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TUNESMITHS
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Here's a film clip of one of his 1930s films,
Of the scores of songs Milton wrote, his most famous is "Wind in the Willows."
In 1911, he had his first song published.
"Oh, You Circus Day", lyric by M. Lessing. It was sung in the
Broadway Show 'Hanky-Panky', and sung by Billy Montgomery and
Florence Moore.
In 1912, two of his melodies sold in the millions,
1912 "You Made Me Love You," lyric by Joseph McCarthy. It was
revived in the 1937 Judy Garland film 'Broadway Melody of 1937'.
1912 "Row, Row, Row.", lyric by William Jerome. For the Ziegfeld
Follies of 1912. It was sung by Lillian Lorrain.
Over the years, Monaco then produced a number of Tin Pan Alley hits;
"I Miss You Most of All," and
"What do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For", lyric by Howard
Johnson and Joe McCarthy
"Dirty Hands, Dirty Face", lyric by Edgar Leslie and Grant
Clarke. This became an Al Jolson specialty. He sang it again
in 'The Jazz Singer', the history making full length 'talkie'.
"Crazy People", lyric by Edgar Leslie
"You're Gonna Lose Your Gal", lyric by Joe Young
"Six Lessons From Madame La Zonga", lyric by Charles Newman
"More Now than Ever", lyric by Ted Koehler
"Crying For Joy", Lyric by Billy Rose.
In 1927, the first 'talkie', Jolson's The Jazz Singer, had a Monaco song in it, "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face."
In 1927, Monaco had several songs in the Broadway revue, 'Harry Delmar's Revels', in Bert Lahr made his Broadway debut. Among the songs that Monaco wrote in the early 1930's are:
During the 1930's, Monaco traveled to Hollywood. where, on his first tour, he worked on several 'talkies.' In 1932, he had a hit "crazy People" in Paramounts 'The Big Broadcast of 1932', it became the George Burns and Gracie Allen theme song. Between 1932 and 1936, Jimmy led his own Dance Band, until he signed with Paramount for a 1936 Bing Crosby film. He was assigned to work with lyricist Johnny Burke. From 1937 to 1940, Monaco worked mostly as a team with Johnny Burke. Their work was heard in six Bing Crosby musicals. They included such songs as:
Monaco lost his lyricist when Johnny Burke started collaborating with Paramounts Jimmy Van Heusen. He then began using other partners at United Artists and at Twentieth Century-Fox Films. Between 1941 and 1945 he had such hits as "We Mustn't Say Goodbye," and 1945's "I Can't Begin to Tell You," which was a coast to coast favorite. "Ragtime Jimmie" Monaco died the same year (1945) of a heart attack.
Moore began studying the piano at the tender age of 4 years. As a young man, he attended the Cornish School and then matriculated from the University of Washington in Seattle. He was soon playing piano in various dance bands including the Les Hite Orchestra. Moore has said that "...after listening to Art Tatum performing, I started arranging instead." In the early 1940's, Phil entered the studio system and started working at MGM. He then went to New York when he became the Musical Director for CBS' Mildred Bailey Show, but continued to move back and forth between the West Coast and New York. His quartet 'The Phil Moore Four' even appeared in a few "B" films. In the late 1940's, Moore returned to Hollywood and began cranking out a great many records. Much of Moore's work now consisted of working up vocal arrangements, and often backing singers such as Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, and countless others of lesser fame. Occasionally, an album under his own name was released. He also founded 'The Singers Workshop' to help aspiring vocalists. Among his recordings are:
In 1898, the Hoffman company offered a $25 prize for the best march and two-step by a local composer. Friends prodded Daniels and he entered, winning the prize with "Margery." John Phillips Sousa, then performing at the Coates Opera House in Kansas City, agreed to play the winning tune, thus turning it into a local "hit." It eventually sold over 275,000 copies. Since Hoffman owned the copyright, Daniels had to be happy with just the prize money. (However, this did lead to a life-long friendship with Sousa, and Daniels received a promotion as manager of Hoffman's sheet music department.) Due to the popularity of "Margery," Daniels was a bit of a celebrity by the time Scott Joplin visited Carl Hoffman to sell his "Original Rags." For this reason, when Hoffman purchased and published Joplin's piece in 1899, he named Daniels as the "arranger" to help promote sales of the composition. Daniels apparently transcribed "Original Rags," and was an early influence on how the syncopation of ragtime was scored, but may not have had anything to do with arranging Joplin's first published rag. In 1899, Daniels wrote "You Tell Me Your Dream, I'll Tell You Mine," which 100 years later is still a standard among quartets and traditional jazz performers and is now being used in an American TV ad to sell mattresses. Daniels suspected it would be a hit, but when Hoffman refused to pay royalties for the piece, Daniels left Hoffman and published the song himself. His new firm eventually became known as Daniels, Russell and Boone, Kansas City & St. Louis. Ca. 1901, Daniels moved to St. Louis, where, in addition to running the publishing firm, he worked at