking and sexual preferences, and what they did with their money (if they had any). It's quite a trip from the ethnic neighborhoods of the Jewish lower East Side to Tin Pan Alley through those fabulous Broadway musicals that are always being revived, to the early days of Hollywood and its affection for musicals.
I suspect that this book would be most enjoyable if consumed in small sips, interspaced with lots of jazz songs. Pull out your CD collection and get ready to add to the memories.
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