Billy Cotton and his band with vocal chorus: I paid for the lie that I told you. (1939). 

Thank you for your nice words about Billy Cotton's record my dearest Jytte !!!! And take good care of yourself !!!! Till lateron and in the meantime I keep you closed in my heart !!!!! Yours for ever faithful Henk !!!!

Thank you ! my dear friend !!!!

Avrum Sherman (September 7, 1897 - September 16, 1973), pen name *Al Sherman,* was a Russian-American songwriter and composer active during the Tin Pan Alley era in American music history. Some of his most recognizable song titles include "You Gotta Be a Football Hero", "Now's the Time to Fall in Love" and "Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.)". Sherman is one link in a long chain of family members who were musical. Most notably, his sons Robert and Richard (referred to popularly as the Sherman Brothers) were to join the ranks of America's most highly regarded songwriters. Pairing up and mentoring the Sherman Brothers team has often been referred to as Al Sherman's greatest songwriting achievement. Early life Al Sherman was born into a musical Jewish family in Kyiv, Russian Empire. His father, violinist Samuel Sherman, fled a Cossack pogrom in 1903. Samuel settled in Prague which was at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He eventually found success working as a concertmaster, first violinist and intermittent court composer in the Royal Court of Emperor Franz Josef. Within a year or so of his arrival, Samuel's family came to live with him in Prague. As a young boy, Al attended concerts in the royal court. He hid in the gallery wings while his father performed for the Emperor. Sherman would later remark that it was these moments which originally incited his interest in music. In 1909, the Samuel Shermans relocated to New York City. In 1911, frustrated by the lack of available work, Samuel left his wife Lena and their five young children: Olga, Al, Edith, Regina, and newborn Harold. At age 13, Sherman quit school to become the family's primary breadwinner. By 16, he had taught himself to play the piano and found work in bands. Despite his parents' separation and the resulting hardships, Sherman maintained great respect for his father and remained in close contact with him until Samuel's death in 1947. Despite youth and scant knowledge of English, his natural talent for piano improvisation soon earned him a reputation as a top "mood music" pianist. His services to improvise inspirational music were sought by many silent film stars including Pauline Frederick, Mae Murray and Olga Petrova. In 1916, Universal signed Al to do bit parts in silent films as well. He later appeared in motion pictures with Mary Pickford, Mary Fuller, Clara Kimball Young and William Powell. Al's composing career began in 1918 when he became a staff pianist for the Remick Music Company. There, he worked alongside George Gershwin and Vincent Youmans. During this time Al also organized and directed a small orchestra which played in New York and Miami Beach. He joined the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1919. Personal life In the summer of 1921, Al was at the piano leading his orchestra when he met a silent film actress, Rosa Dancis. They married in 1923. Al and Rosa Sherman's elder son, Robert Bernard Sherman, was born on December 19, 1925. Their younger son Richard Morton Sherman was born on June 12, 1928. Both boys were born in New York City. As the Sherman Brothers, they proved to be Al's greatest songwriting achievement, forming one of the most formidable songwriting teams in family entertainment _(Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks)._ Career In the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Al collaborated with songwriters including Sam Coslow, Irving Mills, Charles O'Flynn, Al Dubin, B.G. deSylva, Harold Tobias, Howard Johnson, Harry M. Woods, Alfred Bryan, Buddy Fields, Archie Fletcher, Al Lewis, Abner Silver, Edward Heyman, Buddy Feyne, among many others. Sherman quickly rose to become one of Tin Pan Alley's most sought after songwriters. Between 1931 and 1934, during the last days of vaudeville, he and several of his fellow hitmakers formed a sensational review, Songwriters on Parade, performing all across the Eastern seaboard on the Loew's and Keith circuits.  