Links

Please note that this is a non profit-making site. Recommendations of commercial sites in the Links page and elsewhere are based purely on the personal views of the site owner.

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Contents
Dorothy Fields links Songwriter sites Other favourites

Dorothy Fields links

Recent production information. This groups various links to pages which review or publicise productions of Dorothy Fields' work.

Sweet Charity on tour has information on the current touring production starring Molly Ringwald.

There were Goodspeed Opera House productions of Redhead in 1998, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in 2003 the website has a lot of information about the shows, and photos of the production in the case of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The 42nd Street Moon theatre in San Francisco has included two Dorothy Fields shows in its dazzling record of producing rarely-seen musicals, and its productions of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Redhead are documented on their site. You can read an enthusiastic review from the Off Off Broadway Review site of the 1999 production of By the Beautiful Sea in the Musicals Tonight! series.

Jazz Poetry Anthology. This is a Russian site, written in Russian. Two of the contributors, Galina and Henry, alerted me to the fact that they had translated I Can't Give You Anything But Love and On The Sunny Side Of The Street, and these translations can be viewed.

Songwriter sites

Cole Porter - Cole Wide Web. This is a great-looking site by a professional designer. There's an interesting biography and an excellent booklist. The list of CDs is restricted to those which are 100% Porter material, and come with a star rating. A complete A-Z songlist.

Stephen Sondheim - Stephen Sondheim Stage. This site appears to be defunct. It feels rather overgrown - pages are based on different designs - and the quality of the material is variable. However there is much fascinating information here and a huge amount of critical discussion of the great man's works by well-informed and thoughtful contributors. There is also a splendid discography.

Stephen Sondheim - The Quotable Stephen Sondheim. This great site has lots of fascinating information. For example the section on Into The Woods includes a NY Times article on the 2002 revival, a letter from Stephen Sondheim about cuts to Giants in the Sky and other songs, and a picture of the Giant's Boot outside the theatre in 2002.

Stephen Sondheim - Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide. Huge amount of information on Sondheim's work, recordings of his music and productions of his shows. Little in the way of but enormously impressive for comprehensive approach.

The Gershwins - Gershwin fan page . A limited site, no longer updated which has biographies of George and Ira and lists of works and recordings. The discography would be more useful if it gave details of the songs on each recording.

Lorenz Hart - Lyrics by Lorenz Hart. This site features good show-by-show information, including information on a lot of films. There are also lyrics to many songs. The recordings list is useful, and has a star rating system. Good bibliography.

Harry Warren - The Harry Warren Web Site. This is a wonderful site, the product of a dedicated admirer of the under-appreciated composer. What makes the site stand out is the sheer amount of data on Warren's career and songs. Many lyrics are available, and also a huge number of MIDI files with the music to the Warren songs.

Ahrens and Flaherty - In Rhythm and Rhyme: The Ahrens and Flaherty Web Site. This is a terrific, and very reguarly updated site on Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty who wrote Ragtime and several other great shows. A wealth of information on their work, including numerous articles. There's also a very tough lyrics quiz. Very impressive.

Yip Harburg - Yip Harburg. This is the official website of the Yip Harburg information. Official websites can be disappointing for example the Rodgers and Hammerstein one. The Harburg site is excellent however. It has a comprehensive songlist and details of composers/collaborators and recordings. The news page is regularly updated, and there is a page with some of Harburg's poems.

Johnny Mercer - Johnny Mercer Educational Archives. The site has a very old-fashioned, under-designed look and it's not at all clear what the structure of the site is. However if you dig a little you'll find lots of interest.

Harold Arlen - The Official Harold Arlen Websites. This link takes you to an entry page for twin websites : The Official Harold Arlen Website and The Harold Arlen Centennial Website. The former includes Site includes an in-depth biography, photos, song samples, a complete list of works and tributes. The latter is a great-looking site aimed at promoting the great composer during his centennial year.

Hoagy Carmichael - The Official Hoagy Carmichael Site - Jazz Musician Songwriter. The site has an introduction by his son and a comphrensive list of the songs. There's also a biography, but not much else.

Frank Loesser - Frank Loesser - Award Winning Broadway Musical Composer, Director and Playwright.

Kurt Weill - The Kurt Weill Foundation For Music.

Leonard Bernstein - The Official Leonard Bernstein Web Site

Irving Berlin - Irving Berlin's Music Company.

Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein - Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization Some basic information about Oscar Hammerstein can be found here on the R&H Organization website. The material is fairly limited and concentrates on their work together. There are biographies and lists of their joint works and awards, as well a short bibliography.

There appear to be no proper websites devoted to the following major Broadway composers and lyricists:

Jerome Kern
Sigmund Romberg
Alan Jay Lerner
Frederick Loewe
Sheldon Harnick
Jerry Bock
Harold Rome
Bob Merrill
Betty Comden & Adolph Green
Cy Coleman
Carolyn Leigh
Tom Jones
Harvey Schmidt
Fred Ebb
John Kander

Other favourites

Advanced Book Exchange. This is an incredible resource for tracking down second-hand and out-of-print books. It combines the stocklists of several hundred booksellers into a single searchable database. Ordering is simple and ABE provides a secure credit card service at a small fee for those booksellers unable to handle credit cards online themselves. A note for fellow Europeans - United States postage rates to Europe are very cheap, and in the U.K. at least there is no import duty on books. (Not so for CDs alas.)

Find a grave. Do you want to know where your favourite deceased celebrity is buried, or where their ashes lie? You have an excellent chance of finding the answer here, and may well find a photo of the stone/urn/plaque or mausoleum. Strange but fascinating.

Class Act. This site is devoted to the American movie musical, and has a huge amount of information, and star ratings, for many lesser-known examples of the genre.