The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty

by Wilfrid Sheed

From Irving Berlin to Cy Coleman, from “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to “Big Spender,” from Tin Pan Alley to the MGM soundstages, the Golden Age of the American song embodied all that was cool, sexy, and sophisticated in popular culture. For four glittering decades, geniuses like Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen ran their fingers over piano keys, enticing unforgettable melodies out of thin air. Critically acclaimed writer Wilfrid Sheed uncovered the legends, mingled with the greats, and gossiped with the insiders. Now he’s crafted a dazzling, authoritative history of the era that “tripled the world’s total supply of singable tunes.”

It began when immigrants in New York’s Lower East Side heard black jazz and blues–and it surged into an artistic torrent nothing short of miraculous. Broke but eager, Izzy Baline transformed himself into Irving Berlin, married an heiress, and embarked on a string of hits from “Always” to “Cheek to Cheek.” Berlin’s spiritual godson George Gershwin, in his brief but incandescent career, straddled Tin Pan Alley and Carnegie Hall, charming everyone in his orbit. Possessed of a world-class ego, Gershwin was also generous, exciting, and utterly original. Half a century later, Gershwin love songs like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “The Man I Love,” and “Love Is Here to Stay” are as tender and moving as ever.
Sheed also illuminates the unique gifts of the great jazz songsters Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington, conjuring up the circumstances of their creativity and bringing back the thrill of what it was like to hear “Georgia on My Mind” or “Mood Indigo” for the first time. The Golden Age of song sparked creative breakthroughs in both Broadway musicals and splashy Hollywood extravaganzas. Sheed vividly recounts how Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer spread the melodic wealth to stage and screen.

Popular music was, writes Sheed, “far and away our greatest contribution to the world’s art supply in the so-called American Century.” Sheed hung out with some of the great artists while they were still writing–and better than anyone, he knows great music, its shimmer, bite, and exuberance. Sparkling with wit, insight, and the grace notes of wonderful songs, The House That George Built is a heartfelt, intensely personal portrait of an unforgettable era.

A delightfully charming, funny, and most illuminating portrait of songwriters and the Golden Age of American Popular Song. Mr. Sheed’s carefully chosen depictions and anecdotes recapture that amazingly creative period, a moment in time in which I was so fortunate to be surrounded by all that magic.”
–Margaret Whiting

Genres: Music, History, Biography, Nonfiction, Jazz, Theatre

335 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 2007

About the author

Sheed was born in London to Francis "Frank" Sheed and Mary "Maisie" Ward, prominent Roman Catholic publishers (Sheed & Ward) in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid-20th century. Wilfrid Sheed spent his childhood in both England and the United States before attending Downside School and Lincoln College, Oxford where he earned BA (1954) and MA (1957) degrees.

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little box above the title describes this slim book as “A history of the Golden Age of American popular music,” a period that essentially encompasses the first half of the 20th century. Sheed describes the book as an extension of countless “bull” sessions between himself and any number of his friends who not only share his love of the songs of Berlin, Gershwin, Arlen, Porter, Carmichael, Ellington, Mercer, Kern, Warren, Van Heusen, and the other crew members, but in some cases the friends were also members of the songwriting club. It is a delightful book, one that has prompted a two week binge of listening to recordings of Astaire, Sinatra, Jimmy Scott, Diana Krall, Rene Marie, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Victoria Williams, and virtually anyone I have who has made a record of songs from this wide, coast-to-coast (Broadway to Hollywood) era. Sheed is a great writer and deeply knowledgeable about the music and the general culture of his adopted country, which makes the book great company. He is also elegantly insightful about human nature. He notes that Gershwin, for all the criticism he got from the classical music establishment for his classical compositions, didn’t have to work hard to get his compositions on the concert hall calendars. “The grim fact was that the serious people needed him there to attract their own customers, their own highbrow fans. It was humiliating, so the least they could do was insult him for it.” He also manages smartly unpredictable observations: “Two years earlier, G.K. Chesterton had pointed out how beautiful Times Square must look to someone who couldn’t read, and here was that same thought set to music. If Gershwin’s music had been any purer or more correct, it wouldn’t have been New York.” Or, “Perhaps there really was a natural affinity between black and Jewish sensibilities across the board, or perhaps it was specific to certain east European musicians. (There’s no trace of it in the west European Kern and not much in the part-Alsatian Richard Rogers.)” Or, “Concealment by exaggeration—well, it worked at the time. But now that everyone knows everything, and can explain it too, there’s no place left to hide the fact that those love songs were indeed written by not just a gay man, but by an off-the-wall, over-the-top gay man.” Cole Porter, of course. It’s a s’wonderful book.

