Unity Club learns about Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin wrote some 1,500 songs, even though he could play piano in only one key and never learned to read music or transcribe it.

Rose Marie Riley presented a program about Berlin at Monday’s Unity Club meeting at Calvary Methodist Church. She reviewed two books, “Irving Berlin: American Troubadour” by Edward Jablonski and “Irving Berlin: A Daughter’s Memoir” by Mary Ellin Barrett.

Berlin was born in czarist Russia in 1888. His family immigrated to America in 1893 and settled in a tenement on New York’s Lower East Side. He ran away from home at 13 and worked by singing in disreputable Bowery bars. He was signed as a song plugger and lyricist for a Tin Pan Alley music publisher.

His first landmark hit was in 1911 with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” followed by “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,” “Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee,” “This is the Army, Mr. Jones” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Other famous songs include “Oh, How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning,” “God Bless America,” “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade.”

After a scandalous courtship, the 36-year-old Jewish Berlin married Ellin, the 21-year-old daughter of a socially prominent Irish-American Catholic family. They eventually reconciled with her disapproving father.

Jablonski’s account comes from his personal acquaintance with Berlin and his circle.

The program ended with those present singing “God Bless America.”