Fleta Jan Brown Spencer (March 8, 1882 – September 2, 1938) was an American songwriter, composer, pianist, and singer.
Early life
Fleta Jan Brown was born near
Sioux Rapids, Iowa
Sioux Rapids is a city in Buena Vista County, Iowa, United States. The population was 748 at the time of the 2020 census.
History
Two early surveyors, Lane and Ray, found the area so attractive for settlement that in 1855 they illegally laid a ...
, the daughter of William Edward Brown and Jennie Etta Watkins Brown. Her father was a barber. She trained as a pianist and composer at the
Cincinnati Conservatory of Music
The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music was a conservatory, part of a girls' finishing school, founded in 1867 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It merged with the College of Music of Cincinnati in 1955, forming the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, wh ...
.
[Edwards, Bill]
"Fleta Jan Brown Spencer"
''RagPiano.com.''
Career
Brown moved to
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
, after her studies in Cincinnati, and published her first three songs in 1905. After she married fellow songwriter Herbert Spencer, the pair moved to New York, and there were prolific songwriters, sharing credit on dozens of songs published by
M. Witmark & Sons, and by
Jerome H. Remick
Jerome Hosmer Remick (15 November 1867 – 15 July 1931) was an American music publisher, businessman and philanthropist in Detroit, Michigan.
Life and career
Remick was born in Detroit as the son of James Albert Remick and Mary Amelia Hosmer. ...
. They also performed together at times, both as singers and pianists, in concerts and on the
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
stage.
Songs with music, lyrics, or both by Brown included "Tangle Foot Rag" (1907), "Fancies" (1908), "I Wish I was in Heaven Sittin' Down" (1908), "The Party That Wrote 'Home Sweet Home' Never Was a Married Man" (1908, later covered by
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence ...
), "O Wondrous Night in June" (1909), "I Know a Blossom" (1909), "In the Dusk" (1909), "The Birth of Love" (1909), "Tickle Toes" (1910), "Back to the Old Folks At Home" (1913), "Kiss Me Again (I Like it)" (1914), "In the Candle-Light" (1914), "When All The World's at Peace" (1914), "Dandelion" (1915), "Underneath the Stars" (1916), "Somewhere my Love Lies Dreaming" (1916), "Now that the Fighting is Over" (1918), "Kiss Me With Your Eyes" (1923), "Rose of Old Castille" (1924) "I Know a Blossom" (1936), "In a Gipsy Camp" (1936), "Vagabond's Bridal March" (1936), and "The Vagabond's Dream" (1936).
Personal life
Fleta Jan Brown married fellow composer and songwriter Herbert D. Spencer in 1907.
She died in 1938, aged 56 years, at a hospital in
.
References
External links
"In Old Brazil"(1916), sheet music for a song by Herbert Spencer and Fleta Jan Brown, in the Vocal Popular Sheet Music Collection, DigitalCommons@UMaine.
"Underneath the Stars"(1915), sheet music for a song by Herbert Spencer and Fleta Jan Brown.
Fleta Jan Brown (composer)at Discography of American Historical Recordings, UC Santa Barbara Library.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Spencer, Fleta Jan Brown
1882 births
1938 deaths
American composers
American pianists
People from Storm Lake, Iowa
Songwriters from Iowa