[Hope — bookclubberhope · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a big disappointment. I wish I could say I was learning about the composers, but the writing style is just too chatty, confusing and "inside baseball". I find it hard to glean much of any substance. I will continue reading it but a little at a time.

I have decided to put this book aside - there's no reason to finish it because I could learn more about the musicians from reading about them on wikipedia. If I could give no stars, that's what this book deserves.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bailed out on this book after 60 pages. Sheed did not succeed in helping me appreciate Irving Berlin, and his chapter on George Gershwin, whom I admire, did not sustain my interest, bogged down in mulling about Gershwin the sportsman. Self-indulgent maundering in need of a strong editor.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a linear history, but a series of essays on the songwriters and songs from Irving Berlin up to the dawn of rock and roll, and the environment that produced them. It's a very enjoyable read if you love those songs, and you're sure to learn plenty.

It's opinionated. I was not convinced by all of Sheed's views, and I got a little irritated at his cracks about marriage, among other things, but that's not really a problem.

What I do wish is for a couple more appendixes, especially a list of what he considers standards by each of the songwriters profiled. For instance, he goes on about the great stuff Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn wrote for Sinatra, but he doesn't mention that many titles, at least not in the part of the chapter where he talks about how great their work was. You've got to want a list of examples you can scan through to see how many you know. (There's Wikipedia, but that can be hit-and-miss.) Also, it would be helpful to have some guidance about where we can go to hear the songs we aren't familiar with--at least a few singers or albums that could help plug the gaps.

Overall, though, I recommend it highly.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read the first 35 pages of this book and skimmed the rest. I give it one star for doing disservice to an amazing topic. In short, this one is offensive.

The author is an old codger (b. 1931) who writes like one. I counted dozens of hoary cliches. You expect him to sneak in a "23 Skidoo." The subject is fascinating--the history of the "A" list Tin Pan Alley songs and their composers, what makes them great, and why we keep coming back to them (yes, even Linda Rondstadt and Rod Stewart).

Yet the author seems to have done no research. For example, I finished the chapter on Irving Berlin and know nothing more about him than I did. How did he write great music when he couldn't read it or really play the piano? Where did he get his ideas for lyrics? The author barely even quotes from lyrics much less analyze them.

Instead we get half-baked bios that are gossipy but not juicy, with some spliced-in sociology (Jews and blacks hated each other but stole from each other).

The book reads like an unedited transcript of a long (and I mean loonnngg) dictation from a lively but superannuated mind no longer fully in possesion of his memory. This joins "Absurdistan," "Post War," "Pillars of the Earth" on my ever-growing list of discards. Publishers, please invest in better book editors.

Another frustrating point--the book should have included an appendix with lyrics or at least lists of tunes.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book last March and April while recuperating from surgery. My grandson and I read it aloud to each other. He is a budding musician; I am an aging music lover and former professional dancer.
I was fascinated by the drive and talent of the Gershwin brothers, and all of their talented associates who wrote wonderful music in the 30's, 40's and beyond.
I want to reread this one. It was interesting discussing our musical discoveries from this book. Though Riley plays Gershwin in Jazz Band in High School, it is still 'old' music, not commonly listened to on radio or celebrated on tv. He may be the only 14-year-old who knew who wrote "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" (Yip Harburg), and he learned it from this book.
Life is strange. Why are some given talent? Why are some successful who can barely play piano? The irony of it all!

