July 5 - Mack David

Image courtesy songhall.org

On this day, in 1912, Mack David was born in New York, New York. Growing up in a traditional Jewish family (his parents owned a delicatessen in Brooklyn), Mack had aspirations towards becoming a lawyer. He even spent several years at Cornell University and the law school at St. John’s University trying to make that dream come true. When his younger brother, Hal, was contemplating career paths, and considering going into song writing, Mack did everything he could to discourage him, telling him to choose something with more stability. Which really spreads a thick layer of irony over the outcome of Mack’s own life.

Maybe it was because Hal completely ignored his big brother’s advice, went into the music business and a spirit of competition kicked in or maybe Mack just wanted to see if he could be successful at it, but in the early Forties, Mack began writing songs. He was primarily a lyricist, but he would occasionally write the music as well. Some of his early hits were Just a Kid Named Joe for the Mills Brothers, The Singing Hills for Bing Crosby, Take Me for Jimmy Dorsey, Blue and Sentimental for Count Basie and Sunflower for Frank Sinatra. Not only were those songs originally written for big names but all of them have been covered by other artists over the years as well (Blue and Sentimental alone has appeared on over 100 different albums).

Image copyright Disney

These successful compositions gave Mack the courage to move out to Hollywood and begin writing music for the pictures. In 1950, he, along with writing partners Jerry Livingstone and Al Hoffman, became part of the Disney family in a big way, writing several songs for the studio’s twelfth animated feature, Cinderella. If you ever find yourself humming A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo or The Working Song, you’re familiar with the trio’s work. When the Oscar nominations were announced for that year, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo made the list for Best Song, giving Mack his first award nomination (Mona Lisa from Captain Carey,USA edged him out for the win). As if those songs weren’t enough of a contribution to Disneyana, the boys returned for the next feature, Alice in Wonderland, with The Unbirthday Song.

Image copyright Disney

After his Oscar nominated work with Disney, Mack became a sought after, and highly prolific, songwriter for the next two decades. When the dust settled in the early Seventies, he had credits for lyrics or music (and sometimes both) on over 1,000 songs. He was nominated for an Academy Award seven more times after Cinderella, for his work in The Hanging Tree (1959), Bachelor in Paradise (1961), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1961), Walk on the Wild Side (1962), Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964), Cat Ballou (1965) and Hawaii (1966). Unfortunately, he never did get one of the little golden men for his mantel, making him one of the most nominated but never won Oscar honorees. In 1975, Mack was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Image courtesy picclick,com

In addition to his film work, Mack also continued to write songs for pop artists (Baby It’s You for the Shirelles and It Must Be You for Gilbert Becaud), television (the theme to Casper the Friendly Ghost) and Broadway (the 1973 musical Molly and 1981’s Sophisticated Ladies). One of his biggest hits was his reimagining of the lyrics to the French song La Vie en Rose, which has been recorded by over 80 artists around the world and featured in dozens of films (I say reimagined because he didn’t write a strict translation of Edith Pilaf’s original lyrics but wrote new ones that honored their spirit).

So after several decades in the songwriting business, Mack had sufficiently put to rest his own fears that it wouldn’t be a very steady work to get into. His little brother, Hal, by the way, also had a long and prolific career doing the same thing (and Hal got into the Songwriters Hall of Fame three years earlier, probably just out of spite). On December 30, 1993, the New York lawyer turned song master passed away quietly in his home in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 81.

September 25 - Al Hoffman

On this day, in 1902, composer Al Hoffman was born in Minsk, Russia. When Al was six, the Hoffman family relocated to Seattle, Washington. After graduating from high school, Al got even farther a way from the Mother Country by moving to New York and becoming a drummer in a band. In order to survive and keep at his fledgling musical career at night, Al would spend the day selling bagels door-to-door. In any spare time he had, he would also write songs, occasionally by himself but most often in collaboration with others.

Hits from this early period include 1932's "Fit as a Fiddle," which would regain popularity 20 years later when it showed up in Singing in the Rain. 1931's "I Apologize" reached number eight on the charts and entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

In 1934, Al continued his migration east, moving to London. For the next three years he worked on stage productions and movies. Hits from his cockney period include "She Shall Have Music" and "Everything Stops for Tea." By 1937, Al had tired of the British life. For once he traveled west and returned to the United States.

Al's biggest ear worm of a hit would occur in 1943 at the height of World War II. It caused such a crazed sensation that the New York Times ran an article about the phenomenon simply titled "That Song". It's a silly song, apparently exactly what people needed at that point in the war, and I'm pretty sure you've heard it. It's called "Mairzy Doats" and it goes "Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey..." And now, if you've ever heard it before even once, it's stuck in your head and, no, I'm not particularly sorry about that. It went up the charts several times with multiple people singing it, hitting number one at least once and sold over 450,000 copies of the sheet music withing the first three weeks.

Al made four significant contributions to the Disney songbook, all of them collaborations with Mack David and Jerry Livingston. The first few came in 1950 for Cinderella and one also included some nonsensical lyrics. I'm talking about the thingamabob that does the job, of course, "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo." The boys put a song in the heart of the film's leading lady with "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and "So This Is Love." The fourth song that's entered into a special place in Disney lore comes from 1951's Alice in Wonderland. Of all the songs in that movie, Al's is the one everyone remembers the most, "The Unbirthday Song."

Al continued to write hit songs throughout the 1950s. By the end of his life, he had over 1,500 songs registered with ASCAP. He passed away from prostate cancer at the age of 57 in 1960. Twenty-four years later, he was finally given a spot in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame.