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Songs, Songwriters and Performers of

The Great American Songbook

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Harold Arlen


photo portrait of Harold Arlen by Carl Van Vechten, 1960
Carl Van Vechten photo of Harold Arlen, 1960

Basic Information

Born: Chaim Arluck, February 15, 1905, Buffalo, New York (US)

Died: April 23, 1986 (age 81), New York City

Primary songwriting role: composer; also pianist and singer

Co-writers: chiefly Ted Koehler, Yip Harburg and Johnny Mercer; Click here for a database of Harold Arlen's co-writers.

Page Menu

Basic Songwiter Information
Overview and Commentary
Music-Video Cabinet
Songs by This Songwriter
in the Cafe Songbook Catalog
of The Great American Songbook
Web Research Resources
Print Research Resources
Visitor Comments
Master List of Songwriters
Credits

Overview and Commentary
Harold Arlen
(This section is currently in preparation)

Overview in progress
Comments by
Jonathan Schwartz

On his Saturday, August 6, 2011 radio show, Schwartz commented that he knew of only two Harold Arlen songs written in a minor key, which was surprising given the bluesy quality that inhabits so much of the composer's work. He cited "For Every Man There's a Woman" and "Paris Is a Lonely Town" (the latter currently not included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog).

Schwartz has often noted that whereas one of Richard Rodgers' favorite forms of compostion is the waltz, Arlen seldom wrote waltzes, a rare exception being "When the Boys Come Home" from Bloomer Girl (1944).

   
   
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Cafe Songbook
Music-Video Cabinet:
Selected Albums and Videos Featuring
Harold Arlen



Harold Sings Arlen (with friend)
Arlen singing his own songs--with help on two from Barbara Streisand (1966)

Amazon
"Over the Rainbow"
Judy Garland (vocal) and Harold Arlen (piano),
San Francisco, 1940 -- audio over photo montage

Martha Raye and Harold sing and play a medley of Arlen songs on the Martha Raye Show, 1956


Oscar Peterson Plays the Harold Arlen Songbook
1954/1959, Peterson (piano), Ray Brown Bass,
Herb Ellis (guitar) or (on '59 recordings)
Ed Thigpen (drums)

Amazon iTunes


album cover: "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook"
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Harold Arlen Songbook
(1960)--The Arlen album in the great Norman Granz series of Ella singing the American Songbook composers--cover portait of Ella
by Henri Matisse

Amazon iTunes


Come Rain Or Come Shine:
The Harold Arlen Songbook
,
1996
album featuring Sylvia McNair (vocals)
and Andre Previn (piano)

Amazon
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Harold Arlen Songs
currently included in the
Cafe Songbook Catalog of
The Great American Songbook
  1. Ac-cen-tchu-ate the Positive
  2. Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home
  3. As Long as I Live
  4. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
  5. Blues in the Night
  6. Come Rain or Come Shine
  7. Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead
  8. Down With Love
  9. The Eagle and Me
  10. For Every Man There's a Woman
  11. Fun to be Fooled
  12. Get Happy
  13. Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe
  14. Happy As The Day Is Long
  15. Hit the Road to Dreamland
  16. Hooray for Love
  17. I Gotta Right To Sing the Blues
  18. I Had Myself a True Love
  19. I Wonder What Became of Me
  20. If I Only Had a Brain/a Heart/the Nerve
  21. Ill Wind
  22. It Was Written in the Stars
  23. It's a New World
  24. It's Only a Paper Moon
  25. I've Got the World on a String
  26. Last Night When We Were Young
  27. Let's Fall in Love
  28. Let's Take a Walk Around the Block
  29. Let's Take the Long Way Home
  30. Like a Straw In The Wind
  31. Man That Got Away (The)
  32. My Shining Hour
  33. One for My Baby (and one more for the road)
  34. Out of This World
  35. Over the Rainbow
  36. Right As The Rain
  37. Sing My Heart
  38. A Sleepin' Bee
  39. Someone at Last
  40. Stormy Weather
  41. That Old Black Magic
  42. This Time The Dream's on Me
  43. What's Good About Goodbye?
  44. When the Sun Comes Out
  45. You're a Builder-Upper.