[Ralph Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book so much that I went out and found a remaindered hard cover copy on the web so I could prevent it from deteriorating over time. If you have to read only one book about the great American music of the past, this should be it. I can't comprehend the 2 and 3 star so-called reviews here. Sure, Sheed had a jazzy style, full of wit and sharp sarcasm and buoyant happiness, but it sure beats the soporific account of others, and even takes on the sainted Alec Wilder with a panache that even Alec might have admired. As Gene Lees once wrote, this is music from the time when "good music was popular and popular music was good," such a remote time that I (age 75) and my parents (deceased) could actually enjoy it together. Gasp! (Oh, excuse me, that's a Sheedism.) Get over it, folks. This music isn't religion. You can smile. Long live Gershwin & Company!

[Nadine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I threw in the towel on this one. I thought I was going to read a Gershwin bio, but instead, got (what seemed like) an analysis of every American standard composer. It read like a cross between a textbook and a 13-year-old girl's diary. (Should have read the Goodreads reviews first.)

[Janel · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://bibliophibian.blogspot.com/200...

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this sitting on my stack for several years, and finally cracked it this month. This is a book all about the composers of the Great American Songbook, and the song writers who invented Tin Pan Alley in New York City in the years after World War I.
Sheed is a fanboy in a major way. He knew several of the composers in their later years (Arlen, Styne, Coleman, etc.), and grew up listening to the music of Gershwin, Porter, Carmichael, Ellington, and all of the others to whom he dedicated this book. And he has anecdotes and opinions about all of them. He dishes the dirt, and lauds their work. Some he plainly dislikes, even as he applauds their music. Others he adoringly forgives for their transgressions and bad behavior, because their catalogues are still so gorgeous.
Sheed writes with a jazzy insouciance, ladling throwaway jokes into every other sentence, and leaving the reader smiling at his joy in telling these stories. This is not an academic study, but a work of love for a musical genre that continues to be rediscovered every twenty years or so by new generations of singers and musicians. If you love American jazz, swing, Broadway and movie musicals, you've heard these songs and probably know at least a little about some of the composers, whose tunes remain stuck in your head. Once heard, always loved.
Strongly recommended for fans of 20th Century American music, before rock and roll began to dominate radio, TV and even Broadway, and killed the great movie musicals. Good stuff throughout, and a bonus section of songwriters and lyricists who didn't earn their own chapters. I'll be keeping this one on my bookshelf, and sharing with a friend who loves the GAS as much as I do.

[Mike Parkes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for an intro to the popular music of the first half of the 1900s, and this wasn't it. As another reviewer commented, the book is really "inside baseball" that I am sure would be more interesting if you are already very familiar with these artists and their music. Personally, I found "The B Side" by Ben Yagoda to be a much better start for a neophyte. I may try this one again after I have gotten a deeper knowledge of the music.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book should have been so much better. For the first time, reading non-fiction history, I wanted it to be dryer. This meandered more than it should have. I'm not talking about not keeping linear story telling, but actual meandering of thought at times. There was so much in this that seemed like cutesy filler, I found I was rolling my eyes often enough to give me a headache.

From this book, I learned very little and what I did learn, wasn't much. This was so disappointing.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reads like a gossip column. It is about the the early tin pan alley music composers and lyricists, along with some history of early musical and movie music. Each chapter is devoted to one composer, and their writing partners.

[A. H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wordy wordy wordy.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is especially good when read with access to the internet so you can listen to the songwriters as you read about them. Some of the best music ever written and entertaining stories.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved hearing old songs in my mind while reading how they were created.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Although no musicologist, Wilfrid Sheed has been around the block. He has written acclaimed novels and nonfiction books, most notably on baseball and literature. Here, he displays a lifelong passion for jazz and recounts his interaction with some of the greats in this engaging, knowledgeable, opinionated, and occasionally-some of Sheed's more obscure references may lose the neophyte-aggravating look at the Golden Age of music in America. The House That George Built doesn't reach the status of, say, Alec Wilder's American Popular Song or Max Wilk's They're Playing Our Song, in part because it's not meant to be a coherent, formal history of the period. But Sheed's book is a testament to the rich work that comes from a lifetime of devotion.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had forgotten how many wonderful songs I still knew the words to until I started to read this book. Wilfrid Sheed has provided an informal look at quite a few of the great American songwriters of the early and mid twentieth century who put together what is nowadays called the Great American Songbook. They don't make them much like that any more. Rod Stewart may be recording some of these standards now (still blows my mind! - Rod Stewart - who would have thought?), but they were mostly written for the Broadway and Hollywood musicals. However, the fact that Rod Stewart is actually recording and selling his recordings of so many of these songs is a tribute to how impressive these songs are, how closely intertwined they are with jazz, and how they are still part of my vocabulary, at least.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this one for BookPleasures.com last summer because of my somewhat professional interest in the history of American popular song. The book is very subjective and shouldn't be used as a primer in the study of the golden age of American song (basically the 30's & 40's) but if one already has a working knowledge of the composers and issues of the time, it's great fun.

