Favorite Tin Pan Alley standards?

[Miles Borocky]

Listening to a radio program on Richard Rodgers last night--and delighting in all of those great Rodgers-Hart collaborations they played--I started to wonder what other TFL members highlight as their favorite Tin Pan Alley standards.

Me? I'm a sucker for the great songs of the 1930s, when songwriters, it seems, tried to will an American population out of the doldrums with a bevy of earnest, unstoppably happy songs: "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1930); "Pennies from Heaven" (1936)... Lovely.

Or Cole Porter, especially lesser known Porter songs that evince his trademark world-weary sensibility-- "Allez Vous-En" is a favorite of this type.

Your thoughts?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm a sucker for thirties movie music, notably anything by Harry Warren, especially the Warren-Al Dubin collaborations of the early '30s Warner Bros. era. Also, Mack Gordon and Harry Revel, who gave Fox musicals of the mid-thirties a very distinctive, bouncy sound and feel. For lighthearted novelties, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby can't be beat, especially their scores for Wheeler and Woolsey at RKO. And for romance, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, whose collaborations were everywhere. For classy elegance, consider Johnny Green -- if he only wrote one song in his life, and that song was "Body and Soul," he would have accomplished plenty.

 

[Miles Borocky]

Your line about Green and "Body and Soul" seems equally true for me for other songwriters of the 1930s and 40s. If Billy Strayhorn had only ever written "Lush Life," for example, he'd have solidified his importance in my mind as one of the great contributors to the American popular music canon.

I love those Fields-McHugh tunes as well. So many of them are among my favorites for after-dinner sessions at the piano.

And I'll have to look at some of the other songwriters you mention. Thanks!