Al Sherman - Career

Career

In the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Al collaborated with songwriters including Sam Coslow, Irving Mills, Charles O'Flynn, Al Dubin, Pat Flaherty, B.G. deSylva, Harold Tobias, Howard Johnson, Harry M. Woods, Alfred Bryan, Buddy Fields, Archie Fletcher, Al Lewis, Abner Silver, Edward Heyman, Buddy Feyne and many others. Al quickly rose to become one of "Tin Pan Alley's" most sought after songwriters.

Between 1931 and 1934, during the last days of Vaudeville, Al and several of his fellow hitmakers formed a sensational review called "Songwriters on Parade", performing all across the Eastern seaboard on the Loew's and Keith circuits.

Some of Al Sherman's most well known songs also include, "Wanita", "Save Your Sorrow", "Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.)", "Pretending", "On the Beach at Bali-Bali", "Over Somebody Else's Shoulder", "No! No! A Thousand Times No!!", "For Sentimental Reasons", "(What Do We Do on a) Dew Dew Dewey Day", "Nine Little Miles from Ten-Ten-Tennessee" and "Ninety-Nine Out of a Hundred (Wanna Be Loved)".

Maurice Chevalier's American breakthrough hit was an Al Sherman/Al Lewis song entitled "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" from the Paramount Picture The Big Pond. "You Gotta Be a Football Hero" has been played, sung and marched to since 1933 when Fred Waring and his "Pennsylvanians" introduced it on the radio.

The Sherman/Fletcher song "On a Little Bamboo Bridge" became a hit for Louis Armstrong. Artists who recorded Al Sherman songs include Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Eddie Cantor, Rudy Vallée, Ozzie Nelson, Lawrence Welk, Peggy Lee, Patti Page, Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra among many others.

Some of his most memorable songs include songs for major Broadway revues, including the Ziegfeld Follies, George White's Scandals, The Passing Show and Earl Carroll's Vanities.

Beside writing "Livin' in the Sunlight" for The Big Pond, Al also wrote for many other films including songs for the motion pictures: Sweetie, The Sky's the Limit and Sensations of 1945.

Al Sherman's style and settings are suggested by such song titles as "Got the Bench, Got the Park", "Woodland Reverie", "Never a Dream Goes By" and "When You Waltz with the One You Love". Although he would continue to write songs and musical compositions until his death, Al wrote his last big song in 1952, "Comes A-Long A-Love", and was sung by Kay Starr.