Twenty years ago today Irving Berlin, that astounding genius of music, died at the ripe old age of 101. During his lifetime he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, many of which are absolute standards today - including Alexander's Ragtime Band, Cheek to Cheek, I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, Let's Face The Music and Dance, There's No Business Like Show Business, What'll I do?, Heat Wave, Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) and even God Bless America.
Mr Berlin (born Israel Baline, a Russian Jewish refugee) also wrote classic musicals like Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Madam, Holiday Inn, Top Hat, Puttin' On The Ritz, White Christmas and Easter Parade, worked with Ziegfield, Paul Whiteman, Al Jolson, Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee, Judy Garland, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Moss Hart and Jerome Kern, and was commissioned by the US government to produce patriotic numbers during WW2. Whew!
Even George Gershwin acknowledged the influence of the great man thus: "Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbour. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert. But apart from his genuine talent for song-writing, Irving Berlin has had a greater influence upon American music than any other one man."
Praise indeed...
Irving Berlin (11th May 1888 – 22nd September 1989)
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