Great Songwriters: Harry Warren

Composer Harry Warren has written some of the most enduring melodies in American pop music. His 1938 collaboration with Johnny Mercer, "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," is an excellent example. Originally sung by Dick Powell in the Warner Brothers picture Hard to Get, this sweet and romantic little ditty became a rockin' rhythm number for Bobby Darin in 1961, and a funky finger-snapper for Mercer himself in 1974. Both versions retain the warm spirit of Warren's original melody, and both versions bring an instant smile to the listener.

Other timeless Warren compositions include "I Only Have Eyes for You," "That's Amore," "The More I See You," and the Oscar-nominated "An Affair to Remember" (from the 1957 motion picture of the same name). Between 1931 and 1957, Warren received 11 Oscar nominations, 3 wins, authored over 250 songs for all four major studios (Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, MGM, and Paramount), and hit the number 1 spot on the charts 21 times. While Warren also wrote successfully for Broadway (Billy Rose's 1930 musical revue, Sweet and Low), his true fame is as the man who wrote the soundtrack to Hollywood.

Born Salvatore Anthony Guaragna on December 24th, 1893 in Brooklyn, New York, Warren was something of a jack-of-all-trades in his early years. He taught himself to play several instruments, including the drums, the accordion and the piano, and he sang in the church choir. At the age of 16, he quit high school to take a job playing drums in a traveling circus. At various times he also worked as a stagehand for a Vaudeville theater, as a prop man and offstage piano player for Vitagraph Studios, and as an actor in silent films, playing small roles, often as a messenger boy.

His big break came in 1922, when he co-authored "Rose of The Rio Grande," with lyricists Edgar Leslie and Ross Gorman. Previous to this, Warren had been trying to write both music and lyrics, but none of those compositions managed to capture the attention of music publishers. This one did, and was in fact his first published song, setting him on a lifelong path of collaboration with various lyricists. These included Al Dubin ("About a Quarter to Nine"), Leo Robin ("The Lady In The Tutti-Frutti Hat"), the abovementioned Johnny Mercer ("The Atchison, Topeka, And The Santa Fe"), and Mack Gordon ("Chattanooga Choo-Choo"). Warren's collaboration with Gordon resulted in the first Gold record ever awarded, for Glenn Miller's 1941 recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo."

Warren's most enduring work of all can be seen in the musical extravaganza 42nd Street, which began life as a hit motion picture for Warner Brothers in 1933, and has since re-emerged as a hit Broadway show, with productions in 1980 (a 9-year run) and 2001 (a 4-year run). The Harry Warren/Al Dubin classics from this show include the title song, "Shuffle Off To Buffalo," and "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me."