Fred Fisher

Fred Fisher
Fred Fisher
	1915 photo of Fred Fisher
Background information
Birth name	Alfred Breitenbach
Also known as	Fred Fischer
Born	September 30, 1875; Cologne, Germany
Died	January 14, 1942 (aged 66); Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Songwriter, music publisher
Years active	1900s–1940

Fred Fisher (born Alfred Breitenbach; September 30, 1875 – January 14, 1942)^[1] was a German-born American songwriter and Tin Pan Alley music publisher.

Biography

Fisher was born in Cologne, Germany.^[1] His parents were Max and Theodora Breitenbach. After visiting the United States in 1892, he immigrated in 1900, where he adopted the name Fred Fischer. He founded the Fred Fischer Music Publishing Company in 1907. During World War I he changed his surname to Fisher to make it seem less Germanic.^[2]

In 1914, Fred Fisher married Ana Fisher (née Davidovitch, later anglicized as Davis; born 1896). Their children – Daniel ("Danny"; 1920–2001), Marvin (1916–1993), and Doris (1915–2003) – also wrote songs professionally.^[3] Fisher died by suicide in Manhattan, New York,^[4]^[5] and was interred at Maimonides Cemetery in Brooklyn.

In 1970, Fred Fisher was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Ripley's "Believe It or Not" column credited him with writing more Irish songs than anyone else.^[6]

Selected compositions

"If the Man in the Moon Were a Coon," by Fred Fischer, Will Rossiter (1867–1954) (pub) (1905) OCLC 497077685 (this was his first hit; it combined two then-popular song themes, Moon songs and Coon songs)
"Come Josephine In My Flying Machine," by Fred Fischer, Shapiro (pub) (1910) OCLC 6586232
"Peg O' My Heart, words by Alfred Bryan, music by Fred Fisher, Leo Feist (pub) (1913) OCLC 11149171
"Who paid the rent for Mrs. Rip Van Winkle?" words by Alfred Bryan, music by Fred Fischer, Leo Feist (pub) (1914) OCLC 49782832
"Lorraine (My Beautiful Alsace Lorraine)" lyrics by Alfred Bryan, music by Fred Fisher, McCarthy & Fisher (pub) (1917) OCLC 13465614
"They Go Wild, Simply Wild, Over Me," words by Joseph McCarthy (1885–1943), music by Fred Fisher, McCarthy & Fisher (pub) (1917) OCLC 17811063
"The Popular Wobbly," parody of "They Go Wild, Simply Wild, Over Me," words by T-Bone Slim (1880–1942), Industrial Workers of the World (pub) (1920)
"Dardanella," words by Fred Fisher, music by Felix Bernard (1897–1944) & Johnny S. Black (1895–1936), McCarthy & Fisher Inc. (1919) OCLC 10206915
"Chicago," by Fred Fisher, Fred Fisher (pub) (1922) OCLC 20597644
"That's When Your Heartaches Begin," by William Raskin, George Brown (Billy Hill), and Fred Fisher, Fred Fisher Music Co. (1940) (an Ink Spots tune recorded in 1957 by Elvis) OCLC 46387847
"Your Feet's Too Big," by Ada Benson, Fred Fisher, The Four Ink Spots (1936) OCLC 497463463
"I'd Rather Be Blue," words by Billy Rose, music by Fred Fisher, Irving Berlin (pub) (1928) OCLC 25122790
"Whispering Grass," words by Fred Fisher, music by Doris Fisher, Mills Music Inc. (pub) (1940) OCLC 26008157

Some of his other songs are;

1917 "Pull the Cork Out of Erin Let the River Shannon Flow". L: Addison Burkhardt^[7]
1918 "Come Across, Yankee Boy, Come Across". L: Alfred Bryan^[8]
1918 "In the Harbor of My Mother's Arms". L: Monty Brice^[8]
1918 "Little Blue Bonnet Girl"^[8]
1918 "Mister McAdoo". L:Joseph McCarthy & Alfred Bryan^[8]
1918 "Oui, Oui, Marie". L: Alfred Bryan^[7]
1918 "Sink All Your Ships in the Ocean Blue". L: Jack Glogau^[7]
1918 "Wee, Wee, Marie (Will You Do Zis for Me)". L: Joseph McCarthy & Alfred Bryan^[7]
1918 "We're All Comrades Now". L: Joseph McCarthy^[7]
1918 "When Yankee Doodle Sails Upon the Good Ship Home Sweet Home". L: Addison Burkhardt^[7]

