![]() In the mid ’30s he went out to Hollywood, a hugely productive time, during which his main songwriting partner became Yip Harburg. Popular songs of this period include”Let’s Fall in Love” (1933) and “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (1933, co-written with Yip Harburg and Billy Rose). ![]() Shows he contributed to in the early ’30s included Earl Carroll’s Vanities (19 editions), You Said It (1931), Americana (1932), George White’s Music Hall Varieties (1932-33), and Life Begins at 8:40 (1934-35) with Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr, with whom he would soon work on a creation all three of their names would be forever linked with, and I should hope you know what that is. Secondly, he began to write for Broadway. Fruit of this residency included “I Love a Parade” (1931), “I’ve Got the World on a String” (1932), “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” (1932) ,”Stormy Weather” introduced there in 1933 by Ethel Waters, and “Ill Wind”, introduced there by Adelaide Hall the following year. One, he began to write songs for original shows at the legendary Cotton Club, which he through 1934. In 1930, two big things happened to raise his profile. Another measure is the fact that YOU undoubtedly know it, and its 90 years old! A measure of how popular this tune was is that it was used in close to a dozen movies in the early ’30s. By mid-decade he was based out of NYC, and towards the end of the ’20s he had begun to write songs, mostly in collaboration with Ted Koehler. In his early years (throughout the ’20s) he played with combos with names like Hyman Arluck’s Snappy Trio, the Southbound Shufflers, and the Buffalodians. The son of a Buffalo cantor, Arlen started out a piano player in vaudeville houses, as a solo accompanist and with bands. But it turns out he had one, so here we go! (We would have gone ahead anyway) I think perhaps I didn’t know about Arlen’s vaudeville background, our original purview here. To quote his rival Cole Porter, let’s chalk it up to being “Just One of Those Things”. ![]() It’s bewildering that we haven’t yet done a post on Harold Arlen (Hyman Arluck, 1905-1986) this late in the game, given that he wrote some of my (and America’s) favorite songs.
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