Click here for a database of songs written or co-written by
Harold Arlen
.
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Research Resources:
Harold Arlen

Harold Arlen research resources on the web (listed alphabetically by web source):
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Harold Arlen research resources in print (listed chronologically):
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Visitor Comments

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Credits

(Harold Arlen page)

 

Photo of Harold Arlen by Carl Van Vechten: Wikipedia/public doman.

 

Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this page:

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Any other images that appear on CafeSongbook.com pages are either in the public domain or appear through the specific permission of their owners. Such permission will be acknowledged in this space on the page where the image is used.

 

For further information on Cafe Songbook policies with regard to the above matters, see our "About Cafe Songbook" page (link at top and bottom of every page).


Cafe Songbook
Master List
of Great American Songbook Songwriters

Names of songwriters who have written at least one song included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook are listed below.

 

Names of songwriters with two or more song credits in the catalog (with rare exceptions) are linked to their own Cafe Songbook pages, e.g. Fields, Dorothy.

 

Names of songwriters with only one song credit in the catalog are linked to the Cafe Songbook page for that song, on which may be found information about the songwriter or a link to an information source for him or her.

 

Please note: Cafe Songbook pages for songwriters are currently in various stages of development.

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Adair, Tom

Adams, Lee

Adams, Stanley

Adamson, Harold

Ager, Milton

Ahbez, Eden

Ahlert, Fred

Akst, Harry

Alexander, Van

Allen, Lewis

Allen, Steve

Alter, Louis

Altman, Arthur

Anderson, Maxwell

Andre, Fabian

Arlen, Harold
Arnheim, Gus

Arodin, Sid

Atwood, Hub

Astaire, Fred

Austin, Gene

Ayer, Nat D.

Barbour, Dave

Barnes, Billy

Barris, Harry

Bassman, George

Belle, Barbara

Bennett, Dave

Bergman, Alan and Marilyn

Berlin, Irving

Bernie, Ben

Bernstein, Leonard

Best, William "Pat"

Blackburn, John

Blackwell, Otis (a.k.a. John Davenport)

Blake, Eubie

Blane, Ralph

Blitzstein, Marc

Bloom, Rube

Bock, Jerry

Block, Martin

Boland, Clay

Borne, Hal

Borodin, Alexander

Bowman, Brooks

Boyd, Elisse

Brent, Earl K.

Bricusse, Leslie

Brooks, Harry

Brooks, Shelton

Brown, Les

Brown, Lew

Brown, Nacio Herb

Brown, Seymour

Burke, Joe

Burke, Johnny

Burke, Sonny

Burnett, Ernie

Burns, Ralph

Burwell, Cliff

Bushkin, Joe

 

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Caesar, Irving

Cahn, Sammy

Caldwell, Anne

Campbell, Jimmy

Carey, Bill (William D.)

Carmichael, Hoagy

Carroll, Harry

Carter, Benny

Casey, Kenneth

Casucci, Leonello

Chaplin, Charlie

Chaplin, Saul

Charlap, Moose

Clare, Sidney

Chase, Newell

Churchill, Frank

Clarke, Grant

Clifford, Gordon

Clinton, Larry

Coates, Carroll

Coleman, Cy

Comden, Betty and Adolph Green

Conley, Larry

Connelly, Reginald

Conrad, Con

Cooley, Eddie

Coots, J. Fred

Cory, George

Coslow, Sam

Creamer, Henry

Crosby, Bing

Cross, Douglas

Daniels, Charles N.
Davenport, John (See Otis Blackwell.)

