The "Big Band Era"
Even before World War II it became a centre of activity for the popular music industry, especially music publishing and songwriting. Scores of music publishers had offices in the Brill Building. Once songs had been published, the publishers sent song pluggers to the popular white bands and radio stations. These song pluggers would sing and/or play the song for the band leaders to encourage bands to play their music.
During the ASCAP strike of 1941, many of the composers, authors and publishers turned to pseudonyms in order to have their songs played on the air.
Brill Building songs were constantly at the top of the Hit Parade and played by the leading bands of the day:
- The Benny Goodman Orchestra
- The Glenn Miller Orchestra
- The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra
- The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
Publishers included:
- Leo Feist Inc.
- Lewis Music Publishing
- Mills Music Publishing
Composers included:
- Buddy Feyne
- Johnny Mercer
- Rose Marie McCoy
- Irving Mills
- Billy Rose
- Peter Tinturin
Read more about this topic: Brill Building
Famous quotes containing the words big, band and/or era:
“Every thing in this world, said my father, is big with jest,—and has wit in it, and instruction too,—if we can but find it out.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)