Reginald De Koven
b. April 3, 1859 Middletown, CT, USA. d. Jan. 15, 1920, New York, NY, USA.
Overview
Reginald De Koven was the first of America's composers of operettas in the European style. (He was followed by Victor Herbert; Rudolph Friml and finally Sigmund Romberg. After Romberg, romanticism gave way to realism. A shame!)

His father was a clergyman, and when Reginald was 11 years old, the family moved to England, where De Koven was schooled, graduating from St. John's College, Cambridge in 1879. Choosing music as his career, he studied with Vannucini, in Italy; Lebert and Pruckner in Germany; Genee and Von Suppe in Vienna, and with Delibes, in France.

In 1882, De Koven settled in Chicago, IL, where he worked in odd jobs such as clerking in stock brokerage houses and banks, before finally marrying Anna Farwell, the daughter of a wealthy Chicago businessman. He became the successful owner of a large dry goods store, and had success in Texas real estate ventures. He now could live in style, and returned to his love of music.

A brief chronology"
1888 Wrote the Comic Opera 'The Begum' with librettist H. B. Smith

1889 Wrote the opera 'Don Quixote' with H. B. Smity, librettist.

1889 Music Critic for Chicago's Evening Post Newspaper

1890 Wrote the comic opera 'Robin Hood'. This opera had DeKoven's most famous song "Oh Promise Me", with lyric by Clement Scott, still sung at weddings to this very day. The song was published in 1889 by Schirmer, as an independent song. The producer of Robin Hood heard one of the stars, Jesse Bartlett Davis, singing it while dressing. The song was interpolated and was a huge success. Other songs from Robin Hood are "Brown October Ale", "The Tailor's Song", and "The Armorer's Song".

1892 Wrote operetta 'The Knickerbockers'.

1894 Wrote operetta 'Rob Roy'. The hit songs were "Dearest of My Heart" and "My Home is Where the Heather Blooms".

1895 Music critic for Harper's Weekly, until 1897

1897 Wrote operetta 'The Highwayman'. The hit songs were "Moonlight Song" and "Do You Remember Love?".

1898 Music critic for New York World newspaper. He held this position until 1900. Then returned to The World from 1907 to 1912

1901 Wrote operetta 'The Little Duchess' 1902 Wrote operetta 'Maid Marian'

1908 Wrote operetta 'The Golden Butterfly'

1913 Wrote operetta 'Her Little Highness'

1917 Wrote the Opera, 'Canterbury Pilgrims', to a poem by Perry Mackaye. (The N. Y. Metropolitan Opera produced it, in 1917)

1920 Wrote the Opera, 'Rip Van Winkle'

All in all, De Koven wrote in excess of 450 compositions, including a piano sonata, two operas, and an orchestral suite.

DeKoven died on Jan. 15, 1920. He was 61 years old.

   Eddie De Lange
b. Jan. 15, 1904, New York, NY (Long Island City), USA, d. July 15, 1949, Los Angeles, CA, USA
né: Edgar De Lange.
Overview
Here's a photo of Eddie De Lange, who is still remembered as a band leader, actor, as well as a wonderful lyricist.

Eddie was the son of a very talented musical family. His father was a playwright/lyricist, and his mother starred in Broadway musicals. In 1926, after matriculating from the University of Pennsylvania, his career began when he drove out to Hollywood and for the next five years found work as a 'stunt man' and bit player (in both 'Silents' and 'Talkies'). In 1932, he relocated to New York city, and soon joined the Irving Mills music publishing company as a lyricist. He contributed the lyrics to "Solitude" (Duke Ellington music), "Haunting Me" (music by Josef Myrow), and "I Wish I Were Twins" (Delange's first hit, with music by Frank Loesser and Joseph Meyer). (Interestingly, with his lyric to "Moonglow", DeLange had four solid hits in the first 14-months of his writing career, and along the way won the ASCAP prize for excellence four times in a row.)

From 1935 to 1938, DeLange teamed with his old songwriter friend Will Hudson to form the Hudson-DeLange Orchestra. The band recorded 25 tunes for the Brunswick label including many of his original compositions. was dissolved In 1938, The Hudson-DeLange partnership ended, and Eddie DeLange formed and led his own orchestra. During this time, DeLange worked with others including Buck Ram, (another young composer then under contract to Irving Mills) and they produced the song "At Your Beck And Call", (Buck Ram later found fame as manager of a 1950's "Do Wop' vocal group, The Platters.) DeLange also met the talented composer Jimmy Van Heusen, and together they wrote such songs as "Deep In A Dream", "Heaven Can Wait", "Can I Help It", "This Is Madness", "All This And Heaven Too", and "Darn That Dream", Jimmy Van Heusen's first big hit (from their Broadway musical ' Swingin' The Dream')

His most famous lyrics are:
       1934 "Moonglow"
       1935 "Solitude", a Duke Ellington Orchestra hit recording.
       1939 "Darn That Dream", composed with Jimmy van Heusen
       1946 "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" (from pix: New Orleans. )

When he died in 1949, Eddie was just 45 years old.

