Albert Von Tilzer

Anglicized, the family's name was truncated from Gummbinsky down to Gumm. Harold Gumm learned piano while growing up in Indianapolis. He ran off at the age of 14 to serve as singing acrobat in a traveling circus. Craving a more dignified moniker, Harry adopted his mother's maiden name, Tilzer. He sought to make it sound even classier by tacking on a "Von." So impressive seemed the transformation that eventually all four of his brothers changed their last name to match his. Von Tilzer published his first tune, "I Love You Both," in 1892. Hungry for attention and success, Harry decided to head for New York. He got there by tending a train car full of horses, cleaning up after them all the way into the big city. It would be difficult to imagine a more appropriate entrance into New York's show-biz environment. From 1892 to 1898, Harry sang and pounded pianos wherever alcohol was served, and wormed his way into vaudeville after apprenticing with a traveling medicine show. He'd written hundreds of songs over the years but only one had seen publication under his own name, the rest having been sold for quick cash. One day, teaming up with lyricist Andrew B. Sterling, he wrote a hit song on the flip side of an eviction notice. "My Old New Hampshire Home" was the first step in Harry's rapid rise to power in the sheet music publishing business. Many of his early song titles reflect that industry's morbid obsession with ethnic stereotypes. For example, "De Swellest Ladie's Coon in Town" appeared in 1897. "Rastus Thompson's Rag-Time Cake Walk," published in 1898, took advantage of two very exploitable contemporary trends. In 1899 Von Tilzer stooped lower than ever with "The Coldest Coon in Town" and "Mammy's Kinky-Headed Coon." A more dignified approach to success was realized in 1900 with the lucrative yet lachrymose "A Bird in a Glided Cage." In 1902, Von Tilzer founded his own publishing house. "Down Where the Wurzberger Flows" was one of its first and most successful drinking songs, followed in 1903 by another beer garden special, "Under the Anheuser Busch." Von Tilzer's hottest year came in 1902. Profits skyrocketed as he published "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," "The Mansion of Aching Hearts," "Jennie Lee," "I Wants to Be an Actor Lady," "Down on the Farm," and "Pardon Me, My Dear Alphonse, After You My Dear Gaston," which sounds a lot like the precedent for "Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean." Also hot in 1902, "Please Go 'Way and Let Me Sleep" wasn't composed by Von Tilzer, but is still associated with him because he published it. The legend of Harry Von Tilzer also involves the origin of the phrase "Tin Pan Alley." Years before John Cage, he altered the sound of his piano by jamming bits of paper between the strings, savoring the strangely tinny tonalities. Journalist Monroe Rosenfeld was subjected to the sound of this instrument while visiting Von Tilzer's office, then heard dozens of clamoring uprights all going at once as he walked through the music publishing district around West 28th Street. In a newspaper column, he compared the cacophony to an ensemble of pots and pans, christening the entire neighborhood Tin Pan Alley. Known for publicly pulling outrageous stunts in order to plug a song, Harry Von Tilzer was right at the top of the heap for several years. The famous "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie" dates from 1905, as does "What You Goin' to Do When the Rent Comes 'Round?" "Take Me Back to New York Town" and "Top o' the Mornin'" appeared in 1907. "The Cubanola Glide" did well in 1909. "I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad" was a hit in 1911 along with "They Always Pick On Me," which contains that wonderful line "I'll eat some worms and then I'll die." In 1912 Von Tilzer was responsible for that endless chant of cyclic complexity, "And the Green Grass Grew All Around." In 1914 he published "You Can Tango You Can Trot Dear But Be Sure and Hesitate." His last notable songs were "Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl" in 1917 and "Just Around the Corner" in 1925, later sung to excess by Ted Lewis. Von Tilzer never adapted to the Jazz Age, though he gave many composers of jazz standards their first breaks. Two famous examples were Irving Berlin, who as a singing teenager plugged new songs for the Harry Von Tilzer Music Company, and George Gershwin, who sold his first song to the firm in 1916. During the last 20 years of his life, Von Tilzer's retirement played itself out deep within the Hotel Woodward in New York City. He died in his room there on the 10th of January 1946.
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