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Louis Alter From the AMICA, April 1975 An Interview By Joe Franklin A music man muses: It's not Marlon Brando's histrionics or Al Pacino's dramatics that mean a great deal to Louis Alter as he thinks about "The Godfather." To him the best moment occurs when the producer's pad in Beverly Hills is shown and the killer from New York is on his way for his pre-violence chat. Alter's ego is stimulated by the music played during that pictorial shot. It is "Manhattan Serenade." Alter is the composer. He penned it originally as a big orchestral piece at the behest of Paul Whiteman in 1928. At the Friars the other lunch time over hash, Lou was remembering those days. "I was a great fan of Whiteman when I first came down here from Boston," he said, "He was the first big name I actually followed around and met. I was having a love affair with New York when Whiteman commissioned me to write a tone poem. I walked around this city for six months absorbing the sights and sounds. And then suddenly it came to me. Once I plunged into it I finished it in two hours." Alter isn't a laconic man. He can recount vividly. His past life has been an association with fine songs and big name singers. That legendary trademark--Helen Morgan sitting on the piano was of Lou's doing. The winsome song star with the warm eyes and thin, captivating voice was a scared bunny. Most times she took a shot of brandy as liquid confidence. Alter, then her musical director, knew she needed a prop like a handkerchief in hand or a hat to hold or something. She rehearsed one day, sitting atop the piano. She was comfortable for the first time. "That's it," said Alter, "stay there." That she did for most of the career that ensued. The first job of any consequence that Lou had in the music business was that of pianist for vaudeville superstar, Nora Bayes. He can reel off story after story about the amazing talent and generosity of this tremendously talented headliner. "I went to London with her" Lou smiled, "She had been an unexpected flop there on a past engagement. This time she was determined to reverse things. She surely did. She was booked for two weeks at the Palladium and stayed twenty-four. Her big fan was the then dashing Prince of Wales. I was with him one night when he played drums for us." "You know," he continued, "Miss Bayes used to walk out on a stage with her hand on her hip. I asked her why one night and maybe being a devout Christian Scientist, which she was, explains her answer--'I do it so God can lead me on stage."' Alter, who wrote "You Turned The Tables On Me" and "Dolores," to name two, was instrumental in molding Beatrice Lillie into a night club performer. "I was helping Bea put her act together. You know, routining and finding songs. Well, her mother, who used to sing around the house and rather atrociously too, was carrying on with an old English music hall song. It struck me as a howl so I suggested that Bea include it in her act, done as a direct imitation of her mother's serious attempt in the parlor. She took my advice. It worked. And Miss Lillie had one of her biggest song successes ever. It was "There Are Fairies At The Bottom Of Our Garden." So Lou drank double strength tea and anecdote followed anecdote. A songwriter tells stories the same way he sits at the piano and demonstrates--"and then I wrote." It is a pleasant segue of stories. But the lunch hour grew late and we had to leave. Sorry, business had to interfere with the one about Noel Coward or the reminiscence concerning Alice Faye.
LOUIS ALTER, composer, pianist; b. Haverhill, Mass., June 18, 1902. ASCAP 1929. Presently on ASCAP Writers Advisory Committee. Educ: New England Cons., with Stuart Mason. Pianist in film theatres at 13. Accompanist to Nora Bayes, 1924-28; also to Irene Bordoni, Helen Morgan, Beatrice Lillie. Comp., arr. for music publishers. World War II, USAAF; entertained at air bases. Piano soloist, LA Philh., Hollywood Bowl. Bway stage score, Ballyhoo. Songs for musicals incl.Earl Carroll's Vanities (1925, 1928); Americana; Sweet and Low; Crazy Quilt; Hold Your Horses. Songs for films incl. Hollywood Revue; Rainbow on the River; The Trail of the Lonesome Pine; Sing, Baby, Sing; Make a Wish; Las Vegas Nights; New Orleans. Chief lyricists: Joe Goodwin, Jo Trent, Sidney Mitchell, Edw. Heyman, Frank Loesser, Paul Francis Webster, Eddie DeLange, Harold Adamson, Ray Klages, Bob Russell, Milton Drake, Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, Lew Brown, Stanley Adams. SONGS: "Manhattan Serenade"' "The Sky Fell Down"; "Blue Shadows"; "My Kinda Love"; "Overnight"; "I'm One of God's Children" "I Was Taken by Storm"; "I've Got Sand in My Shoes"; "Rainbow on the River"; "Twilight on the Trail" (orig. mss. in Hyde Park Mem. Library); "A Melody from the Sky"; "You Turned the Tables on Me"; "Dolores"; "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?"; "Circus"; "Nina Never Knew"; "My Ecstasy"; "Stranger in the City". INSTRUMENTALS: "Manhattan Serenade"; "Manhattan Moonlight"; "Manhattan Masquerade"; "Metropolitan Nocturne" (Gold Medal, Venice Film Fest., 1936); "Side Street in Gotham"; "American Serenade". Jewels from Cartier (suite incl. "Diamond Earrings";"Emerald Eyes"). ---------- Born in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Composer and lyricist whose songs were used in such films as SING, BABY, SING and RAINBOW ON THE RIVER (both 1936), VOGUES OF 1938 and MAKE A WISH (both 1937), TWILIGHT ON THE TRAIL (1940), CAUGHT IN THE DRAFT (1941), BREAKFAST IN HOLLYWOOD (1946), NEW ORLEANS and LIVING IN A BIG WAY (both 1947) and THE WACKIEST SHIP IN THE ARMY (1960). Nominated for Music Awards (Best Song) 1936: TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE "A Melody from the Sky" - Music - 1 nomination
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