Jack Yellen

b. 6 July 1892, Razcki, Poland, d. 17 April 1991, Springfield, New York, USA. Growing up in the USA after his family emigrated there in 1897, Yellen began writing both words and music for songs while still at school in Buffalo. Eventually he decided to concentrate on just lyrics, and, after working as a reporter on the local newspaper for a time, he moved to New York to pursue a professional songwriting career. During World War I he served in the US Army but still had some success with All Aboard For Dixie Land (1913), Are You From Dixie? (both with music by George L. Cobb) and How's Ev'ry Little Thing In Dixie? and Peaches (both with Albert Gumble). In 1920 he wrote Down By The O-H-I-O with Abe Olman. Many of his songs of this period and in the '20s were used in Broadway revues and shows such as WHAT'S IN A NAME?, BOMBO, RAIN OR SHINE, JOHN MURRAY ANDERSON'S ALMANAC, and George White's Scandals. After serving in the US Army during World War I, Yellen was introduced to composer Milton Ager and they began a fruitful association which initially resulted in A Young Man's Fancy, Who Cares?, Hard-Hearted Hannah, The Vamp Of Savannah, Crazy Words, Crazy Tune and Ain't She Sweet?, one of the smash hit songs that typified the Roaring Twenties. In 1928, Yellen and Ager went to Hollywood where they collaborated on such songs as I'm The Last Of The Red Hot Mommas (from the film HONKY TONK), Happy Feet, Glad Rag Doll (with Dan Dougherty), A Bench In The Park and Happy Days Are Here Again. The latter became the theme song of the Democratic Party and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was synonymous with the promised emergence from the Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal. Much later, it was the enduring income from Barbra Streisand's highly individual, ironic and anti-political slow version of the song which she recorded on her first album in 1963, that helped to sustain Yellen in the last bed-ridden days of his life. In 1925 Yellen joined with Lew Pollack on both words and music for one song, written to record his emotions on the death of his mother. When it was sung by Sophie Tucker, My Yiddishe Momme, one of the all-time great ‘sob’ songs, became a huge success with audiences of all races and creeds. In the '30s Yellen also worked with Harold Arlen and Ray Henderson and wrote lyrics and/or screenplays for several musical films, including the early Technicolor King Of Jazz, CHASING RAINBOWS, George White's Scandals, GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS OF 1935, Sing, Baby, Sing, KING OF BURLESQUE, HAPPY LANDING, and two Shirley Temple vehicles, CAPTAIN JANUARYand REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM. From 1939 Yellen took another fling at Broadway, writing with Sammy Fain, Henderson and others, for shows such as GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS, BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER, SON O'FUN, and Ziegfeld FolliesOF 1943. Among the best songs from this period was Are You Havin Any Fun?’ and Something I Dreamed Last Night (both Fain). Yellen was particularly associated with Sophie Tucker for whom he wrote several amusing songs over the years, including Stay At Home Papa (with Dougherty), No One Man Is Ever Going To Worry Me (Ted Shapiro), Life Begins At Forty (Shapiro), and Is He My Boy Friend? (Ager). Yellen retired in the late '40s to concentrate on his egg farm business, and was inducted into the US Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 1976. He was one of the first members of ASCAP in 1917, and served on its board from 1951-69.