{"product_id":"reading-lyrics-9780375400810","title":"Reading Lyrics","description":"\u003cp\u003eA comprehensive anthology bringing together more than one thousand of the best American and English song lyrics of the twentieth century; an extraordinary celebration of a unique art form and an indispensable reference work and history that celebrates one of the twentieth centurys most enduring and cherished legacies.  Reading Lyrics begins with the first masters of the colloquial phrase  including George M. Cohan (Give My Regards to Broadway)  P. G. Wodehouse (Till the Clouds Roll By)  and Irving Berlin  whose versatility and career span the period from Alexanders Ragtime Band to Annie Get Your Gun and beyond. The Broadway musical emerges as a distinct dramatic form in the 1920s and 1930s  its evolution propelled by a trio of lyricistsCole Porter  Ira Gershwin  and Lorenz Hartwhose explorations of the psychological and emotional nuances of falling in and out of love have lost none of their wit and sophistication. Their songs  including Night and Day  The Man I Love  and Bewitched  Bothered and Bewildered  have become standards performed and recorded by generation after generation of singers. The lure of Broadway and Hollywood and the performing genius of such artists as Al Jolson  Fred Astaire  Ethel Waters  Judy Garland  Frank Sinatra  and Ethel Merman inspired a remarkable array of talented writers  including Dorothy Fields (A Fine Romance  I Cant Give You Anything but Love)  Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls)  Oscar Hammerstein II (from the groundbreaking Show Boat of 1927 through his extraordinary collaboration with Richard Rodgers)  Johnny Mercer  Yip Harburg  Andy Razaf  Nol Coward  and Stephen Sondheim.  Reading Lyrics also celebrates the work of dozens of superb craftsmen whose songs remain known  but who today are themselves less knownwriters like Haven Gillespie (whose Santa Claus Is Coming to Town may be the most widely recorded song of its era); Herman Hupfeld (not only the composer\/lyricist of As Time Goes By but also of Are You Makin Any Money? and When Yuba Plays the Rumba on the Tuba); the great light versifier Ogden Nash (Speak Low  Im a Stranger Here Myself  and  yes  The Sea-Gull and the Ea-Gull); Don Raye (Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy  Mister Five by Five  and  of course  Milkman  Keep Those Bottles Quiet); Bobby Troup (Route 66); Billy Strayhorn (not only for the omnipresent Lush Life but for Something to Live For and A Lonely Coed); Peggy Lee (not only a superb singer but also an original and appealing lyricist); and the unique Dave Frishberg (Im Hip  Peel Me a Grape  Van Lingo Mungo).  The lyricists are presented chronologically  each introduced by a succinct biography and the incisive commentary of Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279805833269,"sku":"ByrdShop_0375400818","price":26.35,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780375400810.jpg?v=1780611250","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/reading-lyrics-9780375400810","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}