Filmography

My Man (1928) Fanny Brice sings "I'd Rather Be Blue", a Fisher-Billy Rose collaboration that was later covered by Barbra Streisand.
Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949) This film is a fictionalized Hollywood biography featuring many of Fisher's songs. A Tin Pan Alley promoter (Mark Stevens) turns serious composer Fred Breitenbach (S.Z. Sakall) into songwriter Fred Fisher.

Gallery

Come Josephine In My Flying Machine 1910
They Go Wild, Simply Wild, Over Me 1917
Dardanella 1919
Chicago 1922

References

General references Source Citation:

American National Biography. 24 volumes. Edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999
American Popular Songs. From the Revolutionary War to the present. Edited by David Ewen. New York: Random House, 1966
American Songwriters. By David Ewen. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1987
The ASCAP Biographical Dictionary. Third edition. New York: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, 1966
ASCAP Biographical Dictionary. Fourth edition. Compiled for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers by Jaques Cattell Press. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1980
Biographical Dictionary of American Music. By Charles Eugene Claghorn. West Nyack, NY: Parker Publishing Co., 1973
Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Volume 1: January 1946 – July 1949. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1949
Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Volume 6: September 1961 – August 1964. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1965
Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Volume 15: September 1986 – August 1988. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1988
Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Volume 16: September 1988 – August 1990. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1990
The Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz, 1900–1950. Three volumes. By Roger D. Kinkle. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers, 1974. Biographies are located in Volumes 2 and 3
Dictionary of Pseudonyms. Third edition. By Adrian Room. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1998
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Third edition. Eight volumes. Edited by Colin Larkin. London: MUZE, 1998. Grove's Dictionaries, New York, 1998
The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music. Composers and their music. Supplement. By William H. Rehrig. Westerville, OH: Integrity Press, 1996
The New American Dictionary of Music. By Philip D. Morehead with Anne MacNeil. New York: Dutton, 1991
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Four volumes. Edited by H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Press, 1986
Notable Names in the American Theatre. Clifton, NJ: James T. White & Co., 1976. Earlier edition published as The Biographical Encyclopaedia and Who's Who of the American Theatre
The Oxford Companion to Popular Music. By Peter Gammond. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1991
Popular American Composers. From Revolutionary times to the present. A biographical and critical guide. First edition. Compiled and edited by David Ewen. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1962
Songwriters. A biographical dictionary with discographies. By Nigel Harrison. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1998
Sweet and Lowdown. America's popular song writers. By Warren Craig. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1978. Biographies appear in the 'After Tin Pan Alley' section, beginning on page 91
Tin Pan Alley. An encyclopedia of the golden age of American song. By David A. Jasen. New York: Routledge, 2003

Inline citations

^ ^a ^b Colin Larkin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 867. ISBN 0-85112-939-0.
^ Jack Gottlieb, Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood, Volume 1, p. 25, SUNY Press (2004) ISBN 0-8444-1130-2 ISBN 9780844411309
^ Honor Roll of Popular Song Writers: No. 13 – Fred Fisher, by Jack Burton, Billboard (magazine), p. 48, March 19, 1949
^ Songwriters Attend Fred Fisher's Rites: Buck Praises Him for Great Contribution to Music,The New York Times, January 17, 1942
^ Hit Songs' Author Suicide by Hanging, The New York Times, January 15, 1942
^ Jack Gottlieb, Funny ... , pg 25
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Parker, Bernard S. (2007). World War I Sheet Music – Volume 2. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 489, 547, 586, 758, 764, 787. ISBN 978-0-7864-2799-4.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Parker, Bernard S. (2007). World War I Sheet Music - Volume 1. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 80, 303, 378, 415. ISBN 978-0-7864-2798-7.