The Melody Lingers on
The Great Songwriters and Their Movie Musicals
by Roy Hemming
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Book Presentation:
Back in print in a handsome, elegant paperback with 166 evocative photos and movie stills, many of them rare, this is the only illustrated book on the golden age of movie musicals from the composers' point of view. This unique book, a perfect gift and an asset to every film and music library, includes: separate chapters on the careers and complete movie work of Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Jimmy McHugh, Cole Porter, Ralph Rainger, Richard Rodgers, Harry Warren, and Richard Whiting; shorter studies of Nacio Herb Brown, Hoagy Carmichael, Frank Loesser, Arthur Schwartz, Jule Styne, and James Van Heusen; and a detailed filmography for each songwriter, listing more than 800 movies and 2,000 songs.
About the Author:
Roy Hemming wrote about movies, music, and the media for more than thirty years. His other books include Discovering Great Music-A New Listener's Guide to the Top Classical Composers and Their Masterworks and, with David Hajdu, Discovering Great Singers of Classic Pop, both published by Newmarket Press.
Press Reviews:
A unique and highly valuable work. . . . An authentic guide to an important aspect of American musical creativity in films. -- Adolph Green
An absolutely lovely guide and everything a fan could desire from a critical and cultural historian, including good sense and great taste. These are the classic composers-Hollywood immortals all-whose songs come back like a lump in the throat or a big bloomy feeling in the chest. . . . Hemming examines not only the film scores but their Broadway originals when there was one, what got dropped, what survived, and what new was added. -- Kirkus Reviews
An outstanding, accurate and joyful exploration of the work of the great songwriters for Hollywood's great musicals! . . . I love this book. -- Michael Feinstein
Roy Hemming displays the racy phrasemaking of a '30s lyricist. . . . A buoyant book, a crystallization in print of the frothy elegance that characterizes musicals at their best. -- Smithsonian Magazine
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