Arnold Shaw (born Arnold Shukotoff, June 28, 1909–September 26, 1989) was an American music writer,

music publishing A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers started to play a role in the management of the intellect ...

executive, teacher and songwriter. He is best known for his comprehensive series of books on 20th century

American popular music American popular music has had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, bluegrass, count ...

Biography

He was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, and studied at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he took a master's degree in English literature in 1931. He undertook further studies in American Literature at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

,"Arnold Shaw", ''Arnold Shaw Center''
Retrieved 8 July 2020 played piano in a group, the Harmony Collegians, and started composing songs. He worked as a teacher at City College, and in the 1930s became known as a radical member and activist in the Anti-Fascist Association of the Staffs of the City College and the Instructional Staff Association, and was the first president of the College Teachers Union. He was one of the 40 staff members who were dismissed in 1942 following the investigation by the

Rapp-Coudert Committee The Rapp-Coudert Committee was the colloquial name of the New York State Legislature's Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York. Between 1940 and 1942, the Rapp-Coudert Committee sought to identify ...

into the left-wing political sympathies of teaching staff in New York. Ronald D. Cohen, "Shaw, Arnold", ''American National Biography''
Retrieved 8 July 2020 "Shaw (Real Name, Shukotoff), Arnold", ''Encyclopedia.com''
Retrieved 8 July 2020 He then changed his name from Shukotoff to Shaw, and worked as a pianist and composer. His best-known compositions include "Mobiles", "The Mod Moppet: Seven Nursery Rip-offs", and "Sing a Song of Americans", for which Rosemary and

Stephen Vincent Benét Stephen Vincent Benét (; July 22, 1898 – March 13, 1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, ''John Brown's Body'' (1928), for which he receive ...

wrote the lyrics. In the early 1940s he was also the popular music editor for '' Swank'' magazine. His first book, a biography of drummer

Gene Krupa Eugene Bertram Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973), known as Gene Krupa, was an American jazz drummer, bandleader and composer who performed with energy and showmanship. His drum solo on Benny Goodman's 1937 recording of "Sing, Sing, S ...

, was published in 1945. Shaw entered the popular music business in 1945, as director of publicity and advertising for

Leeds Music Leeds () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the thi ...

(later to become MCA Music). He went on from there to

Hill and Range Hill & Range (originally "Hill and Range Songs, Inc.") is a music publishing company which was particularly responsible for much of the country music produced in the 1950s and 1960s, and had control over the material recorded by Elvis Presley over ...

, and then the Edward B. Marks Music Corporation, also a music publishing company, where he worked between 1955 and 1966. He also handled public relations and advertising for a number of individual performers, including

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

Burt Bacharach Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gra ...

and

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...

. "Arnold Shaw", ''Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project''
Retrieved 8 July 2020 Shaw wrote many music reviews, articles and books, including histories of popular music from the 1920s to the 1960s, and books on

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and other

African-American music African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of music and musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Their origins are in musical forms that first came to be due to the condition of slave ...

. "Arnold Shaw, Founder of Pop Music Center", ''Chicago Tribune'', October 9, 1989
Retrieved 8 July 2020 He published ''Lingo of

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...

'' in 1950; a novel, ''The Money Song'' in 1953; and a biography of

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...

in 1960. Judith E. Smith, ''Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical'', University of Texas Press, 2014, p.292
/ref> His significant career as a writer, however, came in the 1970s and 1980s, beginning with the 1969 publication of ''The Rock Revolution: What's Happening to Today's Music''. His 1978 book ''Honkers And Shouters. The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues'', which incorporates interviews with many leading figures from the period, is considered the definitive text on that musical form, and he was posthumously inducted into the

Blues Hall of Fame The Blues Hall of Fame is a music museum located at 421 S. Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Initially, the "Blues Hall of Fame" was not a physical building, but a listing of people who have significantly contributed to blues music. Started in 1 ...

. Another well-regarded book, ''The Street that Never Slept: New York’s Fabled

52nd Street 52nd Street is a -long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan, New York City. A short section of it was known as the city's center of jazz performance from the 1930s to the 1950s. Jazz center Following the repeal of ...

'', looked at the jazz clubs in the area in the 1930s. He won the

Deems Taylor Award Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American music critic, composer, and promoter of classical music. Nat Benchley, co-editor of ''The Lost Algonquin Roundtable'', referred to him as "the dean of American music." Ear ...

from

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, broadca ...

in 1968 and 1979. He also composed a musical, ''They Had a Dream'' (1976). From the 1960s, he lectured at many colleges. After moving to

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

in 1968, he taught part-time at the

University of Nevada The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded on October 12 ...

. In 1985, Shaw founded the Popular Music Research Center, later renamed the Arnold Shaw Popular Music Research Center, which today contains approximately 20,000 records, over 1000 manuscript scores, over 300 taped interviews of popular music artists, and miscellaneous memorabilia. He died from cancer in Las Vegas in 1989, aged 80.

Bibliography

*''Gene Krupa'', Pin-Up Press. 1945 *''Lingo of Tin Pan Alley'', Broadcast Music, 1950 *''The Money Song'' (novel), Random House, 1953 *''Belafonte: An Unauthorized Biography'', Chilton, 1960 *''The Rock Revolution: What's Happening to Today's Music'', Crowell-Collier Press, New York, 1969 *''The World of Soul: Black America's contribution to the pop music scene'', Cowles Book Co., 1970 *''The Street That Never Slept''. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., 1971; reissued as ''

: The Street of Jazz'', Da Capo Press, New York, 1977 *''Frank Sinatra. Retreat of the Romantic'', Coronet Books, 1974 *''The Rockin' 50s. The Decade That Transformed the Pop Music Scene'', Hawthorn Books, New York, 1974. *''Honkers and Shouters. The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues''. Crowell-Collier Press, New York, 1978 *''Dictionary of American Pop-Rock Music''. Sales Corp, 1982 and Schirmer Books, 1983 *''Sinatra: The Entertainer'', Delilah Books, 1984 *''Black Popular Music In America. From The Spirituals, Minstrels And Ragtime To Soul, Disco And Hip-Hop'', Schirmer Books. 1986. *''The Jazz Age: Popular Music in the 1920s'', Oxford University Press, New York, 1987 *''Let's Dance: Popular Music in the 1930s'', (edited by Bill Willard,) Oxford University Press, New York, 1998

References

External links

*Radio interview with Arnold Shaw on his work with Elvis Presley, by Jerry Pippin: http://www.jerrypippin.com/audio/Arnold%20Shaw%20Interview.wma {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Arnold 1909 births 1989 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers American music historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers