Irving Berlin

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Irving Berlin
With a life that spanned more than 100 years and a catalogue that boasted over 1000 songs, Irving Berlin epitomized Jerome Kern's famous maxim, that "Irving Berlin has no place in American music - he is American music". (2)
Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline in Eastern Russia on May 11, 1888.. He was one of eight children born to Leah and Moses Baline. When Irving was five his family decided to move New York City to escape the persecution in Russia. Irving’s father died when Irving was just eight years old, this unfortunately forced Irving to make the decision to take to the streets of the lower East Side of New York City, in search of employment. Some of the jobs Irving worked as were a busker, singing for pennies, then as a singer / waiter in a Chinatown café. While working in Chinatown Irving got his first big break, he earned his first songwriting credit with the words to Marie from Sunny Italy. In that year, he changed his name to Irving Berlin. By 1909, he was working as a staff lyricist on Tin Pan Alley.
In 1911, the song "Alexander's Ragtime Band" catapulted a 23-year-old composer named Irving Berlin to international stardom. He soon began composing his own tunes as well as lyrics, but he never learned to play a piano properly or to read music. On a conventional piano, he used only the black keys. Throughout his career, he relied on an instrument called a transposing piano, which made it possible to change keys with the shift of a lever. After composing a tune, Berlin either sang or played it for an assistant, who would then transcribe it into musical notation. In that way, he produced a lifetime catalogue of some 1,500 songs, including such long-forgotten numbers as Father's Beard and You Cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake on Tea, along with more enduring hits. He once said that he composed "under a nervous strain," adding, "more often than otherwise, I feel as if my life depends on my accomplishing a song....