John George Lange (August 15, 1905 – January 6, 2006) was an American

songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

, working mostly in the motion picture industry. His chief musical collaborators were

Archie Gottler Archie Gottler (May 14, 1896 – June 24, 1959) was an American composer, screenwriter, actor, and film director.

and Jack Meskill.

Biography

Lange was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and attended high school there. He began writing for film studios in 1937, and joined

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

in 1940. He resumed his film music career in 1946 and 1947, after World War II. He also wrote special material for night club singers, and the "Ice Capades of 1950". Lange's most popular composition was " Mule Train" which earned him an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

nomination in 1950 (it was featured in the film '' Singing Guns''). The ASCAP online database shows him as the author of 211 songs. Among them are such well-known compositions as "Blue Shadows on the Trail" and " Clancy Lowered the Boom".

Death

Johnny Lange died in Los Angeles in 2006, at the age of 100.

References

1905 births 2006 deaths American men centenarians 20th-century American composers Musicians from Philadelphia Songwriters from Pennsylvania 20th-century American songwriters {{US-songwriter-stub