Sheed's prose is beautiful and his insights are incredibly penetrating -- I've never before read such a succinct explanation of Irving Berlin's bewildering mixture of limited musicality and astounding songwriting success. His insights into George Gershwin's genius are similarly startling and right on the money.

The book has garnered a ton of criticism for being subjective, but I found it a lot of fun, probably just for that reason.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars for the interested, anyway. I'm grouchy about music writing. Usually too adjective-heavy and thesaurus-y for me. Gary Giddins is great, Guralnick, of course, Marcus when he isn't intentionally referencing things NO ONE ELSE HAS EVER HEARD OF so we know he's superior. I'll add Sheed on the topic of standards, if only because this sounds like a (his words) "bull session" instead of a scholarly blah-blah. He assumes you're interested enough - or have lived in the Western World in the last century - to know most of these songs, but puts them in a really useful perspective in a casually brilliant way.

[RAH · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful read, funny, shrewd and packed with unexpected information. Impossible to read without periodically bursting into some of the great songs mentioned, by Gershwin, Porter, Kern and the like. Read it if you love the standards, as sung by Sinatra, Crosby, Peggy Lee and the unmatchable Fred Astaire.

[Danny Axelrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything you ever wanted to know about the songwriters that made the Great American Songbook. Not just Gershwin, Ellington, Porter, but almost everyone who made at least one contribution (look at Hoagy Carmichael; can you name a song he wrote other than Stardust? He's got a meaty chapter devoted to him). A must read for any piano bar drunk with an incessant itch to request the songs you grew up hearing from your parents.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Sheed can certainly write a bit and has a great knowledge of the artists covered in this book. But like most recordings that don't have the name "The Beatles" on the cover, not all the chapters are winners. This book wanders between excellent scholarship to cheap gossip as seen in Vanity Fair magazine.
The chapters on Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Mercer and Jimmy Van Heusen make the rest of it tolerable, plus there's some great quotes, such as, "I can pee melody" Richard Rogers.

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard to read until I got used to his style, and even then it was tough because of the name dropping and inside jokes. Not a great read, I think, unless you already know more about these guys, their lives, and their music. But probably interesting if you do - the parts with people I did have a little history on and know their music were much more interesting than the other parts.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for any lover of the American Songbook. My review appeared in Newsday on July 15. You can read it online at:

[http://www.newsday.com/features/books...]

[Carolyn Fitzpatrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was looking for. This author's tone was very chatty, which would be interesting for someone who already know about these musicians and just wanted to be entertained. But his stories were all about little details, and not biographical basics.

[sima · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really a biography. It's a series of profiles on various jazz characters. Has a lot of potential, but mostly superficial descriptions. The introduction was informative, but I don't feel like I understand the era with greater depth.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reading this book and really enjoying it. It makes me laugh and hum along -- all in all though it is realy a music insiders book. In the end, i enjoyed, but wearied of comments that assume lots more knowledge that i did not have or want

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely discursive mini-biographies of the makers of The American Songbook. Best read while listening to Jonathan Schwartz on the radio, scotch in hand. Sheed's warm embrace of these songs, and these composers, lends a wonderful sweetness to the book.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an introduction to the subject as the author assumes that you are already very familiar with American popular music of the middle part of the Twentieth Century. Idiosyncratic, discursive and witty profiles of the composers and lyricists of the Great American Songbook.