   Matt Dennis
b: Feb. 11, 1913, Seattle, WA, USA; d: June 21, 2002, Riverdale, CA, USA.
né: Matthew Loveland Dennis
An unusual man. Tommy Dorsey hired him as an 'arranger-composer'. The only other such position of which I know is Billy Strayhorn with Duke Ellington's band. In addition, Matt Dennis was a good pianist and Singer. (Fellow composer Alec Wilder said of him "....much more than just a composer.") During World War II, he served in the US Army Air Force radio unit, and subsequently sang with the Glenn Miller Air Force Orchestra. .During his career, he was vocal coach, arranger and composer for such singers as Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Margaret Whiting, Martha Tilton, Connie Haines, and the Pied Pipers.

Two of his songs were big hits for vocalist Frank Sinatra.
"Angel Eyes", (Sinatra starts his vocal by singing the first line of the 'release' - "Drink up all you people" - not the first line of the chorus. An unusual and innovative format.) and "Violets For Your Furs". Still another popular Matt Dennis tune is "Everything Happens To Me"

He sang in night clubs, TV, films, and on many records, and had his own publishing firm. His chief musical collaborators included his wife Virginia Maxey (Ginny Maxey Dennis), Tom Adair, Earl Brent, and David Gillam. Among his other hit songs were:
       "Angel Eyes",
       "It's Over, It's Over, It's Over"
       "Junior and Julie"
       "Let's Get Away From It All"
       "Little Man With a Candy Cigar"
       "Love Turns Winter to Spring"
       "Mine Eyes"
       "New in Town"
       "Relax"
       "Show Me the Way to Get Out of This World"
       "Snuggle Up, Baby"
       "The Night We Called It a Day"
       "The Spirit of Christmas" (official song of the National Tuberculosis 1954 Christmas Seal Campaign)
       "This Tired Routine Called Love"
       "Violets For Your Furs"
       "Will You Still Be Mine"
       "Who's Yehoodi?"
       "We Belong Together"
       "We've Reached the Point of No Return"
       "You Can Believe Me".

   Paul Denniker
Currently No Information Available.
Paul often worked with lyricist Andy Razaf, and among their tunes are:
"S'posin'" with lyric by Andy Razaf.
"It's Gonna Be A Long Hard Winter", Razaf Lyric
"Shake Your Can", Razaf lyric.

   Gene De Paul
b. June 17, 1919, New York, NY, USA, d. Feb. 27, 1988, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
né: Eugene Vincent De Paul
Overview
Gene De Paul was a composer who had several hit songs in the 1940's and 1950's. In the mid- to late '40s, de Paul and Don Raye wrote the original numbers used in such movies as Samuel Goldwyn's production of 'A Song Is Born', and Walt Disney's 'So Dear to My Heart' and 'Ichabod and Mr. Toad'.

de Paul later teamed with Johnny Mercer for the scores and lyrics of the movie 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' and the Broadway musical 'Li'l Abner'.

Gene is mostly remembered today for his 1954 movie score of the film 'Seven Brothers for Seven Brides'. The extraordinary Ballet music and athletic dances were hailed by the critics. His highly successful scoring of the 1956 Broadway musical 'Li'l Abner' also produced some hit songs, including the humorous "Jubilation T. Cornpone".
Among his big hit tunes were:
1942 "I'll Remember April", co-composed with Don Raye.
1943 "Cow Cow Boogie", co-composed with Don Raye.
1954 "Teach Me Tonight", co-composed with Sammy Cahn

   Peter De Rose
b. March 10, 1900, New York, NY, USA d. April 24, 1953, New York, NY, USA.
Overview
Peter De Rose was a composer who wrote several popular songs during the 1930's. In 1918 he had his first published song; his last came in 1953. He also remembered today for a radio series with his wife, May Singhi Breen. For sixteen years (1923-39), they were billed as 'The Sweethearts of the Air'.

Peter was one of 9 children. An older sister tried to teach him piano, when he was twelve, and he did eventually learn to play by ear. Peter attended public schools and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, in his home town of New York. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton, he got a job in Schirmer's Music, on 42nd Street, as a stock room clerk.

He wrote his first hit song in 1920, "When You're Gone, I won't Forget", with lyric by Ivan Reid. It sold over a million copies of sheet music, but Peter had sold the sold outright for $25.00 to Haviland. The song's success helped Peter to get a good position with the G. Ricordi Music Publishers, where he met the black composer/singer Harry Burleigh.