Some of Al Sherman's most well known songs also include: "Wanita", "Save Your Sorrow", "Lindbergh (The Eagle of the U.S.A.)", "Pretending", "On the Beach at Bali-Bali", "Over Somebody Else's Shoulder", "No! No! A Thousand Times No!!", "For Sentimental Reasons", "(What Do We Do on a) Dew Dew Dewey Day", "Nine Little Miles from Ten-Ten-Tennessee" and "Ninety-Nine Out of a Hundred (Wanna Be Loved)". Maurice Chevalier's American breakthrough hit was an Al Sherman/Al Lewis song entitled "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" from the Paramount Picture The Big Pond. "You Gotta Be a Football Hero" has been played, sung and marched to since 1933 when Fred Waring and his "Pennsylvanians" introduced it on the radio. The Sherman/Fletcher song "On a Little Bamboo Bridge" became a hit for Louis Armstrong. Some of his most memorable songs include songs for major Broadway revues, including the _Ziegfeld Follies, George White's Scandals, The Passing Show_ and _Earl Carroll's Vanities._ Beside writing "Livin' in the Sunlight" for The Big Pond, Al also wrote for many other films including songs for the motion pictures _Sweetie, The Sky's the Limit_ and _Sensations of 1945._ Sherman's style and settings are suggested by such song titles as "Got the Bench, Got the Park", "Woodland Reverie", "Never a Dream Goes By" and "When You Waltz with the One You Love". Although he would continue to write songs and musical compositions until his death, he wrote his last big song in 1952, "Comes A-Long A-Love", which was sung by Kay Starr. Last years In 1973 the Associated Press wrote, "Al Sherman helped raise the spirits of a Depression-era generation with his hit 'Now's the Time to Fall in Love'. Al wrote more than five hundred songs but gained his greatest fame for that happy tune." As Al was always capable of finding the "silver lining", "Potatoes Are Cheaper" became his signature song. In 1973 he titled his autobiography _Potatoes Are Cheaper._ Al Sherman died in Los Angeles, California, on September 16, 1973, at the age of 76. Posthumous achievements In 1983, Sherman's song, "He's So Unusual", was chosen as the title song of Cyndi Lauper's signature album, She's So Unusual. _She's So Unusual_ catapulted Lauper to stardom with such hits as "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "She Bop" and "Time After Time". Lauper's rendition of "He's So Unusual" was a clear homage to the original 1920s production, even going so far as to feature scratches and hisses on the track, making it sound even more like the original 78 record. She's So Unusual won its sole Grammy Award in the category of Best Album Package, the concept of which clearly was founded on the title of the Sherman's song. As of 2002 She's So Unusual has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide. The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard pop albums chart (US). In 2003, the album was ranked number 494 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2013, the album was ranked number 63 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time. Alongside his sons Robert and Richard, Al Sherman became the subject of a London musical concert, A Spoonful of Sherman, narrated by Sherman's grandson, Robert J. Sherman. A double CD of A Spoonful of Sherman was released by SimG Records in 2015. A Spoonful of Sherman was revived twice in London, once in 2014 and then in 2017, and then completely reworked once again as a musical stage show revue in 2018 touring the UK and Ireland.

*Enoch* Henry *Light* (August 18, 1907 - July 31, 1978) was an American classically trained violinist, danceband leader, and recording engineer. As the leader of various dance bands that recorded as early as March 1927 and continuing through at least 1940, Light and his band primarily worked in various hotels in New York. For a time in 1928 he also led a band in Paris. In the 1930s Light also studied conducting with the French conductor Maurice Frigara in Paris. Throughout the 1930s, Light and his outfits were steadily employed in the generally more upscale hotel restaurants and ballrooms in New York that catered to providing polite ambiance for dining and functional dance music of current popular songs rather than out-and-out jazz. At some point his band was tagged The Light Brigade and they often broadcast over radio live from the Hotel Taft in New York, where they had a long residency. Through 1940, Light and his band recorded for various labels including Brunswick, ARC, Vocalion and Bluebird. In 1955, Light founded Grand Award Records and served as president and A&R chief. In 1959 he founded a subsidiary label, Command Records. Grand Award and its subsidiary labels were sold to ABC-Paramount Records in October 1959. Light's name was prominent on many albums both as musician and producer. Early years Light was born in Canton, Ohio, on August 18, 1907. While he was a student at Johns Hopkins University, he formed his initial orchestra. When he took that group on tours of Europe in 1928 and 1929, he studied classical conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Opera Comique in Paris. He also studied at Ohio State University and the University of Pittsburgh. Career Light's early career in the United States had him leading orchestras on recordings and in dance halls, hotels, and theaters for about 10 years. His work was interrupted for two years while he recovered from a head-on automobile collision. When he was ready to resume his career, the big-band era had ended, and he turned to the business side of recorded music. Light is credited with being one of the first musicians to go to extreme lengths to create high-quality recordings that took full advantage of the technical capabilities of home audio equipment of the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly stereo effects that bounced the sounds between the right and left channels (often described as "Ping-pong recording"), which had huge influence on the whole concept of multi-track recording that would become commonplace in the ensuing years. Doing so, he arranged his musicians in ways to produce the kinds of recorded sounds he wished to achieve, even completely isolating various groups of them from each other in the recording studio. The first of the albums produced for Command Records, _Persuasive Percussion,_ became one of the first big-hit LP discs based solely on retail sales. Light's music received little or no airplay on the radio, because AM radio, the standard of the day, was monaural and had very poor fidelity. Light went on to release several albums in the _Persuasive Percussion_ series, as well as a Command test record. The album covers were generally designed with abstract, minimalist artwork that stood out boldly from other album covers. These pieces were usually the work of Josef Albers. Light was so interested in the sound of his music that he would include lengthy prose describing each song's sounds.[citation needed] In order to fit all of his descriptions on to the album sleeve, he doubled the size of the sleeve but enabled it to fold like a book, thus popularizing the gatefold packaging format. The gatefold sleeve became extremely popular in later decades, and was used on albums such as The Beatles' _Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band._ Enoch Light released myriad albums in various genres of music under a variety of names during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Some were released under Grand Award Records, which he founded in 1955. He founded Command Records in 1959. ABC-Paramount Records acquired the Light family of labels in October 1959. Light stayed on to manage and handle A&R. The music was intended for older audiences, presumably because he saw them as more serious audiophiles who had more money to spend on high-end stereo equipment, as opposed to most popular music of the time, which was generally intended for teenagers and young adults. During this time, he pioneered many recording techniques such as the use of 35 mm magnetic film instead of magnetic tape, reducing wow and flutter, being driven by sprockets rather than a rubber pinch wheel. The recordings were released under the "35MM" series, starting from "Stereo 35-MM" released by Command Records. Musicians who appeared on Light's albums include The Free Design, The Critters, Rain, Doc Severinsen, Tony Mottola, Dick Hyman, and organist Virgil Fox (on the Wanamaker Organ). As an arranger, Lew Davies was one of the label's most important contributors. Light remained with the ABC/Command family until 1965. After his departure, the quality of the records plummeted dramatically. The signature gatefold format (along with Light's prose) was immediately discontinued, and the covers changed to budget labels pressed on recycled vinyl. In 1975, they were completely discontinued. Light joined forces with the Singer Corporation in August 1966, to help the company launch production of phonograph records, tapes, and tape cartridges. Plans called for a new company to be formed, with Light and Singer each having half-interest and Light as both president and chief executive officer. Light's new label was called Project 3. It did not concentrate as heavily on stereo effects. Light recorded several successful big band albums with an ace group of New York studio musicians, many of whom were veterans of the bands of the swing era who were still regularly working in New York's television and recording studios. Released as Enoch Light and the Light Brigade, the arrangements used on the recordings were transcribed note-for-note from some of what were the hallmark recordings by many of the best bands of the swing era. The arranging reconstructions of these now "classic" arrangements were completely reconstructed by arrangers Dick Lieb, Dick Hyman, Tony Mottola and Jeff Hest. Many of the musicians employed for this series of "re-creations" had been members of the original bands that made the original records decades earlier. This veritable Who's Who of swing-era veterans included saxophonists Phil Bodner, Walt Levinsky (both also heavily featured on clarinet), Al Klink, Boomie Richman, Romeo Penque, and Sol Schlinger; trumpeters Mel Davis, Rusty Dedrick, Bernie Glow, Bob McCoy, and Marvin Stamm; trombonists Wayne Andre, Urbie Green, Lou McGarity, Buddy Morrow, and Santo Russo; guitarist Tony Mottola; bassists Bob Haggart and George Duvivier; drummers Don Lamond and Ronnie Zito; pianists Dick Hyman and Derek Smith and vibraharpist Phil Kraus.[citation needed] Personal life He married Mary Danis, who acted on stage and sang on recordings and on radio. They had two daughters. Enoch Light retired from music entirely in 1974. He died on July 31, 1978, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, aged 71. Legacy Light released 25 albums over 12 years (1959-71), with two of them reaching number one on the U.S. Billboard album chart. He holds the record for having the most charting LPs without having a Top 40 single, as reported by Casey Kasem on the American Top 40 broadcast of 14 October 1978. Events coinciding with Light's birthday near his birthplace of northeastern Ohio have occurred since the late 1990s. The most recent is 2014's Enoch Light Birthday Memorial Go-Go Happening and features bands performing Light's work and multimedia installations remixing the distinctive Command Records album cover designs.

