“Introduction” to Richard Rodgers

Abstract

Abstract According to Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (8th ed., 1991), David Ewen (1907-1985) has “published more books on music and edited more reference publications than anyone else in the 20th century (some 85 in all).” His many American musical theater subjects include the dated but still useful New Complete Book of the American Musical (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970) and books on Irving Berlin (1950), Jerome Kern (1953), George Gershwin (1956; rev. 1970), Leonard Bernstein (1960), and Cole Porter (1965).