Brief chronology:
From 1923 to 1939 (16 years) Peter and May Singhi Breen were heard on the NBC in a program known as "The Sweethearts of the Air". May later became Peter's wife. Peter played the piano and May played the ukelele. Peter introduced many of his hit songs on this program.

1926 Wrote
   "Muddy Water", with lyric by Harry Richmond.
   "I Just Roll Along, Havin' My Ups and Downs", lyric Jo' Trent
   "Walking with My Sweetness, Down Among the Sugar Cane", lyric by Charles Tobias and Sidney Clare
   "When Your Hair Has Turned to Silver", and
   "One More Kiss, Then Goodbye", both with lyrics by Chas. Tobias.

1933 Wrote
   "Deep Purple", a piano instrumental.His biggest hit. See below

1934 Wrote
   "Wagon Wheels", lyric Billy Hill. (for New Ziegfeld Follies)
   "Have You Ever Been Lonely", and "There's a Home in Wyoming", with lyrics by Billy Hill.
   "Song of the Blacksmith", lyric by Al Stillman.

1939 Collaborated with Bert Shefter to write
   "The Lamp is Low", with lyric by Mitchell Parrish. Adapted from Revel's "Pavanne pour Une Infante Defunte". (Pavanne For a Dead Princess.)

Wrote
   "All I Need is You", Benny Davis and Mitchell Parish lyrics.
   "Who Do You Know in Heaven", lyric by Al Stillman
   "Lilacs in the Rain", lyric by Parish
   "Twenty-Four Hours of Sunshine", lyric by Carl Sigman
   "The Breeze Is My Sweetheart", lyric by Carl Sigman
   "No Range to Ride No More", lyric by Carl Sigman
   "Autumn Serenade", with lyric by Sammy Gallop

De Rose also wrote for the motion pictures.
   "As Years Go By", lyric by Chas. Tobias for film 'Song of Love', a "biography" of Robert Schumann. De Rose adapted the melody from Brahms's "Hungarian Dance No. 4".
   "Song of the Seabees", lyric by Sam M. Lewis. Film Fighting Seabees.
   "Harvey", lyric by Al Stillman, for film Harvey.

Note:
   "Deep Purple" was written as a piano instrumental in 1933. In 1934,
   the Paul Whiteman orchestra had it scored, still an instrumental.
   In 1939, Mitchell Parish added lyrics. When the Larry Clinton
   Orchestra recorded it, with vocal by Bea Wain, it became a huge
   hit. It has been said that Babe Ruth, the great American baseball
   player, loved the song. De Rose played it for the Babe at each of
    his birthday parties over the last ten years of Babe's life.

(See also, bio on the lyricist Billy Hill.)

De Rose was elected to the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. He died in New York City, at age 53.

   Cedric Thorpe Davie
b. 1913, d. 1983
Studying at the Royal College of Music, Cedric Thorpe Davie was a pupil of Ralph Vaughan Williams. In 1946, he won the Daily Express (newspaper) prize for his symphony. And once again, It was Stirling-born Muir Mathieson, who introduced Davie to the film studios. (Is there any English composer whom Mathieson did 'not' introduce to films?) Among Davie's film credits are:
The Brothers (1947) for Sydney Box
Snowbound (1948)
Mad Little Island (1948)
The Heart is Highland (1952 - a GPO Unit documentary)
Rob Roy - The Highland Rogue (1953)
The Land of Robert Burns (1956)
The Green Man (1957)
The Bridal Path (1959)
Oedipus Rex (1957)
Jacqueline (1957)
The Dark Avenger (1955. aka in USA: The Warriors)
The Night Fighters (1960)
Kidnapped (1960)

   Carl Davis
b. 1936, U.S.A.
Carl Davis was born in the U.S.A., but has spent most of his working life in Britain, with the majority of his work for British film studios.
In 1962, Ned Sherrin commissioned him to compose music for That Was The Week That Was , a satirical TV series. It marked the start of his fame. Among the TV shows to which he has contributed are:
The Rainbow
The World at War
A Year in Provence
Pride and Prejudice

His initiation into the film music genre came when he joined Kevin Brownlow and David Gill in the Thames TV 13-part series Hollywood, for which he provided the title and incidental music. Additionally, Davis has provided Jeremy Isaacs commissioned scores for such Silent film classics as Ben Hur, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Wings and Napoleon. He also scored music for the restored silent The Phantom of the Opera.

Other feature film scores by Davis include:
The Other World of Winston Churchill
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Only Way (1970)
King David
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Intolerance (1916)
Pride and Prejudice (1995)
The Trial (1992)
Ben-Hur (1925)
Napoleon (1927)
The Rainbow (1989)
Widow's Peak (1993)
A Year in Provence (1993)

He collaborated with Paul McCartney in his Liverpool Oratorio (1991), and has also written a score for the classic Buster Keaton film The General. Davis is married to actress Jean Boht, herself well known for her central role in the BBC TV series Bread. Davis is also active in resurrecting (and conducting) neglected film scores.

