"When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band to France" is a
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
era song written by
Alfred Bryan,
Cliff Hess
Clifford Hess, better known as Cliff Hess, (June 19, 1894 – June 8, 1959) was an American songwriter, composer, lyricist, and pianist. He began his career as pianist while a young teenager working on passenger riverboats on the Mississippi River ...
, and
Edgar Leslie
Edgar Leslie (December 31, 1885 – January 22, 1976) was an American songwriter.
Biography
Edgar Leslie was born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1885. He studied at the Cooper Union in New York. He published his first song in 1909, starting a ...
in 1918. The song was performed by
Marion Harris
Marion Harris (born Mary Ellen Harrison; March 25, 1897 – April 23, 1944) was an American popular singer who was most successful in the late 1910s and the 1920s. She was the first widely-known white singer to sing jazz and blues songs.Ward, Elij ...
and released as a single by
Victor Records
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Victor was an independent enterprise until 1929 when it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and became ...
in June 1918.
Sheet music
Albert Barbelle provided the cover illustration for the sheet music, which features a drawing of a marching band.
Belle Baker
Belle Baker (born Bella Becker; December 25, 1893 in New York City – April 29, 1957, in Los Angeles) was a American Jews, Jewish American singer and actress. Popular throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Baker introduced a number of ragtime and ...
is featured in the photograph inset.
Reception
Marion Harris' performance of ''When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band to France'' reached number four on the US song charts in 1918.
See also
*
Alexander's Ragtime Band
"Alexander's Ragtime Band" is a Tin Pan Alley song by American composer Irving Berlin released in 1911; it is often inaccurately cited as his first global hit. Despite its title, the song is a march as opposed to a rag and contains little sync ...
Notes
References
External links
*Audio file of ''When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band to France'' {{cite web, title=''When Alexander Takes His Ragtime Band to France'' , url=https://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/6670/, publisher=
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
, accessdate=20 November 2015
Songs about musicians
1918 songs
Songs of World War I
Songs with lyrics by Alfred Bryan
Songs written by Edgar Leslie
Songs about France