the Sheet Music Department of the Barr Dry Good Company. That year, Daniels composed and published a instrumental he wrote on a train trip to Hiawatha, Kansas. He named the piece after the town. In 1902, again thanks to John Philip Sousa popularizing the work, "Hiawatha" became a phenomenal instrumental success, and all the major New York publishers did their best to convince Daniels to sell them "Hiawatha." That same year, Jerome Remick, had bought the Whitney Warner Publishing Company in Detroit, and, in a separate deal, agreed also to pay Daniels $10,000 for his catalog, mainly to get "Hiawatha." (It was the highest sum ever paid for a song up to that time.) The deal also called for Daniels to head up the Detroit office of Whitney Warner, so in 1902, Daniels was in Detroit. Remick also utilized Daniels to open Remick sheet music franchises in department stores around the country. Daniels kept his publishing firm, moving it to Detroit as 'Daniels & Russell, Detroit'. Remick Music would go on to become one of the major publishing houses during the "Tin Pan Alley" era. In 1903, lyricist James O'Dea added "Indian maiden" words to "Hiawatha" and the song version became an international best seller, thus initiating a craze for "Indian" songs which lasted for nearly 20 years. In 1906, Charles Johnson, who had taken Daniels' place at Hoffman's in Kansas City, wrote "Dill Pickles Rag." By this time, Daniels was the editorial manager of Remick's Detroit office. Daniels purchased "Dill Pickles" for Remick and designed the promotional campaign for this piece. It became the first million-selling rag. Daniels was also responsible for the purchase and promotion of Johnson's "Iola," (another so-called "Indian" number that, like "Hiawatha," was named for a town in Kansas) and E. Harry Kelley's very successful "Peaceful Henry" (named for the janitor at Carl Hoffman's music store). While at Remick Music, Daniels served as a mentor to some important new songsmiths, including Percy Wenrich, Richard Whiting and his lyricist Raymond Egan, also Grace LeBoy and her famous lyricist husband, Gus Kahn. It should be pointed out that while heading up the Remick firm in Detroit, Daniels became one of the principal men to turn the new 'Rags' music into a national craze, yet, curiously, he composed only a few Rags of his own. These include:
In 1914, in an unsuccessful attempt to save the life of his young, ailing daughter, Daniels was forced to leave Remick , move to California, and start all over again as Charles N. Daniels Music Publisher, San Francisco. In 1916, he partnered with Weston Wilson, a young graduate from Stanford University, and the firm became Daniels & Wilson. In 1918, they published Daniels' tune "Mickey", with lyrics by former Remick songwriter, Harry Williams. It was the title song for the Mack Sennett silent film of the same name. It starred Mabel Normand, whose face was on the sheet music. Later that same year, the song was purchased by Waterson, Snyder and Berlin Music Publishers. "Mickey" was the first of filmdom's 'title ' songs. In 1893, Fred Ott starred in the first Silent film 'The Sneeze'. Yet, remarkably, from that day until 1912, no one ever thought of associating a tune with a silent film until "Mickey." Ever since, film producers have associated a tune, or theme, with every film. Harry Williams became Daniels' chief lyricist and they wrote many successful tunes together, including "In Monterey" (1915), "Peggy" (1919) and "Mello Cello" (1921). Unfortunately for Daniels, Wilson had joined the war effort, leaving Daniels running the firm on his own, and then Harry Williams died, in 1922, while visiting Daniels in Oakland. Facing hard times, Daniels sold the business and went to work as a staff writer and arranger for Waterson, Berlin and Snyder. In 1924, Daniels was able to leave Waterson, Berlin & Snyder when he managed to obtain $100,000 capitalization for a new firm; Villa Moret, Inc. San Francisco. Daniels was President, and Ben Black (band leader and former banjoist with Art Hickman) was the firm's Vice-President. Together they got the idea of turning municipal organist Edwin Lemare's lovely "Adantino" into a fox-trot which they titled "Moonlight and Roses", (played here in 1925 by the Ray Miller Orch. -482kb), and this set Villa Moret up to become Daniels' most successful publishing ventures. A number of the major successes of the Villa Moret firm were compositions by Charles N. Daniels under the name Neil Moret. These include:
By the late 1920's, Daniels could see that the music publishing business would soon be taken over by the Hollywood film corporations and he moved to Los Angeles, writing under a new pen name, Jules Lemare, until he was able to disassociate himself with the Villa Moret firm. During the 1930's he worked mostly with a young lyricist, Harry Tobias, and his main publisher was Jack Robbins (Robbins Music Corporation, MGM). Some of his successful songs with Harry Tobias include:
Daniels was not much for being a celebrity and he hid behind a host of pen names, perhaps to avoid the press. In addition to Neil Moret and Jules Lemare, he also composed under the names: L'Albert, Paul Bertrand, Julian Strauss, and Sidney Carter (when writing lyrics).
Among the films in which he appeared as an actor are:
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