   Pierre Delanoë
b. Dec. 16, 1918; Paris France, d. Dec. 27, 2006, Fourqueux, France.
né: Pierre Charles Marcel Napoléon Leroyer
Nicknamed: "The Pope of French Song,".
Pierre Leroyer was an unruly child with a stern father who ran a printing firm. After reading Law at university, he obtained a position in the government tax office. He once told an interviewer "When you're a civil servant, you always have time on your hands, so I started to write and I began to write lyrics. I showed them to a few people and one thing led to another."

His brother-in-law, Frank Gérald, set the lyrics to music and, in the late 1940s, they formed a singing duo act. Pierre took up his grandmother's name Delanoë as a pseudonym, since he was moonlighting from his job as a tax inspector.

In 1948, Delanoë's songwriting career effectively began when he penned the lyric to "Y'a Un Pli Au Tapis du Salon". His brother-in-law, singer/composer Gilbert Bécaud, who would soon become a giant of French pop and Delanoë's frequent writing partner, set the lyrics to music and, and the two men formed a singing team. Pierre took his grandmother's name Delanoë as a pseudonym, since he was moonlighting from his job as a tax inspector.

While performing at the Central de la Chanson in Montmartre, Delanoë met François Silly, the piano accompanist for Jacques Pills (who later became singer Edith Piaf's husband). The two men soon formed a songwriting team when Silly started singing, changed his name to Gilbert Bécaud and evolved into the dynamic "Monsieur 100,000 Volts". The team's first success came with 1953's "Mes Mains" (later covered by Petula Clark as "Your Love"), and their collaboration produced numerous other classic hits, including "Le Jour Oú La Pluie Viendra" (in 1958, English singer Jane Morgan sang it as "The Day the Rains Came", a chart-topper in the UK), "Je T'appartiens" (covered as "Let it Be Me" by the Everly Brothers, Tom Jones, Nina Simone, Sonny & Cher and Bob Dylan, in English-speaking countries), "La Solitude, Ça N'existe Pas," and many more.

During 1955-1960, he served as program director for the Europe 1 radio station, which proved a springboard to further collaborations He now got the chance to write for such stars as Edith Piaf ("Les Grognards"), Yves Montand ("Cartes Postales"), and Andre Archstone (Hubert Giraud co-wrote "Dors Mon Amour," which won the Eurovision song contest in 1958). In 1965, Delanoë who greatly admired General Charles de Gaulle, wrote "Tu Le Regretteras" (with Bécaud) in praise of the French president. (Delanoë later told interviewers that "I've never written a political song. There's time yet. Iraq rhymes with Chirac.")

Delanoë finally handed in his notice at the tax office and all through the 1960s ruled the French charts and airwaves. He continued to write hits with Bécaud during the early 1960s, including 1964's "Nathalie" and the following year's "L'Orange." Delanoë next worked with Hugues Aufray in translating selected portions of Bob Dylan's repertoire into French, and struck up a productive new partnership with Michel Fugain, which in 1967 produced "Je N'aurai Pas Le Temps" (among several other hits). Delanoë also wrote hits for female artists like Petula Clark, Nicoletta, Dalida, Sylvie Vartan, and Nana Mouskouri. Beginning in 1971, he found his greatest success in tandem with singer/composer Michel Sardou; over the next decade, they wrote a string of hits including "Les Vieux Mariés," "Les Villes de Solitude," "Les Lacs du Connemara," and "Les Deux Écoles," among others.

Delanoë had a loud voice, was rather overbearing and always spoke his mind, often adopting contrary, reactionary views, and falling out with the artists he had worked with. In later years, he bemoaned the state of popular music in France, calling rap "not music but vociferations, eructations". Delanoë served three two-year terms as head of SACEM (1984-86, 1988-90, 1992-94), the French songwriters' trade organization and was eventually recognized as its honorary president, thanks to a list of credits that included an estimated 4000-5000 songs over an incredible 50-plus-year career.

Remaining active well into his 80s, he found time to write several novels and two autobiographies, as well as publishing anthologies of his lyrics and poetry. He told an interviewer that "I've always followed trends, but a lyric idea can come from anywhere". Reading the newspaper, having a strange feeling, being angry about something. But being a lyricist is a proper job. The poet has to transform the reality into a lyric using all his technique and ability. I feel like a bespoke tailor who has to come up with something to fit a hunchback."

Pierre Delanoë was responsible for some of the most poetically accomplished lyrics in French and world popular music, and was able to maintain a five decades-long career by adapting to the tastes of each succeeding generation. His songs have been recorded by every popular artist from Edif Piaf to Petula Clark to the Evely Brothers to Frank Sinatara to Elvis.