Sammy Cahn and the Enactment of Request
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ROMANCING THE VERNACULAR: SAMMY CAHN AND THE ENACTMENT OF REQUEST by MARILYN JUNE HOLLOWAY submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY in the subject ENGLISH at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR I A RABINOWITZ APRIL 2016 i SUMMARY The lyrics of Sammy Cahn played a dominant role in shaping the Golden Age of American light music. He remains the most successful lyricist in cinema history, in terms of Academy Awards and Nominations, yet he has received little acclaim for his achievements. This thesis explores the diverse constituents of his creative genius, focusing on his ability to “romance the vernacular”, and write “bespoke” material on request. The argument follows a chronological path, tracing the major influences on Cahn’s life: vaudeville and musical theatre, the growth of the film industry, and the collaborators and performers who helped him achieve a level of mastery that he sustained for nearly fifty years. Particular emphasis is placed on his relationship with Frank Sinatra, on both a personal and professional level. Cahn had an acute awareness of the human condition and his ability to convey a range of emotions to match mood and moment displayed consummate craft and intellect, with a self-confidence that bordered on bravado. His contemporaries in the Golden Age of popular song have received due recognition, yet little has been written about Cahn, whose appreciation of the interaction between spontaneity and creativity remains unsurpassed by fellow lyricists. He had an intuitive understanding of the vernacular and an instinctive ability to write to order. The imagistic texture of the lyrics coupled with the prosodic intonation demonstrate an intimate correlation between personality and composition which is supported by biographical content. The argument, augmented by an audio-documentary, develops systematically through a study of the lyrics, focusing on the cultural and musicological significance of Cahn’s oeuvre. The material for both the written text and the two accompanying CDs are from personal archives and the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles, which is the repository for the Sammy Cahn Collection, bequeathed to that institution after the death of Cahn in 1993. KEY WORDS: Sammy Cahn, Vitaphone, vernacular, vaudeville, parody, Jule Styne, Jimmy Van Heusen, Frank Sinatra, song lyrics, rhyme ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank Professor Ivan Rabinowitz, my supervisor, my mentor, and an unfailing source of support and encouragement; UNISA librarian Dawie Malan who was so patient in sourcing material from libraries around the world with good humour and remarkable patience; Mrs Tita Cahn, the widow of Sammy Cahn, who has followed the progress of this thesis with interest; Mrs Joan Cohen who, as a researcher, acted on my behalf in selecting relevant and appropriate material from the Sammy Cahn Collection at the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles; Jenny Romero and Kristine Krueger from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in Los Angeles; Jim Steinblatt of ASCAP, who was always willing to provide guidelines and information; Nelius van Rensburg for his technical assistance in the compilation of this thesis; and Clive Gaunt, the sound engineer who recorded the CDs with consummate skill. This thesis is dedicated to my husband, Henry Holloway, a world authority on the music of the Golden Era, whose vast collection of interviews and records, garnered over more than 40 years of broadcasting, provided the original recorded material used in this thesis. His knowledge of popular light music was a source of inspiration and guidance. iii “A renaissance of appreciation still awaits him and a re-evaluation is ripe.” Michael Feinstein: 2015 iv CONTENTS SUMMARY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii EPIGRAPH iii CONTENTS iv INTRODUCTION 1− 10 CHAPTER 1 From Cohen to Cahn 11 − 37 CHAPTER 2 Vaudeville to Vitaphone 38 − 54 CHAPTER 3 Cahn and Collaborators 55 − 92 CHAPTER 4 Puns and Parodies 93 – 117 CHAPTER 5 The Sinatra Phenomenon 118 − 144 CHAPTER 6 Conversations with Cahn: Transcript and CDs 145 − 201 CONCLUSION 202 − 205 SONGOGRAPHY 206 − 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY 208 ̶ 216 1 INTRODUCTION The medium of broadcasting creates an interesting opportunity for representation. As a Principal Broadcaster, employed by the South African Broadcasting Corporation for twenty-one years, I was privileged to work in both the genres of radio and television; as the longest-serving Editor of the popular daily radio programme “Woman’s World”, I met and interviewed thousands of influential and well- known personalities. I have always been drawn to the spoken word, to the nuances of inflections and the significance of pause. I was “trained” to listen for the hesitations, the changes of pace and pitch, which might suggest