David, Mack

Davis, Benny

Davis, Jimmy

Dee, Sylvia

De Lange, Eddie

Denniker, Paul

Dennis, Matt

De Paul, Gene

De Rose, Peter

De Sylva, B.G. (Buddy)

DeVries, John

Dietz, Howard

Distel, Sacha

Dixon, Mort

Donaldson, Walter

Dorsey, Jimmy

Dougherty, Doc

Drake, Ervin
Drake, Milton

Dreyer, Dave

Dubin, Al

Duke, Vernon

Edens, Roger

Edwards, Michael

Egan, Raymond B.

Eliscu, Edward

Ellington, Duke

Elman, Ziggy

Engvick, William

Evans, Ray

Evans, Redd

Eyton, Frank

 

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Fain, Sammy

Fetter, Ted

Fields, Dorothy

Fischer, Carl

Fisher, Dan

Fisher, Fred

Fisher, Mark

Fisher, Marvin

Forrest, George

Freed, Arthur

Freed, Ralph

L. E. Freeman

Gaines, Lee

Gallop, Sammy

Gannon, Kim

Garner, Errol

Gaskill, Clarence

Gensler, Lewis E.

George, Don

Gershwin, George

Gershwin, Ira

Gillespie, Haven

Golden, John

Goodman, Benny

Goodwin, Joe

Gordon, Irving

Gordon, Mack

Gorney, Jay

Gorrell, Stuart

Goulding, Edmund

Grainger, Porter

Grand, Murray

Grant, Ian

Gray, Chauncey

Gray, Timothy

Grever, Maria

Grey, Clifford
Green, Adolph and Betty Comden

Green, Bud

Green, Freddie

Green, Johnny

Gross, Walter

Haggart, Bob

Hamilton, Arthur

Hamilton, Nancy

Hamm, Fred

Hammerstein, Arthur

Hammerstein II, Oscar

Hampton, Lionel

Handy, W. C.
Hanighen, Bernie

Hanley, James F.

Harbach, Otto

Harburg, E. Y. (Yip)

Harling, W. Franke

Harline, Leigh

Hart, Lorenz

Henderson, Jimmy

Henderson, Ray

Herbert, Victor

Herman, Woody

Herron, Joel S.

Herzog Jr., Arthur

Heyman, Edward

Heyward, Dubose

Higginbotham, Irene

Higgins, Billy

Hilliard, Bob

Hirsch, Walter

Hodges, Johnny

Holiday, Billie

Holiner, Mann

Hollander, Frederick

Holofcener, Larry

Homer, Ben

Hopper, Hal

Howard, Bart

Hubbell, Raymond

Hupfeld, Herman

 

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I-J

Jacobs, Jacob

Jaffe, Moe

James, Freddy (Pseud. for Teddy Powell)

James, Harry

James, Paul

Jenkins, Gordon

Johnson, James P.

Johnston, Arthur

Johnston, Patricia

Jolson, Al

Jones, Isham

Kahal, Irving

Kahn, Gus

Kahn, Roger Wolfe

Kalmar, Bert

Keith, Marilyn
Kent, Walter

Kern, Jerome

Kisco, Charles

Kitchings, Irene

Koehler, Ted

Kosma, Joseph

Kramer, Alex

Kramer, Joan Whitney

Kurtz, Manny

Laine, Frankie

Lamare, Jules (a.k.a Charles N.

Daniels and Neil Moret)

Lane, Burt
Landesman, Fran

Latouche, John

Lawrence, Eddie

Lawrence, Jack

Layton, Turner

Lee, Peggy

Leigh, Carolyn

Leonard, Anita

Lerner, Alan Jay
Leslie, Edgar

Levant, Oscar

Lewis, Morgan

Lewis, Sam M.

