Until around the middle of the last century, a very significant portion of popular music consumption involved buying sheet music and having your talented child play it on the spinet in the parlor. The covers of these pieces were often graphically arresting, for obvious purposes--the gaudier the cover, the more it stood out from the competition. They were the LP sleeves of their day, and were often quite creative with a one- or two-color pass over black type.
Here is a random selection of sheet music my mother accrued throughout her long life. I'm scanning these before tossing them out, and before you call me a soulless philistine and culture killer, please keep in mind a few things:
These are all originals, some date back into the 1930s and may have been printed in the 20s. They are disintegrating as we speak.
Piano reductions, as nearly all sheet music of the popular songs of the day were, are nearly always terrible representations of the song--the melody has to be included, and the accompaniment always suffers as a result. Even the gems among these have much better arrangements available with a few clicks.
The pages are all slightly larger than the scanner flat bed, I did my best.
So here we go.
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| Copyright 1910 |
For all you Mel Brooks fans.
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| Copyright 1928 |
The movie came out in 1940.
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The movie came out in 1929, the graphic looks much older.
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Apparently this movie is something of a mess. It was made during the period Universal was in the process of switching from silents to sound, and the execs were terrified the public was going to expect a filmed version of the successful stage play. As a result there were no less than three separate releases: a fully silent version, a version with some dialog and songs appended, and a much longer version with a prologue featuring songs and cast members from the Broadway show.
The Lonesome Road is actually the finale of the film instead of
Ol' Man River.
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| Copyright 1930 |
Bert Lahr and Kate Smith appeared in this show in 1930. The plane resembles
Spirit of St. Louis, doesn't it?
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Copyright 1935
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The Bernie Cummins Orchestra was popular for decades, finally dissolving in 1959. Dark Eyes was their theme. Calumet Music Company was Nick Manoloff and his sister; Nick was big in popularizing slide guitar and ukulele.
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| Copyright 1935 |
Another Nick Manoloff ukulele jam. Foster probably wrote the song in 1862, and by 1935 it was public domain.
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| Copyright 1939 |
Doris (1908--1955) is buried at Hollywood Forever, so really she's still in show biz.
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| Copyright 1940 |
The movie came out in 1943. Ethel Waters sang this and killed it.
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| Copyright 1941 |
The original Glen Miller recording of this song happened on December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. The music comes from a popular 1912 ragtime tune.
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| Copyright 1942 |
This show is a fascinating subject and should get more attention. At Berlin's insistence it featured Black performers as well as white. It was scheduled for a four-week run, and was so successful it ran for 12 weeks on Broadway.
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| Copyright 1942 |
Duke wrote this in 1940. Bob Russell wrote the lyrics in 1942. The Casa Loma Orchestra was another extremely popular touring orchestra, active from 1929 to 1963. Glen Gray was their most famous leader.
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| Copyright 1942 |
The song reached #1 on the charts in 1943, but the world still had two years to wait for the lights to go back on.
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| Copyright is 1931, but this version of the sheet music probably appeared in late 1942. |
Play it, Sam.
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| The song was written in 1940, the sheet music probably dates from 1944 when it appeared in two movies.. |
Consuelo Velazquez was an accomplished pianist. The song was inspired by Enrique Granados' The Maiden and the Nightingale which was also one of my mother's favorite pieces to play. The Maiden and the Nightingale is fiercely difficult to play and Mom crushed it.
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Copyright 1943
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Powell managed to knock herself unconscious while shooting the opening number and took to wearing a football helmet when rehearsals started back up.
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| Copyright 1943, the film came out in 1947. |
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Copyright 1943
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Quite a lineup.
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| Copyright 1943 |
The Three Caballeros premiered in 1944. In the final sequence this song causes Donald to fall in love with singer Dora Luz. The soundtrack was nominated for an Oscar in 1946.
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Copyright 1946
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Rodgers and Hammerstein present Irving Berlin??!
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Copyright 1953
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...And not nearly as fun graphically as stuff from ten years previous.
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| Copyright 1960 |
And as the sixties begin we don't even bother with catchy graphics any more. Pity.
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