Talk on Sunday Will Examine Music's Golden Age

Any lover of American popular music is certain to know the songs of George and Ira Gershwin, and now the is offering a program devoted to the brothers’ songs, and the stories behind them.

During his June 19 lecture in song about the Gershwins, Fred Miller will play songs on the piano, share stories about the brothers and their music and take questions from the audience.

Miller is a devotee of the Great American Songbook and began presenting lectures about composers like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hammerstein about 12 years ago. He then expanded his lecture topics to include performers like Fred Astaire, Franks Sinatra and Judy Garland, eras of music and songs devoted to different holidays.

The Gershwin lecture will talk about the brothers’ songs of course and also their lives.

“Music in all the lectures is always the foremost thing,” Miller says. “I built the programs around the songs and pretty much do it chronologically… And then I throw in little tidbits of biographical information as I go. I kind of give a fleshed-out picture of these personalities as I perform the music.”

Audience members can expect to hear famous songs like “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You” and “Our Love is Hear to Stay.” He also shares some lesser-known tunes. One of those comes from the early 1930s, a tough time for the Gershwins, according to Miller, because of the Depression and because George was going through a personal crisis.

“He was always kind of a very complicated guy anyway but there was a year, suddenly, where he wasn’t as prolific as he had been,” Miller says of George Gershwin, who died in 1937. “I think he was also at a kind of crossroads in his life and his career where he didn’t know how to top himself.”

By this point he had written “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris,” giving him respect as a classical music composer in addition to a great songwriter.

“In 1933, he and Ira did a show called ‘Pardon My English,’ which was a total flop,” Miller says. “Everybody hated it but out of that came a beautiful song called ‘Isn’t A Pity.’ It’s been sung by many, many people but it’s not one that immediately jumps to mind.”

As respected and loved as these songs are, Miller says it’s likely they were taken for granted in their day.

“You see there’s a Rodgers and Hart show playing, there’s a Gershwin show playing, there’s a Cole Porter playing, and you think ‘Oh, another Cole Porter. Oh Ethel Merman’s at the Imperial Theatre again, ho hum,’” he says. “Little did anybody realize that this thing was a glorious age, the likes of which will never come again.”

We may never see another golden age like that again, he says, because the business end of songwriting is different.

George Gershwin, for example, started writing for a publishing company on New York City’s Tin Pan Alley in the early 20th century. His first big hit was “Swanee,” which Al Jolsen made legendary. He and Ira wrote Broadway shows, including “Funny Face,” “Strike Up the Band” and 1931’s “Of Thee I Sing,” which was the first Broadway musical to win a Pulitzer Prize.

George also wrote classical music pieces and operas, like the groundbreaking “Porgy and Bess,” which he wrote with DuBose Heyward in 1935.

The results were songs that remain loved generations after they were first presented to the public.

“It was an era where good music was popular and popular music was good, which means you’ve got incredible music that was also mainstream and making a fortune,” Miller says. “When you have that, when it makes money and it also happens to be good, you’ve got a golden age.”

Fred Miller will present a Lecture in Song about the Gershwins at the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St. on June 19 at 3 p.m. Admission is free. For information, go to www.princeton.lib.nj.us or call 609-924-9529.