Customer Reviews

The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia

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This is a great book... my main gripe is that with the (publisher's) price tag and the word "encyclopedia" combined I kinda expected a bit more.

First - - in all fairness to the author/publisher:

Sadly, an item like this probably isn't in such great demand, meaning its a 500 page book published and researched for a niche audience. As a result, the author/publisher do have to re-cap their costs... I imagine the author was a one man team, so he had to do a lot of hard work by himself to put it together - - its not like he had a team of researchers writing it for him, and since (due to fault of public taste) its not a book that's likely to have such demand that over-runs alone will be filling up the dollar bins at commercial book stores around the planet... As a result, I admire the hard work and author of the publisher for their project and salute them for not only completing the project, but getting it out to the public (quite a costly challenge in itself.)

That said - - the book basically has an alphabetical listing of tunes and for each one a descriptive paragraph. The information is fascinating on a trivial and anecdotal level, but by no means "exhaustive". Some of the information you could easily look up for yourself (for example here and there on the web, or even by just looking at the sheet music - - as if you'd have THAT many tunes in your piano bench.) As an example, the author usually names some artists who recorded memorable versions of the tune, but there's no discography of recordings - - exhaustive or inexhaustive, and let's face it, if it was a Tin Pan Alley Standard - - everybody recorded it anyway.

With the word "encyclopedia" I kind of expected to see more dates, numbers, categorization and cross-referential goodies.

A typical entry basically tells what the song was about, why or what it was written for, an interesting fact or two, then names a half a dozen artists who recorded it.

My conclusion - -

Recently a Broadway Musical Debuted called THE DROWSY CHAPERONE. It takes place in "that era" and features a charactor known simply as "the man in the chair" who does nothing but sit around in his apartment all day and listen to old show tune recordings, of which he lives and loves for and knows everything about. - - I could see him purchasing this book. On the other hand, I think he'd probably know everything in it and lot's lot's more *and* be able to go on and on about each tune. Fortunately I don't... The book IS quite enjoyable, but if you're expecting something a bit more scholarly - - that's not what your going to get. Instead you will get about 500 pages of "tributes" to some of the greatest tunes of all time - - and you WILL enjoy it nonetheless, however, I am still flinching over all that money I spent !

Exhaustively compiled and painstakingly edited by Thomas S. Hischak (Professor of Theater, State University of New York College, Cortland, NY), The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia is a solid, comprehensive, 552-page reference work of more than 1,200 popular songs written from the mid-19th century through the 1950s. The songs chosen for reference were drawn from the melodies written for saloons, piano player rolls, sheet music, radio broadcasts, concerts, and more - although not including those written expressly for the stage or the silver screen. Each alphabetized entry presents a brief, concise history of the song, its creation, and a list of famous plays or movies in which the song was adopted or reprised. The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia is a core addition to any personal, public library, or academic American Music History reference collection.

I work in the non-profit world, helping disadvantaged children get access to music and music education...so I need a lot of reference materials. At first glance, this Encyclopedia looked terrific - easy to use, lots of information...but my heart plummeted when I read the paragraph about "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", Ella Fitzgerald's first big hit. Mr. Hischak states that Ella was only 15 years old at that time - and yet, he states it was 1938...AND ELLA WAS BORN IN 1917!!!

Come on - this is a major goof.

Now I'm wondering how many more errors there may be.

AUGH!