*Reg Connelly* (born Reginald John Connelly; 22 October 1895-23 September 1963) was an English songwriter and music publisher who became famous as the lyricist of the songwriting team Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly, Jimmy Campbell (born James Alexander Campbell-Tyrie; 5 April 1903-19 August 1967). Writing together in the 1920s and 1930s, they sometimes used the pseudonym Irving King for their song compositions, and often worked as lyricists in collaboration with other composers. Together, they established the successful music publishing firm Campbell Connelly. Early life and songwriting partnership Connelly was born in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, in 1895, and Campbell in Gosforth, Northumberland, in 1903. They had contrasting personalities: Campbell was extravagant and dismissive of financial security, while Connelly was reserved, and an astute businessman. By 1925 they had started working together as songwriters, and wrote "Show Me the Way to Go Home". After failing to find a publisher, they formed their own publishing company in London, initially in Tottenham Court Road. The song became a big hit in both Britain and America, reportedly selling some 2 million copies as sheet music, and was recorded by many bands from the 1920s onwards, most successfully by Vincent Lopez in 1926. The pair moved their office to Denmark Street in 1926, and formally established the music publishing firm Campbell Connelly in 1929. They wrote their first "standard", "If I Had You," in 1928, with composer Ted Shapiro. The song was later recorded by Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and many others. They had further success in 1931 with "Goodnight Sweetheart," written with composer Ray Noble and recorded by Guy Lombardo, Al Bowlly and Rudy Vallee among others. One of their most successful songs, "Try a Little Tenderness", was written with Harry M. Woods in 1932. First recorded by Ray Noble's Mayfair Dance Orchestra, it was a hit for the Ted Lewis Orchestra, and was successfully revived by soul singer Otis Redding in 1966. Their other compositions included the Froth Blowers' anthem, "The More We Are Together",[6] and "I'd Rather Be a Beggar with You Than a King with Somebody Else" which was co-composed with Oliver Perry and was recorded in 1931 by the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra with an uncredited Al Bowlly on vocals. Later lives Connelly continued to run the music publishing business, and in 1933 joined forces with the Gaumont-British film company to corner the market for songs presented in British films, notably those starring Jessie Matthews. The company also established deals with American companies, building the publishing business into one of the most successful in the world with 14 associated companies. Among the popular songs published by Campbell Connelly in later years were "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", "Big Spender", and "Sunny". Campbell married actress Betty Balfour (adding Balfour to his own name by deed poll), and in 1936 sold his stake in the publishing company. He organised a tour of Australia with a dance band, but it was a commercial disaster, and Campbell returned to Britain to face a large tax bill. After his divorce in 1941, and a period attempting to find work in Hollywood, he worked in London as a song plugger with Noel Gay, before rejoining Campbell Connelly. In 1951, Campbell wrote "Down at the Ferryboat Inn" with Don Pelosi; it was recorded by the Beverley Sisters. However, The Times reported in 1953 that he had "treated money casually", becoming homeless and an alcoholic. He remarried, moving with his second wife to Spain and later Tangier. Reg Connelly died in Poole, Dorset, in 1963, aged 67. Campbell died in London in 1967, aged 64. The publishing house Campbell Connelly was sold to The Music Sales Group in 1982.

@@henridelagardere264 Dear Henri, thank you for your interesting comments !!!!! I wish you a lovely Wednesday !!!!!!! Warm greetings from Jytte

Dank voor de namen van de componisten Henri ! En voor de prachtige uitgebreide biografie van Al Hoffman en de lijsten met zijn composities en alle verdere info !!!! Dankbare groeten van Henk !!!!