Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words by Michael Owen (.ePUB)
File Size: 22.3 MB
Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words by Michael Owen
Requirements: .ePUB reader, 22.3 Mb
Overview: The man behind some of the most memorable lyrics in the Great American Songbook steps from behind his brother’s shadow.
The first lyricist to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) has been hailed as one of the masters of the Great American Songbook, a period which covers songs written largely for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Now, in the first full-length biography devoted to his life, Michael Owen brings Ira out at last from the long shadow cast by his younger and more famous brother George. Drawing on extensive archival sources and often using Ira’s own words, Owen has crafted a rich portrait of the modest man who penned the words to many of America’s best-loved songs, like “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”
These fruits of Ira’s lyric genius sprang from the simplest of seeds: a hand-drawn weekly created for a cousin, an amateur newspaper co-written with friend and future lyricist Yip Harburg, columns in the school papers at Townsend Harris High School and, later, City College of New York. The details of his early literary efforts demonstrate both his developing ambition and the early signs of his talent. But while the road to becoming a successful lyricist was neither short nor smooth, it did lead Ira to the greatest creative partnership of his life.
George and Ira Gershwin collaborated on a string of hit Broadway shows in the 1920s and 1930s that resulted in popular and financial success and spawned a long string of songs that have become classics. Owen offers fascinating glimpses of their creative process, drawing on Ira’s diaries and other contemporary sources, as well as the close relationship between the two brothers. Hollywood soon beckons and the brothers head west to California to work in the movie business. Greater fame and fortune seem right around the corner.
Genre: Non-Fiction > Biographies & Memoirs
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