Link, Harry

Lippman, Sidney

Livingston, Fud

Livingston, Jay

Livingston, Jerry

Loeb, John Jacob

Loesser, Frank

Loewe, Frederick

Lombardo, Carmen

Lowe, Ruth

Lown, Bert
Lyman, Abe

 

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M

MacDonald, Ballard

Magidson, Herb
Malneck, Matty

Mancini, Henry

Mandel, Frank

Mandel, Johnny

Mann, David

Marks, Gerald

Martin, Hugh

Maschwitz, Eric

Mayer, Henry
McCarey, Leo

McCarthy, Joseph

McCarthy, Jr., Joseph

McHugh, Jimmy

McCoy, Joe

Mellin, Robert

Mercer, Johnny

Merrill, Bob

Mertz, Paul Madeira

Meyer, Joseph

Miles, Dick

Miller, Glenn

Miller, Nathan Ned

Mills, Irving
Mitchell, Sidney D.

Moll, Billy

Monaco, Jimmy

Moret, Neil (aka Charles N. Daniels)

Morey, Larry

Moross, Jerome

Mundy, Jimmy

Muse, Clarence

Myrow, Josef

Nemo, Henry

Newley, Anthony

Nichols, Alberta

Noble, Ray

Norman, Pierre
Norton, George A.

Oakland, Ben

Overstreet, Benton W.

Palmer, Jack

Palmer, Bee

Parish, Mitchell

Parker, Dorothy

Parker, Sol

Parsons, Geoffrey

Perkins, Frank S.

Phillipe-Gérard M(ichel)

Pinkard, Maceo

Porter, Cole

Prima, Louis

Prince, Graham

Prince, Hughie

 

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Rainger, Ralph

Raksin, David

Ram, Buck

Ramirez, Roger (Ram)

Rand Lionel

Raye, Don

Razaf, Andy

Reardon, Jack

Redmond, John

Rene, Leon T.

Rene, Otis

Revel, Harry

Reynolds, Ellis

Reynolds, Herbert

Rhodes, Stan

Robin, Leo

Robin, Sid

Robison, Willard

Rodgers, Richard

Romberg, Sigmund

Rome, Harold

Ronell, Ann
Rose, Billy

Rose, Fred

Rose, Vincent

Ruby, Harry

Ruby, Herman

Ruskin, Harry

Russell, Bob

Sampson, Edgar

Sanicola, Henry

Santly, Lester

Savitt, Jay

Secunda, Sholom

Segal Jack
Schertzinger, Victor
Schwandt, Wilbur

Schwartz, Arthur

Scott, Bertha

Shapiro, Ted

Shavers, Charlie

Shay, Larry

Shearing, George

Sherman, Jimmy

Sherwin, Manning

Sigman, Carl

Signorelli, Frank

Silvers, Phil

Simons, Seymour

Sinatra, Frank

Sissle, Noble

Skylar, Sunny

Snyder, Ted

Sondheim, Stephen

Sour, Robert
Spence, Lew

Springer, Philip

Stept, Sam H.

Stock, Larry

Stordahl, Axel

Strachey, Jack

Strayhorn, Billy

Strouse, Charles

Styne, Jule

Suessdorf, Karl

Suesse, Dana

Sullivan, Henry

Swan, Einar Aaron

Swift, Kay

Symes, Marty

 

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T-U

Tauber, Doris

Teagarten, Jack

Thompson, Kay
Tobias, Charles

Tobias, Harry

Tormé, Mel

Tracey, William G.
Trent, Jo

Troop, Bobby

Turk, Roy

Turner, John

Van Heusen, Jimmy (James)

Vimmerstedt, Sadie

Waller, Fats

Warfield, Charles

Warren, Harry

Washington, Ned
Watson, Johnny

Webb, Chick

Webster, Paul Francis

Weill, Kurt

Weiss, George David

Wells, Robert

Weston, Paul

Whiting, Richard A.

Whiting, George A.

Wilder, Alec

Wiley, Lee

Wilkinson, Dudley


Williams, Clarence

Williams, Spencer

Wodehouse, P. G.

Wolf, Donald E.

Wolf, Jack

Wolf, Tommy

Wood, Guy B

Woods, Harry M.

Wright, Lawrence

Wright, Robert

Wrubel, Allie

Yellen, Jack

Youmans, Vincent

Young, Joe

Young, Trummy

Young, Victor

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