As a boy, Israel Baline had to work after school to help his poor immigrant family. He sold newspapers on street corners to help his family survive. He loved to sing to pass the time, and sometimes listeners tossed an extra penny or two at his feet. No one who heard him could have guessed that he would someday become known as Irving Berlin, the best-loved songwriter in the land. The composer of "God Bless America," "White Christmas," and many other well-known tunes began his musical career on the streets and in the seedy cafes of New York City's Lower East Side. Author Tom Streissguth tells Berlin's remarkable story in lively prose that captures the spirit of the long-gone days of ragtime, vaudeville, and Broadway glory.

Hollywood's conversion from silent to synchronized sound film production not only instigated the convergence of the film and music industries but also gave rise to an extraordinary period of songs in American cinema. Saying It With Songs considers how the increasing interdependence of Hollywood studios and Tin Pan Alley music publishing firms influenced the commercial and narrative functions of popular songs. While most scholarship on film music of the period focuses on adaptations of Broadway musicals, this book examines the functions of songs in a variety of non-musical genres, including melodramas, romantic comedies, Westerns, prison dramas, and action-adventure films, and shows how filmmakers tested and refined their approach to songs in order to reconcile the spectacle of song performance, the classical norms of storytelling, and the conventions of background orchestral scoring from the period of silent cinema. Written for film and music scholars alike as well as for general readers, Saying It With Songs illuminates the origins of the popular song score aesthetic of American cinema.

Full-Length Musical | Say It With Music tells the story of Irving Berlin, a Russian immigrant with no formal education, and his pursuit of the American dream as he becomes the most successful songwriter in the world. Using dozens of popular hits from Berlin's voluminous songbook, this show about the master songwriter and the country that shaped him is as American as apple pie! (2M, 1F, Flexible)

A Japanese American farmer recounts her agricultural successes and setbacks and her enduring love of dance. Based on the true life story of Alice Sumida, who with her husband Mark, established the largest gladiola bulb farm in the country during the lasthalf of the twentieth century.

"An illumination for music lovers and an inspiration to songwriters." - Booklist Working within the limits of a popular song, the songwriters of the Great American Songbook wrote with a combination of familiarity and freshness—sentiment and wit. The songwriters were masters of craft who created a distinctively American popular music that still resonates strongly today. This book looks at the Great American Songbook’s craft and its mastery. Michael Lasser and Harmon Greenblatt uncover the essential elements of these beloved songs and investigate the qualities that make the songbook a unique staple of American culture. Filled with interesting anecdotes, each chapter looks at a variety of songs thematically and dives into the lives of songwriters. Ultimately, Lasser and Greenblatt reveal the genius behind this body of music and show us why the Great American Songbook has stood the test of time.

(Applause Books). Gathered together in one volume for the first time, here are all of the incomparable song lyrics of Irving Berlin the lyrics of more than 1,200 songs, 400 of which have never before appeared in print along with anecdotal, historical, and musicological commentary and dozens of photographs. Berlin came from a poor immigrant family and began his career as a singing waiter, but by the time he was nineteen he was publishing his songs and quickly found fame with "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911. In the extraordinary six decades that followed, Berlin wrote one popular hit after another: Blue Skies * Always * Cheek to Cheek * White Christmas * God Bless America * There's No Business Like Show Business * and many more. He also wrote a number of the classics of musical theater's Golden Age, climaxing with Annie Get Your Gun . He penned three Astaire and Rogers films Top Hat, Carefree , and Follow the Fleet as well as the scores of Holiday Inn, Easter Parade , and other films. The breadth of his accomplishment is staggering.