[ John Hill Hewitt ]
b. July 11, 1801, New York, NY, USA. d. Oct. 7, 1890 Baltimore, MD, USA.
Here's a photograph of John Hewitt, from the 1852 sheetmusic "The Dying Girl". John, one of America's earliest composers of popular ballads, came from a musical background. His father, James, was a composer of ballad operas, songs,and piano pieces. He was fluent in the piano, the organ and the violin, and was also a publisher and impressario. John was James' eldest son. John was educated in Boston, MA schools when at age 11, his family moved there. Apprenticed to a sign maker, he ran away from home, and found work in a commission house, in Boston. He returned to New York City in 1818, and shortly afterward, secured an appointment to the U.S. Army's West Point Academy. While at the academy, he studied music with the conductor of the Academy's band.

Hewitt did not matriculate, instead, he left the Academy in 1822, and joined his father's theatrical troupe. The troupe managed to reach Augusta, GA before going bankrupt. The elder James Hewitt returned to Boston, while his son remained in Augusta, as a music teacher. But in 1825, John moved to Greenville, SC, where he founded a newspaper, The Republican. He returned to Boston, in 1827, upon his father's death, and then settled in Baltimore, MD. He became a part owner in the Baltimore Clipper, and edited various other magazines. 'The Visitor', of which John was the editor, ran a poetry contest. John entered one of his poems under a pen name, and then proceeded to award himself first prize money, even over a contribution called 'The Coliseum', entered by Edgar Allen Poe.

In 1840, Hewitt sold his interest in the Baltimore Clipper and became editor of the Washington, D.C. 'The Capitol', where he worked for the next nine years. In 1849, he secured a position at the Chesapeake Female College, in Hampton, VA as music teacher. At the start of the Civil War, he became a drillmaster for the Confederate recruits in Richmond, VA, and a little later moved to Savannah, GA, where he was editor of the Evening Mirror. He was the Southern Confederacy's best known composer. After the war, Hewitt traveled to many different southern cities, teaching music.

Over his lifetime, Hewitt wrote more than 300 ballads; several cantatas, ballad operas, and oratorios. During the Civil War, he wrote "All Quiet Along the Potomac", with lyric by Lamar Fontaine. The song was popular enough to be used by both the North and the South.

He died in 1890, at the ripe old age of 89.

Some of his popular songs include:
   Minstrel's Return From the War (1825)
   Hark, Brothers, Hark (1837)
   Aunt Harriet Betcha Stowe (1853)
And some tunes written during the American Civil War:
   The Young Volunteer (1863)
   The South Shall Rise Up Free
   Dixie, The Land Of King Cotton
   All Quiet on the Potomac To-night (1863 Ethel Lynn Beers was lyricist)
   It is said that a variation on this title was given to the English version of Erich Maria Remarque's
   book All Quiet On The Western Front.
   The South
   You Are Going To The Wars Billy Boy
   Somebody's Darling (1864)
   Flag of The Sunny South
   Dreaming Forever of Thee (1875)

[ Edward Heyman ]
b. 1907, New York, New York
Overview
Lyricist Ed Heyman is remembered today mostly for his song hits from the 1930's and 1940's.

Brief Chronology of his lyrics:
       1930 "Body and Soul", his first hit. (co-lyricists Robert Sour and Frank Eyton. Music John Green.)
   1931 "Out of Nowhere", (co-composed with Johnny Green and Harry Harris)
   1932 "Through the Years", (co-composed with Vincent Youmans)
   1933 "I Cover the Waterfront", (co-composed with Johnny Green)
   1934 "You Oughta Be in Pictures", (co-composed with Dana Suesse)
   1934 "Easy Come, Easy Go", (co-composed with Johnny Green )
   1937 "Boo-Hoo", (co-composed with John Jacob Loeb and Carmen Lombardo)
   1948 "Bluebird of Happiness", (co-composed with Sandor Harmati(music), and Harry Parr Davies)
   1952 "When I Fall in Love", (co-composed with Victor Young)

[ William Richard Heyman ]
b. Feb. 14, 1896, Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia), d. May 30, 1961, Munich, Germany.
Do you recognize the name? This German composer contributed original music to over 200 motion pictures, and composed over 200 songs. In 1926, he composed for a total of 11 films (10 more in 1927), and in 2000, his music was interpolated into the film "Chocolat" (song "Avoir un Bon Copain"). In between these two extremes, he contributed music to 200 other films, including for such widely diverse films as the wonderful
   "Ninotchka" (1939 - Starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas)
   "Knickerbocker Holiday" (1944) Starring Nelson Eddy (and Charles Coburn, complete with pegleg, singing Kurt Weill's beautiful "September Song",)
   ;"Rio Rita" (1942) (he was uncredited. Film version of Florenz Ziegfeld's Broadway musical.)
and to such horror films as
   "Son of Dracula" (1943 he was uncredited)
   "The Ghost That Walks Alone" (1944 uncredited)

