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Sammy Fain


Sammy Sings Fain
Sammy Sings Fain

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Basic Information

Born: Samuel Feinberg, June 17, 1902, New York City

Died: December 6, 1989 (age 87), Los Angeles, California

Primary songwriting role: composer; also lyricist, musician, and music publisher

Co-writers: frequently Irving Kahal, Victor Young, Paul Francis Webster, Yip Harburg, Lew Brown, Jack Yellen, Sammy Cahn, Bob HIlliard, Mitchell Parish, and Henry Mancini. Also view a database of 40 Sammy Fain co-writers.

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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:
Sammy Fain
(This section is currently in preparation)

Sammy Fain
sheet music

"When I Take My Sugar to Tea" sheet music cover
"When I Take My Sugar To Tea"
words and music by
Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal and Pierre Norman originally published 1931

 

sheet music cover: Was That the Human Thing To Do?
"Was That the Human Thing to Do?"
Words by Joe Young, Music by Sammy Fain, words by Irving Kahal, featuring Guy Lombardo
1931

sheet music cover: I Can Dream, Can't I?
"I Can Dream,
Can't I?"

words by Irving Kahal, Music by Sammy Fain,
Featuring
The Andrews Sisters
1936

Sammy Fain epitomizes the American songwriter of first half of the 20th century in terms of versatility, writing songs for Tin Pan Alley publishers, Broadway shows and Hollywood movies, most often writing the music, sometimes the words and not that infrequently, both. He began publishing his work in the 1920s and continued into the 1970s. His most well known songs range from standards such as "I'll Be Seeing You" (1938) to smash hits limited in their popularity to a partiular time such as "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" (1955).

Fain's route into the songwriting business was not unique. Like Irving Berlin and Harold Arlen, his father was a cantor. And like Berlin, George Gershwin and others, he got his start working at a Tin Pan Alley publishing house, Mills Music, as a staff pianist. His training for this was having taught himself how to play.

His first success was "Nobody Knows What a Red Head Mamma Can Do" with lyrics by Al Dubin (1924) with lyrics by Al Dubin and Irving Mills. By the time he wrote the music for "Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine" (words by Irving Kahal and Willie Raskin) in 1929, his reputation had been made. The timing was good because it was at that time that the demand for songwriters for Hollywood musicals were in demand and an early suuccess was "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me, for which he wrote the music with Pierre Norman. The song was created for the movie "The Big Pond" and had lyrics by Kahal. That song was followed by another written for a movie, "A New Kind of Love" with words by Joe Young and recorded and made popular by Guy Lombardo in 1931. The thirties saw several more hits, 1937 yielding two more standards written for films: "That Old Feeling" with a lyric by Lew Brown, introduced by Virginia Verrill in Vogues of 1938, and "I Dream, Can't I?" with words by Kahal, sung by Tamara in Right This Way. "Are You Having Any Fun" brought about a return to Broadway with "Are You Having Any Fun," lyricist Jack Yellen, which was sung by Ella Logan in George White's Scandals of 1939 as well as becoming a hit record for her.

The forties began with a revival of "I'll Be Seeing You," becasue of its resonance for soldiers who were leaving for overseas and their wives and sweehearts at home. The decade ended with a huge hit for Fain and Bob Hilliard, "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" in 1949, which was recorded by Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby among others.

The fifties continued the parade of hits for Fain with "Secret Love" (lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) made for the movie Calamity Jane for which it won Fain his first Oscar. The biggest recording was, of course, by Doris Day. Fain's second Oscar came in 1955 for "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing," the title song for the movie, again with lyric by Webster. Other Webster collaborations included "April Love" (1957), " A Certain Smile" 1958, and "Tender Is the Night" (1961). Fain was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972., some seventeen years before his death in 1989.

 

   
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Cafe Songbook
Music-Video Cabinet:
Sammy Fain



Peter Mintun comments on and performs the
1937 song "Our Penthouse on Third Avenue" with music by Sammy Fain and words by Lew Brown from the film New Faces of 1937. Mintun explains how much the Manhattan neighborhood described in the song has changed from 1937 to the 21st century.
"Secret Love" on Clasical Guitar

Swedish guitarist Martin Fogel plays Sammy Fain's 1953 Academy Award winning melody "Secret Love" from the Movie Calamity Jane, arranged by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu.


Sammy Fain - The Song Book
(1925-1955)

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"The King Who Couldn't Dance" (The Worry Song) from Anchors Aweigh: composer, Sammy Fain; lyricist, Ralph Freed;. Performers: Gene Kelly and Jerry the Mouse (voice of Sara Berner) with the MGM Studio Orchestra conducted by George Stoll. ("The Worry Song," by written by Fain and Freed, is actually interpolatedinto the Anchors Aweigh score, not another Sammy Cahn-Jule Styne composition like the other songs in the movie.)
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Sammy Fain Songs
currently included in the
Cafe Songbook Catalog of
The Great American Songbook
  1. Are You Havin' Any Fun?
  2. I Can Dream, Can't I?
  3. I'll Be Seeing You
  4. That Old Feeling
  5. When I Take My Sugar to Tea
  6. You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me
Click here for a database of songs written or co-written by Sammy Fain.
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Research Resources:
Sammy Fain

Sammy Fain research resources on the web (listed alphabetically by web source):
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Sammy Fain research resources in print (listed chronologically):
 
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Credits

(Sammy Fain page)

 

Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this page:

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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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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

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Brown, Lew

Brown, Nacio Herb

Brown, Seymour

Burke, Joe

Burke, Johnny

Burke, Sonny

Burnett, Ernie

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Bushkin, Joe

 

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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
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Dreyer, Dave

Dubin, Al

Duke, Vernon

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Edwards, Michael

Egan, Raymond B.

Eliscu, Edward

Ellington, Duke

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Eyton, Frank

 

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Fetter, Ted

Fields, Dorothy

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Fisher, Dan

Fisher, Fred

Fisher, Mark

Fisher, Marvin

Forrest, George

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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

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Hollander, Frederick

Holofcener, Larry

Homer, Ben

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James, Harry

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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
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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

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Livingston, Fud

Livingston, Jay

Livingston, Jerry

Loeb, John Jacob

Loesser, Frank

Loewe, Frederick

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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.

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Parsons, Geoffrey

Perkins, Frank S.

Phillipe-Gérard M(ichel)

Pinkard, Maceo

Porter, Cole

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Prince, Hughie

 

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Rhodes, Stan

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Shay, Larry

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Sigman, Carl

Signorelli, Frank

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Sinatra, Frank

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Skylar, Sunny

Snyder, Ted

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Sour, Robert
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Springer, Philip

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