a reluctance to pursue a topic or avoid an issue. In the 1970s and 1980s, radio programmes on Radio South Africa (now re-named SAfm) were carefully researched, recorded and edited entities, involving hours of studio time. Broadcasters were not encouraged to be “personalities”; the focus was on the guest and the content of the programme, but the emphasis was on sound research. I developed a style of interviewing which engaged my guest in discussion, rather than a series of questions and answers. The technique was based on making a statement, rather than posing a question. I offer this background to support what could be considered an unorthodox approach to my subject, Sammy Cahn, the most successful lyricist in cinema history in terms of Oscar award-winning songs and nominations, whom I believe deserves critical acclaim. A great deal had been written about many of his contemporaries, such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, to name but a few, yet Cahn remains relatively unknown, although his songs remain in the repertoire of today’s singers. I intend to explore the diverse constituents of Cahn’s creative genius, focusing on his ability to “romance the vernacular”, with particular emphasis on the complex interaction between the spontaneity and creativity of his lyrics, his sympathetic matching of words and music, and the commercial restraints and demands associated within the genre of film-making. As little has been written about Sammy Cahn, apart from his autobiography I Should Care, I have drawn on the many scholarly works about the genre of light music, popular entertainment in America in the early twentieth century, the growth of the film industry and, in particular, screen musicals, in order to contextualize the cultural and musicological significance of Sammy Cahn’s oeuvre. I am indebted to biographers and historians who have chronicled the accomplishments of Cahn’s contemporaries, offering detailed accounts of their private and professional lives. Such was my fascination with these musicians, and, in particular, the lyricists, that I have often drawn parallels and made comparisons to emphasise Cahn’s vernacular ease in his approach to lyric writing. 2 I am fortunate to have access to one of the world’s largest private collections of music of the Golden Era and, with the permission of the American Society of Composers, Author and Publishers (ASCAP), I have selected, where possible, the original recordings of Sammy Cahn’s songs in the compilation of the CDs. My study is augmented by an audio documentary, where words and music are wedded, and social commentary delivered in a register appropriate to radio interviewing. With each passing month of research and mounting pages of text, I became more and more convinced that a broadcaster writing about a lyricist did no justice to either, and that my written text required the spoken word, and supporting music. My many years of compiling documentary material for radio persuades me that this is an appropriate method to place on record original material. I recognise, too, that this approach might be considered outside the boundaries of the conventional literary thesis, but it does sit within an area of English studies, demarcated as Popular Culture. I believe there is great merit in bringing Cahn’s story into the public domain through the integration of words and music. I was drawn to Sammy Cahn for a number of reasons: my fascination with his ability to “romance the vernacular”, an attempt to explain why he is the most successful lyricist in cinema history, in terms of Academy Awards and Nominations, and to place on record some of the remarkable material I recorded in 1986 with Sammy Cahn in his home in Beverly Hills, in greater Los Angeles. This recording session was made possible through Cahn’s earlier association with my husband, Henry Holloway, a fellow broadcaster with the SABC. Henry had met and recorded a series of interviews with Cahn in 1982 and these were to form the basis of a thirteen-part radio series called “The Sammy Cahn Story”, which would be aired in 1988 to commemorate Cahn’s 75th birthday. Cahn had already appeared on Broadway in his successful one-man show called Words and Music and, being the showman that he was, was more than willing to talk about his work as a lyricist who loved to perform and demonstrate his songs. In the June/July 1988 issue of Sheet Music, dedicated to Sammy Cahn, singer Perry Como writes: As far as I am concerned, Sammy is one of the finest demonstrators of songs that I have ever heard. I am sure that he could even make a bad song sound great – not that he has written any bad songs. (Sheet Music Magazine, Vol. 12. No 5) Sammy Cahn’s dry humour, coupled with the stories behind the songs, resulted in unique recordings that have a special place in our personal archives. With the blessing of Cahn’s widow, Tita, I have embarked on a musical journey through Cahn’s life, vicariously meeting composers, arrangers and singers along the way.