[ Billy Hill ]
b. July 14, 1899, Boston, MA, USA, d. Dec. 24, 1940, New York, NY, USA.
né: William Joseph Hill
The first 30 or so years of Billy's life were very difficult ones. Born in Boston, he studied violin at the New England Conservatory, and attended the city's public schools. When he was 17 years old, he traveled to the West, and worked at menial jobs that included being a dishwasher in roadhouses; a cowboy in Montana, and a miner in the red hot Death Valley. He eventually formed a jazz band that worked in a Salt Lake City Chinese Restaurant. In 1930, he took his family to New York City, where his job as doorman for a Fifth Avenue apartment house, just barely supported his family, in their cold water Greenwich Village flat. With little food in the house, and often no heat, a loan from Gene Buck, ASCAP President, sustained the family

Success finally arrived in 1933, in the form of a Cowboy song called "The Last Roundup", with both words and music by Billy. The song had actually been written in 1931, and Billy would have sold it for a few dollars, to pay his bills, but the loan from Gene Buck allowed him to wait for some Royalties. Joe Morrison introduced the song on the stage of the Paramount Theater, and was an immediate success. It made the 1933 Hit Parade List. In 1934, Billy wrote the lyrics to a Peter De Rose tune, they called "Wagon Wheels". Interpolated into the Ziegfeld Follies, it too became a huge hit. After 33 years, success had finally arrived for Billy. He left his doorman's job and moved his family into a luxurious West 57th Street apartment. The remainder of Hill's life was devoted to songwriting.

Among the many songs (words and Music) that Billy Hill gave us, were:
  * "The Last Round-Up" (1933) - words & music by Billy Hill, his first big hit. First introduced at New York's Paramount Theater by Joe Morrison with George Olsen and his Orch. (Columbia label). Other recordings by Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, Conrad Thibault, and Arthur Tracy ("The Street Singer").
  * "The Old Spinning Wheel"
  * "Lights Out"
  * "Empty Saddles", (1934)- poem by J. Keirn Brennan; For the 1936 Bing Crosby film 'Rhythm on the Range'.
  * "In The Chapel In The Moonlight"
  * "There's a Cabin in the Pines", (1933). Words & music by Hill. Introduced by George Olsen's orchestra, with vocal by Lorette Lee. Other recordings by Mildred Bailey, Bing Crosby, Johnny Mercer, and others.
  * "There's A Home In Wyoming"
  * "Call of the Canyon", Hill's last published song.
  * "The Glory of Love", (1936) - words & music by B.H. First rec'd by Rudy Vallee, Then Benny Goodman.
  * "Down the Old Oregon Trail"
  * "In a Mission By The Sea"
  * "Call of the Canyon" (1940) - words & music by Billy Hill - his last hit song.
  * "In the Chapel in the Moonlight" (1936) - words & music by B.H. Hit, Rec'd first by Ruth Etting, then Shep Fields, Kitty Kallen (1954), and Dean Martin (1967).

Among the songs that Peter De Rose wrote, with Billy Hill lyrics, were:
  * "Wagon Wheels" (1931) - music: Peter DeRose; lyric: Billy Hill. Introduced by Everett Marshall in Ziegfeld Follies Of 1934. Recorded by George Olsen, Spade Cooley, Sy Oliver, and Tommy Dorsey orchestras, and by such singers as Bing Crosby, Frank Lutherm, Paul Robeson and others.
  * "Have You Ever Been Lonely" (1933) - lyrics by Billy Hill (under pseudonym of George Brown); music by Peter DeRose. A Paul Whiteman Orchestra hit release.

   * "On a Little Street In Singapore", - words & music by Billy Hill and Peter DeRose. Hit recordings include Jimmy Dorsey Orch. (Bob Eberly vocal), and Harry James Orch. (Frank Sinatra vocal).

Among the songs with Billy Hill lyrics, and music by others are:
   * "They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree" (1929) - W&M- Edward Eliscu, Billy Hill (listed as "George Brown") and Willie Raskin. Rec'd by the Gene and Glenn.

Billy died in 1940, probably a happy man.