Ira Gershwin A life in words

Review by Booklist Review

Like many of the great musicians who contributed to American pop culture, Ira Gershwin was the child of immigrants. His parents emigrated to the U.S. from Russia in the late nineteenth century, among two million Eastern European Jews. Gershwin, originally Israel Gershovitz, was born in New York's Lower East Side in 1896, and Owen captures, in pungent details, the atmosphere of the city at the time--its smells and tastes, its sights and sounds, from horses' hooves to electrified trolleys. This is where Ira, a precocious schoolboy, learned to nurture his love of words on the way to becoming a renowned songwriter. Along with his younger composer brother, George, he created some of the most indelible songs of the modern era, including "Fascinating Rhythm," "Someone to Watch over Me," "Embraceable You," "I Got Rhythm," and "They Can't Take That Away from Me." After George's untimely death at 38 in 1937, Ira joined forces with other composers, including Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Kurt Weill, and Jerome Kern. Gershwin died in 1983 at 86. Owens presents an invaluable tribute to the iconic lyricist and his legacy.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Lyricist Ira Gershwin (1896--1983) gets the due long afforded to his brother George in this meticulous account. Music historian Owen (Go Slow) recaps Gershwin's upbringing in turn of the 20th-century New York City, where he read voraciously and paid close attention to street slang, fueling his love for language. After a slow start as a lyricist in his early 20s, he began collaborating with his composer brother, adding lyrics to George's jazzy tunes in 1924's Lady, Be Good. The brothers later garnered praise for such Broadway and TV productions as Porgy and Bess and Shall We Dance? George's early death in 1937 devastated Gershwin and diverted him from songwriting as he dealt with an "endless minutiae of contracts and royalties," before having a creative revival with 1940's Lady in the Dark. Owens provides a solid if occasionally dry recounting of Gershwin's career, though readers will be most captivated by the glimpses of a sensitive, complex artist that peek through the cracks. Especially memorable are the depictions of Gershwin as a "floating soul" in his early 20s who "struggled to find his own voice" as "endless melodies... flowed from George's fingertips," and as an artist who found his voice again after the "inertia" that set in following his brother's death. It's a fitting tribute to a vital influence on 20th-century American music. (Nov.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Owen (Go Slow: The Life of Julie London) has written the first full-length biography of Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist Ira Gershwin (1896--1983). His younger brother George gained fame first, with jazzy pop tunes and compositions like "Rhapsody in Blue." But after Ira began collaborating with George, no one could surpass them. Their first successful song partnership was 1922's "(I'll Build a) Stairway to Paradise." Owen's book is divided into three parts: Ira's writing with George; his work after George died in 1937, including three Oscar nominations for best song (notably "The Man Who Got Away"); and his final years struggling to guard George's reputation (often against the machinations of his own family) while slowly, reluctantly compiling a book of his own lyrics. Owen lovingly describes how Ira built songs. Gershwin believed a song should plant only one idea in itself, preferably in the title. He also gloried in multi-syllabic rhymes like "embraceable/replaceable," "tipsy in me/gypsy in me." One critic wrote he must have been born with a rhyming dictionary in his mouth. VERDICT Great reading for more than music lovers. This will be the definitive book on Ira for a long time.--David Keymer

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Singing the praises of George Gershwin's brother and musical collaborator. Ira Gershwin has long been overshadowed by his younger brother George, who died of brain cancer at the age of 38. Yet Ira, writes cultural historian Owen, was his own man, whose "true religion was words." He labored away at songs that have long since entered the American songbook: "I Got Rhythm," "'S Wonderful," "Embraceable You." As Owen writes, a constant source of tension was Ira's deliberate, perfectionist approach to writing, even as George seemingly dashed off classics such asRhapsody in Blue (a title Ira came up with) andPorgy and Bess: "George wanted his brother to work more quickly, as the endless melodies that flowed from George's fingertips could not wait while Ira struggled to find his own voice." Ira was easygoing and modest, though when fame caught up with him, he took the familiar route of high living and, in middle age, "the popping of pills--whether uppers to lift his mood during the day or barbiturates to calm him down or help him sleep." It was Ira's good fortune to work often with lyricist Yip Harburg, a high school classmate and lifelong friend; Harburg wrote "Over the Rainbow," to which Ira added the last line: "If happy little bluebirds fly / beyond the rainbow / why, oh why, can't I?" It was his misfortune to sign on to movie projects that threatened to drain his talent dry, as with the Judy Garland remake ofA Star Is Born, which, Ira feared, rested too much on "the shoulders of its shaky star, who, he was convinced, would eventually fall apart." Owen is especially good on the business side: though Ira proved a faithful caretaker of his brother's legacy, it required him to fight endless battles that detracted from his own work. A vigorous biography that accords Ira Gershwin his due as a canonical American writer. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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