Tin Pan Alley

   This term, purportedly coined by composer Monroe H. Rosenfeld, identifies two blocks of 28th Street between Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and Sixth Avenue where many song publishing companies operated beginning in the late 19th century, thriving just prior to World War I. The distinction between the Tin Pan Alley songwriter, whose creations were mostly for vaudeville and burlesque performers, and the Broadway songwriter, whose compositions were featured in musicals and revues, did not hold for long as many of the leading composers and lyricists moved freely between both categories. Despite the fact that many of the song publishing firms eventually moved to New York's Brill Building, "Tin Pan Alley" remained the way their business was described.

   In the popular mind, songs were often more associated with a leading performer than with the composer; thus a composer who performed his own material, as did George M. Cohan, achieved the peak of recognition. Irving Berlin also wrote both words and music. Jack Norwoth, best remembered for "Shine On, Harvest Moon," worked with various collaborators, notably singer Nora Bayes. Rida Johnson Young wrote hundreds of songs that entered the popular vernacular. Her "Mother Machree," for example, like many of the Irish songs she wrote for Chauncey Olcott and other stage Irishmen, was widely believed to be an authentic Irish song. Edward Harrigan and David Braham scored hits with songs they wrote for Harrigan and Hart's lively comedies. Other songwriters whose work was frequently heard from the stage include Jerome Kern, Victor Herbert, Richard Carle, Paul Dresser, Charles K. Harris, Eddie Leonard, Edgar Selden, Harry Williams and Egbert Van Alstyne, Joseph Tabrar, Harry Kennedy, Will S. Hays. The most successful African American songwriting team was Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson with hits like "Under the Bamboo Tree." Others whose songs won both black and white singers include Ernest Hogan, James A. Bland, Will Marion Cook, and Sam Lucas.

   See also musical theatre.