Songbook

Lillian Russell was a singer by trade, steam trains chuffed along the Third Avenue "L," women were publicly respected and the red light district extended for blocks when Edward B. Marks started publishing songs in Manhattan. Songs became hits then in the city's lowest dives. Publishers made the rounds themselves, bought drinks for the performers, distributed chorus sheets among the customers. Edward B. Marks is still publishing songs at 62, as acute to the value of a plug by Rudy Vallee as he was to one by Lottie Gilson, the curvey "Little Magnet,'' who in the 1890s drew tears each night at Tony Pastor's on 14th Street. Fortnight ago Edward B. Marks published a song history of the last 40 years, a book as shrewd in its sidelights on changing manners as it is in its appraisal of popular music.*

Edward B. Marks was a hook & eye salesman, peddling songs on the side, when he decided to go into music publishing. The big songs then were "Annie Rooney" (1890), "Daisy Bell" (1892), "My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon" (1892), "The Sidewalks of New York" (1894). Marks wrote a lyric, "The Lost Child." Joe Stern, a necktie salesman, wrote the music. They plugged their product with colored lantern slides which showed a policeman encountering in the streets a waif, who at the station house turns out to be his long-lost daughter.

Marks used to cover 60 saloons and beer halls a week. In one he observed a tough customer bothering a raw young waitress who, bursting into tears, exclaimed: "No one would dare insult me if my brother Jack was only here." And she added, "My mother was a lady." Instantly Marks's pencil was out and another song was born:

My mother was a lady like yours you will allow, And you may have a sister who needs protection now-- I've come to this great city to find a brother dear-- And you wouldn't dare insult me, Sir, If Jack were only here.

But Marks was better at spotting good songs and marketing them than he was at writing them. In the '90s a song might make a hit in New York but the problem was how to spread songs over the country. Marks planted his with minstrel shows. "The Lost Child" (1894) and "Asleep in the Deep" (1898) went big on the road. In New York the new songs were "You're Not the Only Pebble on the Beach" (1896), "Take Back Your Gold" (1897), "She's More to be Pitied than Censured" (1898). Then ragtime started its rage. "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-Der-E" (1891) was one of the first strikes. Theodore Metz got the mood for "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (1896). With ragtime the Negro composers came north, the men who founded present-day Harlem. Negro Rosamond Johnson was one of Marks's proteges. He wrote "My Castle on the River Nile" (1901), "Under the Bamboo Tree" (1902), a melodic inversion of "Nobody Knows de Trouble I See."

Songs, songwriters, entertainers--it was Marks's business to know them all. One of his lyricists was a slick young law student named James J. Walker ("Will You Love Me in December as You Do in May?"). It was in Marks's office that the future mayor of New York City met Janet Allen, a pretty little dark-haired secretary who became his first wife. Jerome Kern went to Marks, told him he wanted to be a songwriter. Marks set him to work making out bills and invoices. A singing waiter named Izzy Baline came into the office one day with a song called "Marie from Sunny Italy." Marks turned it down. Izzy Baline became Irving Berlin.

In 1905 Marks published his biggest seller, ''Shine, Little Glow Worm, Glimmer." The public bought over 3,000,000 copies of it. The building of the New York Hippodrome reflected the rage of big-scale vaudeville. Nora Bayes, Blanche Ring, Sam Bernard and Eva Tanguay became headliners. Songs were "In the Good Old Summertime" (1902), "The Bird on Nellie's Hat" (1906). "Schooldays" (1907). Florenz Ziegfeld's day started. He was first known of as Anna Held's husband and Anna Held was known chiefly for her milk baths.

A furrier named Marcus Loew tried to get Marks to go into the cinema business with him. Marks stuck to songs and songs suddenly became tunes for dancing the Hesitation, the Turkey Trot, the Tango. By 1914 the Castles were the smart vogue, Vernon, a blond steely young Briton, and Irene, a New Rochelle (N. Y.) girl who, Author Marks says, featured the first streamline body. Of the War songs Marks writes: "A great many other parts of the War machine fell down lamentably--the service of supply, the shipyards, the airplane manufacturers. But Tin Pan Alley did a swell job." Some of the songs: "Over There," "Pack Up Your Troubles," "Keep the Home Fires Burning," "Where Do We Go from Here, Boys?" "Goodbye, Broadway--Hello, France," "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here," "There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding," "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?"

The song business reached its peak soon after the War. "Smiles" sold 3,000,000 copies. But Prohibition dealt the whole entertainment business a sweeping blow and radio cut the life of a song from a year to six weeks, the sale of a hit from 2,000,000 to 200,000 copies. Two of Marks's post-War hits illustrate his instinct for fitting a song to the public's mood. In 1911 he published "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" but because there was no vogue for marchers, he held it until 1922 when Nikita Balieff came to the U. S. with his Chauve-Souris and featured it as his prize Russian number. Another big stroke was Marks's anticipation of the rumba craze, his introduction of "The Peanut Vendor."

In the back of his book, Author Marks has listed 1,545 famed old songs, with their dates and the names of the entertainers who introduced them. Readers are warned not to throw away the book's paper jacket. Inside are the choruses of 47 oldtimers such as:

She is more to be pitied than censured, She is more to be helped than despised. . . .

And:

As I walk along the Bois Boolong With an independent air--

And:

Where did you get that hat? Where did you get that tile? . . .

And:

Mister Captain, stop the ship, I want to get out and walk. . . .

And:

I don't want to play in your yard, I don't like you any more . . .

*Thcy All Sang, from Tony Pastor to Rudy Vallee--As told to Abbott J. Liebling by Edward B. Marks-- Viking ($3.50).

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